The Only Harmless Great Thing

I have complicated feelings about this story. I think it's a very powerful reimagining of historical events. It started off very vague and hard to understand, especially because many voices are speaking throughout. But once you knew who was talking it started really coming together. 

It's a really sad series of events and I like the fact that they show how this affected the presence, with the Topsy t-shirt and the plans for nuclear waste sites. Plans for showing the future people where the nuclear waste is have always fascinated me and this is definitely an interesting way to imagine it. 

3.5 out of 5 stars

The Only Harmless Great Thing tells a heartbreaking tale of victimization, injustice, and the bonds shared by all living things. Based loosely on true events, author Brooke Bolander uses killer prose to weave a dark alternate history that demands to be read in one sitting.

This was a novella that I appreciated more than I enjoyed. It features heavy themes and an interwoven narrative that is sometimes difficult to decipher. I suspect that rereading this thin tome would reveal even more layers of meaning than may have been apparent on my first read-through.

See this review and others at The Speculative Shelf.

This was an incredible, heartfelt alternate history story that took two separate historical events - the Radium Girls of the early 20th century, and the elephant that was sentences to the electric chair - and winds them together in a way that makes complete sense and is at the same time completely fantastic.

I want more of this story. There's this entire other world that Bolander is only able to hint at here, and I'm completely fascinated by it.