The story starts off in the past, with a prologue setting the scene for what is to come in the present day. This is a common enough mechanism used by many stories. In the present, the Mammoth is discovered in melting ice, which should not be possible given the location and time of year. The mystery deepens as the mammoth is freed. The group involved in the dig involves an interesting group of people, ranging from the man who funds the dig, to the "experts", to the film crew there making a documentary. The author does a great job of showing how each group does what is necessary to get what they want.
Ultimately, it comes down to a race against time, because there is a force working against them as they travel across the ice towards their destination. As is typical in this type of story, not everything is as it seems, and the characters end up having a realization of a ethical dilemma of epic proportions which will test the moral compass of each of them. As the characters reach their destination, I couldn't wait to find out what would happen, and I was fairly surprised by what the team encounters. Things frequently aren't as simple as they appear to be.
When the story ended, I felt that while the immediate crisis is averted, things were left pretty open for a sequel, but there wasn't one in sight. I later found out from the author that this story ties into the Project Hyperion story-line in the Nemesis series about Kaiju (Japanese for "strange beast" - most excellent series). I'm not up to Project Hyperion yet, so I'm looking forward to it even more now, and I'm glad the story of Raising the Past isn't over.
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