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I agree with many of the authors' conclusions and political positions, but this book is mostly a facile argument for "abundance". It's best feature is the articulation of an "abundance" (as opposed to scarcity) political theory. But the chapters arguing that it is right rely on anecdote and suffer from severe survivorship bias (the logical fallacy that examining winners reveals how to succeed). As I noted in a comment, they also subject degrowth to a pretty withering critique that they do not subject their own theory to: degrowth is a political dead end because it includes policies like vegetarianism that are political non-starters. Nowhere in the book do they talk about how one of their core positions, subsidize things you want like heck, is a really hard sell because it means giving a lot more money to people who have money. Another of their core positions is that liberals value too many things, and because of that don't do any of them, especially building stuff, particularly well. But they do not really articulate what goals liberals should give up in favor of building things. Is it the environment? Is it equitable distribution of wealth? Is it diversity? About the only thing they are clear that should be given up is lengthy process. And I kind of agree with them on that, but process is what ensures those other goals are considered. If not process to accomplish goals, what is the alternate way to achieve those goals. If that's not figured out, we give up all those other goals, just so we can build some shit.

And as a side note, the authors are very positive about "AI" in the book, and that's another thing they may not have wrestled with to the extent they should. But I'll critique that if they ever write a book where the main topic is AI.

This sf novella centers on Damira, a conservationist who fought back (sometimes violently) against poachers, and whose mind was put into a mammoth's to help them relearn old behaviors and live again in the wild. It's a story about human greed, vengeance, memories, and identity.

I really enjoyed the writing here, but the more I reflected on this story after reading it, the more hollow it felt. It's hard not to cheer along with the book against different types of human greed, and the storytelling was enjoyable; at the end, I don't know that I came away with much more than that.

It's also unfair to critique a book by juxtaposing it with another, but I'm going to do it anyway. Having already read Lee Mandelo's Feed Them Silence it's impossible not to feel like that book tremendously overshadows this one, especially thematically. I think I would have enjoyed Tusks of Extinction more had I read them in the opposite order.

After Davi becomes Dark Lord, she leaves her horde in the hands of Mari and heads to the Kingdom to see if she can broker a peace between the wilders and humans. Humans in power don't really want peace though. And neither do most of the wilders Davi has left behind. And behind all of it is the question as to why she kept being reborn whenever she died, with the same mission to save humans every time.

A fun plot and the characters are still fun. Wexler intersperses the story with lots of bawdy, footnoted asides. But not as good as the first book, sadly. I think that's because the first book didn't need to answer the questions. The final book kind of needs to, and those answers are too convoluted, and only hold together if I didn't think too hard about them. Still fun, so it gets a bunch of stars.