Alternate History/Speculative Novella

To ensure a radioactive toxic waste dump has a "stay out" sign in perpetuity, a scientist working for the U.S. government proposes that they genetically engineer glowing elephants. Why? Because an incident nearly 100 years before, in which an elephant quite literally "went nuclear" when it was going to be executed, has made humans associate glowing elephants with danger.

Unfortunately, elephants are sentient, and they haven't forgiven humans for what happened.

Through the events of the past, the "present," and the distant future, we see the tale of the elephants' grudge against the humans and how the humans repeatedly try to use them.

People interested in literary-style stories exploring social justice themes.

The rhythm of the elephants' speech.

The use of the past/present/future plotlines. It seemed to me like in bringing all three together, no single plotline really came to completion.

The Future plotline was an elephant sharing stories -- interesting, but then there really weren't any questions about how the Present plotline would turn out.

The Present plotline gave the scientist a moral dilemma to resolve which wasn't presented in the Future plotline, which was nice, but it ends with her ruminating about the past and NOT MAKING A DECISION. So the entire plotline ended up only being a bridge between the interesting rhythm of the Future elephants' stories and the alt history of the Past.

The Past plotline was what the entire story was really about, but thanks to the Present plotline, we know very early on how it ends. It takes two historical events -- the Radium girl poisonings and an elephant execution -- and merges them together into a story about violent injustice. Unlike the Present plotline, it actually has a clear conclusion -- we know what's going to happen when the final scene ends with the elephant being led to its execution. But that is largely because the Present plotline spoiled the conclusion from the beginning.

Also, I'm not particularly a fan of the "literary" style.

Read anything that didn't qualify as "literary."

It really isn't my thing. I like plots, and things that don't throw social justice themes in my face. I like coming to my own conclusions, thank you very much, not getting a roundabout lecture.

Others may love this book, but I don't, and I don't recommend things that I don't like myself.

This is not a cheerful elephant story -- the Past plotline depicts some rather gory and violent things. Definitely not for kids.

And...there's glowing sentient elephants. Honestly, the entire premise is kind of ludicrous, when you think about it.

The use of the long memory of the elephants was interesting, but ultimately...little more than a convenient plot item. Yes, they can remember to stand guard in front of a waste site for millenia -- but if they really held a grudge against humans, why would they? I didn't think the explanation in the story was sufficient.

Interested in buying this? Support Writing.Com by making your purchase of The Only Harmless Great Thing   from Amazon.Com!

Created Jan 05, 2020 at 3:00pm • Submit your own review...