The Only Harmless Great Thing

Technically, Brooke Bolander's The Only Harmless Great Thing is a novella and not a novel.

But this story, set in an alternate universe in which hyperintelligent elephants are forced into toxic factory work, packs so much pathos, vivid description, and (especially!) the world-building around elephant culture—I swoon over the voice in which the elephants tell their stories and myths to the reader—it may as well be three times as long.

This is the most modern book on my list, and it did get some excellent critical attention, including the 2018 Nebula Award for Best Novelette. But Bolander's voice of the… show more.

The structure and style of this book might make it the most challenging on my list, but I think it’s worth the effort. Bolander’s novellette takes two obscure events from a century ago and weaves them into a unique alternate history. The first event: a group of factory workers die of radiation poisoning in New Jersey. The second: an Indian elephant is deliberately electrocuted at Coney Island. From there, a community of elephant matriarchs forms an uneasy partnership with a team of scientists. In my day job, I edit articles by historians, and I’m obsessed with our imperfect way of… show more.