Blue Giant (Jordan Prosser, University of Queensland Press)

A Danish tech billionaire announces he’s seeking volunteers for the first colony on Mars. Abby Horne, a 30-something woman in Melbourne, knows in her bones that it’s her destiny to go. That’s the hook for Jordan Prosser’s new novel, Blue Giant. Readers could be forgiven for expecting a Mars survival story, or something full of tests, eliminations and a shrinking cast, but that’s not what this is.

Through Abby, the novel captures a distinctly millennial unease. As a binge drinker prone to wild impulses, she has abandoned multiple passion projects, making her far from pioneer material. Yet she is a compelling character ideally suited to Prosser’s exploration of the vacuous media that consumes time without offering much in return, the desperate need to feel worthwhile, and the malaise created by constant messaging in a world seemingly doomed by environmental indifference. Flawed as she is, Abby remains a character who readers are likely to want to see succeed at something, anything. Even when things go wrong, her increasingly bizarre actions keep readers invested in her journey. Prosser (Big Time) does not disappoint, offering a uniquely visceral catharsis for Abby and the reader that, if not victory, is still more than failure.

Blue Giant is social commentary as narrative and a desperate hero’s journey for millennials through the faux culture of the self-destructive Anthropocene, making it a sharp, unsettling work for readers of contemporary Australian literary fiction.

Books+Publishing reviewer: Stefen Brazulaitis has been a bookseller with a special interest in science fiction and fantasy for 30 years and is the owner of Stefen’s Books in Perth. Books+Publishing is Australia’s number-one source of pre-publication book reviews.

Books+Publishing pre-publication reviews are supported by the Copyright Agency Cultural Fund.

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