Book Review: The Only Harmless Great Thing by Brooke Bolander

The Only Harmless Great Thing by Brooke Bolander

Paperback, 93 pages

Published January 2018 by Tor.com Publishing

Hugo Award Nominee for Best Novelette (2019)

Nebula Award for Best Novelette (2018)

Locus Award for Novelette (2019), World Fantasy Award Nominee for Best Novella (2019)

Shirley Jackson Award Nominee for Best Novella (2018)

Theodore Sturgeon Memorial Award Nominee (2019)

British Fantasy Award Nominee for Best Novella (2019)

This is a short 93 pages novella but has a huge amount of ideas and concepts going on. Judging from the award nominations and praise this book is getting plenty of love. I know I said this in the last book review but my three-star rating comes knowing the difference between writing a subjective and objective review. This is an excellent novella with several elements of really smart writing going on. It does what the best science fiction does. Present a world totally alien to ours while shining a mirror on our own.

Brooke Bolander is clearly a talented writer, but alas I didn't personally love this book. I can objectively see that it is worthy of the praise. It is a fantastic book but I just didn't connect with it. Maybe I am still hungover from reading A Canticle for Leibowitz but I had trouble totally connecting with this.

On paper, a novella hyper-intelligent Elephants in an alternate reality that mirrors our history should've really been my thing. I found the writing to be as lyrical beautifully written as everyone else it just didn't hook me. All the major themes are good ones. Misinformation, Representation and the long fight for justice through history all cool things. I mean pretty much all the Tor novellas have something great going on and they are one-day commute reading for me. The best thing I can say is Brooke Bolander is now a writer on my radar. So Mission accomplished book.

On side note I noticed many of the reviews of this referred to the POV characters as sentient Elephants. I found this a bit annoying as I believe elephants in our world are certainly sentient. Ever seen an elephant funeral?