The Sydney Morning Herald
· collected 2026-09-18 · by Jack Cameron Stanton
In the first chapter of The War of the Worlds, H. G. Wells raises the Tasmanian genocide when asking readers: “Are we such apostles of mercy as to complain if the Martians warred in the same spirit?”
asserted
Martians → raise → spirit
Wells’ Martians turn the violence of colonialism onto the colonisers themselves.
asserted
Martians → turn → colonisers
Jordan Prosser’s second novel, Blue Giant, shares with Wells a preoccupation with Mars and colonisation.
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novel → share → Mars
It follows Abby Horne, a Melbourne Millennial and serial hot mess who dreams about leaving Earth.
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who → follow → Earth
This dream is enabled by Danish billionaire Tor Skovgaard (a stand-in for Elon Musk), whose MarsNow project promises that anyone can apply to become a “first settler” of Mars.
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anyone → enable → Mars
Forget essential skills like spacewalking, aerospace engineering, survival training, and mental wellbeing – Abby possesses none of them.
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Abby → forget → them
Since MarsNow will be streamed reality-TV style, all Abby needs is a personality large enough to buy her ticket.
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Abby → stream → ticket
She hinges her future on being chosen and begins training alongside Oscar, an unhappily married co-conspirator, under the supervision of her roommate and best friend, Niki.
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She → hinge → roommate
But soon enough we suspect that something is awry, that Abby has a “tendency to get very excited by new things and invest a lot of yourself in them”, as Niki warns, and that she may not be leaving the stratosphere as soon as she hopes.
uncertain
she → suspect → stratosphere
It shares little DNA with, say, Kim Stanley Robinson’s hard sci-fi Mars Trilogy, which speculates on the political, engineering, ecological and economic realities involved in terraforming Mars.
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which → share → Mars
Rather, Prosser’s Blue Giant remains earthbound, despite its ostensible reach for the stars.
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Giant → remain → stars
It’s a character study of Millennial angst wearing a spacesuit.
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It → ’ → spacesuit
The Mars project is just another imaginary site where Abby can project her chronic escapism.
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Abby → project → escapism
The science fiction sits firmly in service of contemporary literary realism.
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fiction → sit → realism
As with Prosser’s psychedelic time-warped debut, Big Time, Blue Giant is foremost a romp; it’s meant to be fun.
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it → warp → debut
Scenes are grand-stage and cinematically visualised, characters emote, and the plot rips along.
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plot → visualise → ?
The novel initially establishes an intimate portrait of Abby’s denial and desperation; she seems forever on the verge of a mental breakdown.
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she → establish → breakdown
But the temptation for spectacle is too great, and the later stages of Blue Giant send Abby into a climactic confrontation that borrows from the Hollywood toolkit and leaves the emotional complexities trailing behind.
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that → send → complexities
On sensibility, it seems Prosser wants Abby to be both our relatable, down-and-out, incorrigibly righteous Millennial anti-hero, and occasionally a target of gentle mockery.
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Abby → seem → mockery
Take, for example, the following description: “Glacially white, commonly blonde and heinously straight, with few if any hereditary illnesses lying in wait, Abby had nothing outwardly apparent in her life to complain about but also nothing in it that might inspire anyone else.”
uncertain
that → take → anyone
This is irony, gesturing towards Abby’s own shallowness and lack of self-awareness, which in turn appears to lampoon the dubious “clout” or legitimising force of identity markers (many of which Abby deems herself to lack).
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herself → gesture → which
But the irony lands somewhat haughtily, as Abby’s emotional difficulties, the fount of the novel’s pathos, are weaponised against her.
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difficulties → land → her
Like her author, Abby has a quip for everything.
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Abby → have → everything
Whoever she encounters must weather her tirades of arch judgment.
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encounters → encounter → judgment
She condemns fast fashion, trips to Machu Picchu, Boomers and generational wealth, climate change – the gamut of leftist grievances.
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She → condemn → grievances
One thing Abby remains silent on is the ongoing colonisation of unceded Aboriginal land.
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Abby → remain → land
It’s a shame that a novel so occupied with a new dream of colonising elsewhere omits a reckoning with this underlying thematic parallel.
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novel → ’ → parallel
I wondered whether Abby’s blindness to the colonial logic underpinning her own escape mission was her most damning characterisation, intentional or otherwise.
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blindness → wonder → mission
Once noticed, this absence grows into a black hole that sucks all the dazzling stars out of the sky.
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that → notice → sky
Blue Giant by Jordan Prosser is published by UQP ($35).
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Giant → publish → UQP
What else is happening in the book world?
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What → happen → world
Somehow, it works
- Why fear of the ‘mad witch’ still pins women down today
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fear → work → women
The Aporia
