Book Review

…The volume opens on an amazing insight. The author, an acoustic biologist preparing to shift from years of field study among whales, recognized the flutter she felt standing before a contented elephant group at a zoo as similar to what she first knew as a choir girl, when the organist pulled the great stop to begin the second half of Bach's Matthew Passion. She could feel sounds from the elephants too deep to hear just as she felt them three decades earlier in Sage Chapel. Since that spring of 1984 she has attended wild elephant society and its infrasound links in unwavering friendship, from Kenya across the continent to Namibia. She came to know and characterize many animals within the social structure of their species. ….Her brilliant insights and intellectual energy have matured into a vigorous discipline…A small, talented, devoted subculture of wildlife biologists is always present on these pages…Most poignant is her encounter with the people of African lands…Zaccheus, a senior Shona scout at Sengwa Wildlife Research area in Zimbabwe, put most clearly the problem of conflict between cool evidence and warm sympathy that author Payne so plainly feels. "When something happens that is far from the experience of your people, how do you speak of it?" "You must simply tell what happened. Only God knows what it means."

~ Philip and Phylis Morrison, Scientific American excerpt

Silent Thunder is not written as a children’s book but is suitable for any bright, involved student in high school. A deep story by the discoverer that elephants communicate by infrasound.

~ Lee Grozdins, Ph.D., Physicist, Professor Emeritus, MIT

This is a great narrative account of a researcher making some simple observations leading to a question and developing a career. Payne’s story is interesting and her observations poignant. Most appropriate for adults or a very sophisticated young person.

~ Mike Heath, Administrative Assistant, Curtis Memorial Library