Greg Benford and I spent many months extrapolating a possible epic future of Siberia, with geopolitical forces in conflict, resources in question, and colonization of the last great frontier on Earth. As an offshoot of these plans, we came up with a grand scheme for cloning mammoths—an idea that’s not so far-fetched. In fact, several research teams are currently at work on the concept, as it is described in the following novella. And radical protest groups are already up in arms, writing scathing letters to the San Francisco Chronicle, science magazines, and other venues. Even some of the museum curators and scientists we talked to as research for this story reacted with knee-jerk resistance, fearing the very idea of bringing back an extinct species—even if that species was wiped out not by any natural process but due to the efforts of mankind.
“Mammoth Dawn” is only the prologue to a projected novel. Unfortunately, the reality of this concept is sweeping down upon us with the speed of a stampeding woolly herd. We released the novella, our full detailed outline for the novel, and several technical articles about the process of cloning mammoths in the book Mammoth Dawn (WordFire Press).