The Only Harmless Great Thing

<b>A heart-wrenching, Nebula Award–winning alternative history imagining an intersection between the Radium Girls scandal and Topsy the elephant.</b> <br> Early in the twentieth century, a group of female factory workers in Newark, New Jersey, slowly died of radiation poisoning. Around the same time, an Indian elephant was deliberately and publicly put to death by electricity. <br> These are matters of historical fact. <br> Now these two tragedies are intertwined in a dark alternative history of rage, radioactivity, and wrongs crying out to be righted. Brace yourself for a wrenching journey that crosses eras, chronicling cruelties both grand and petty while searching for meaning and justice. <br> <b>Praise for <i>The Only Harmless Great Thing</i> </b> <br> Winner of the Nebula Award for Best Novelette <br> Finalist for the Hugo, Locus, Shirley Jackson, and Sturgeon Awards <br> " <i>The Only Harmless Great Thing</i> . . . feels like an alternate Just So Story revealed to us by an ecstatic punk oracle. I can't stop thinking about it. Nor will you." —Helen Macdonald, author of <i>H is for Hawk</i> <br> "This handcrafted arrow of a novella becomes more absorbing with each read. . . . A rich, poetic novella." — <i>Kirkus Reviews</i>