The Only Harmless Great Thing

A heart-wrenching, Nebula Award–winning alternative history imagining an intersection between the Radium Girls scandal and Topsy the elephant.

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.


These are matters of historical fact.


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.

Praise for The Only Harmless Great Thing

Winner of the Nebula Award for Best Novelette


Finalist for the Hugo, Locus, Shirley Jackson, and Sturgeon Awards


"The Only Harmless Great Thing . . . 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 H is for Hawk

"This handcrafted arrow of a novella becomes more absorbing with each read. . . . A rich, poetic novella." —Kirkus Reviews