Couldn't get this story out of my head while reading Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind. So I've reread this after many years just to discover that it's still very fresh and considering our political situation (our as of a human kind) this is going to stay fresh for a very long time. Tragic and gorgeous, in a way.

Short story about men’s greed, resilience, and devotion, seen from the perspective of alien archaelogists.

I'm an archaeologist with a passion for paleo-anthropology. I know the history of Olduvai Gorge pretty thoroughly, having first been brought into the field by the stories and NOVA science specials about the Leakey Family and later Don Johanson. When I saw this book, I knew I had to read it, because it examines a question that all undergraduate anthropology students have to write a paper on, "What will archaeologists, 20,000 years from now be able to learn about people living in the early 21st ce...

This was good old fashioned science fiction. With the awards it won, I guess I was expecting better but it was satisfying.

Theoretically, it's a stand-alone short story. Practically, it's a sequel of Birthright: The Book of Man. Actually, it is more of an epilogue for it. Everything I've written in my review of "Birthright" perfectly applies for this book too, so I see both no reason to add anything to aforementioned review and no choice but to rate Olduvai the same 5* I've handed to "Birthright".

This is one of the great novellas. It may be my absolutely favorite sci fi novella. This is an amazing story that swept the awards the year it came out. It has lost nothing, and is as great today as if was when it came out. A must read for sci fi fans.

Seven views of Olduvai Gorge has won so many awards and accolades that it resembles a tinpot dictatorship army General, its shoulders bowing under the near-satirical weight of the medals, ribbons and braid cascading across its cover.With its almost universal acclaim, Mike Resnick's book could have been titled All The Major SF Awards, and How to Win Them.Sometimes, the weight of all these awards can hype a book up so much, that the content, even if brilliant, cannot hope to meet expectations. Not...

SF doing what SF does best : look at the world from a new perspective, asking the big cosmological and existential questions. The perspective in this novella is alien: a team of galactic archeologists exploring the cradle of humanity - Olduvai Gorge - thousands of years after humanity has become extinct, tens of thousands of years since Man has conquered the galaxy.What made us reach for the stars? What made us fail the survival game? The title evokes Hokusai woodcuts that are more than just sna...

I heard great things about this novella--it won awards in the science fiction community, for example--so I was on the lookout for a copy of it when I was at the World Science Fiction convention, held in my hometown this year.It was originally published in The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction (October/November 1994). The copy I bought was in _The Year's Best Science Fiction, Twelfth Annual Collection_ edited by Gardner Dozois.While reading Mike Resnick's novella, I was reminded of the cine...

I went through a phase years ago where I read about 20 books in Resnick's Birthright setting, most of which were books set in a particular vision of the future (Santiago was my first and favorite of them), but I never got around to read this multi-award-winning novella until now. I thought it was a great if disturbing one--there's a frame story where different aliens are involved in an archeological expedition in Olduvai Gorge in Tanzania five thousand years after humanity has gone extinct, and

BrilliantI loved this story. Only wish it was longer. I'd recommend it to any one interested in human history. Yep.

Final review, first posted on Fantasy Literature:In this Hugo and Nebula award-winning novella by Mike Resnick, humanity once controlled much of the galaxy due to its ambition and ruthlessness, but then declined for unspecified reasons and is now an extinct race. About five thousand years after mankind’s extinction, a group of diverse alien anthropologists travels to Earth to excavate Olduvai Gorge in Tanzania, which is considered by many scientists to be the birthplace of humanity, where we fir...

6.0 stars. On my list of "All Time Favorite" stories. An amazing novella taking place after humanity's extinction and centering around an alien archaeological expedition sent to Earth to study man's rise and fall through, fossils and other artifacts, in the legendary place where man began. A fascinating look at an "outsiders" view of the cruelty and glory of human history. Add to that a GREAT ENDING and you have a truly memorable story. Winner: Hugo Award for Best Novella (1995)Winner: Nebula Aw...

Mike Resnick's "Seven Views of Olduvai Gorge" is remembered for being the winner of the Nebula and Hugo Awards for Best Novella (in 1994 and 1995). Humanity had been the dominating species of the universe for eons, before its extinction about 5,000 years ago. Other races have an archaeological fascination with the origins of this once-great civilization and a research team is send to Earth to investigate what they may learn from its homeworld. It's especially its infamous contentiousness and cru...

Man is extinct. Has been for nearly 5 centuries. But a team of alien archeologists has come to Earth. Specifically, Olduvai Gorge; to study this interesting creature that once ruled the galaxy and its worlds.perhaps, when we put [all the findings] together, we can finally begin to understand what it was that made Man what he was.Examination of seven artifacts, in this birth place of this enigmatic race, yields a stunning conclusion. Overall a good story. It was the shorter stories each artifact

great SF novella that spans the spectrum from "humanity f*** yeah!" through "humanity f*** no!" to "humanity wtf?"

Every time I read a Hugo award-winner (and Nebula winner, with a runner-up for Locus to round out the big three), I really can see why the gleaming heaping praise is piled high on top of it. It's one Academy that knows what it's talking about. The story is simple, but implies a lot: a group of aliens visit the Olduvai Gorge, birthplace of humanity, to try to get more information through various means about the 8000 year extinct human race. Through examining 7 artifacts, we see grim snapshots of

An acclaimed sci-fi novella about a group of extraterrestrials doing archeology work in the Olduvai Gorge (Tanzania) seven millennia after the extinction of the human race? Hell yeah! I couldn't contain my excitement when I first heard about Seven Views of Olduvai Gorge - Firstly because I love throught-provoking sci-fi that explores the History of the human race from the POV of aliens, and also because it is set in Tanzania, one of the most fascinating and historically rich countries in Africa....

Seven Views of Olduvai Gorge (Kindle Edition) by Mike Resnick Seven short stories that chronicle the end of Mankind, from it's beginning. If that sounds rather ambitious, it is! But the book is so well written, that you keep turning the pages. Each story does feed into the next one, and answers a lot of questions while not answering so many more. Yet, you do get context, and you can feel the history of that sacred place as the stories evolve. Beautifully done!

In what could almost be an epilogue to Asimov Isaac's Foundation series, barring a lack of homogeneity of sentience, humankind evolved through planet Earth and spread out into the stars, spreading its wings throughout the galaxy and, as is its wont, enslaving most of it, by force if necessary. In a universe where such necessities rise ever so often, Mike Resnick's Seven Views of Olduvai Gorge gives us a unique perspective of the circle of human life---from its birth as tailless monkeys in the Ol...