UQP acquires Jordan Prosser's dazzling second novel, 'Blue Giant'

UQP is delighted to announce that we’ve acquired the second novel by writer and filmmaker Jordan Prosser, author of 2024’s Big Time.

Titled Blue Giant, the new novel centres on disillusioned Melburnian millennial Abby Horne. Abby once believed she was destined for great things, but her attempts at becoming an industry-disrupting fashion designer, a celebrity yogi and/or a renowned wildlife conservationist all went up in smoke. Now she’s in her mid-thirties, having narrowly survived the deadly Australian bushfires of 2020, with the unbearable burdens of adulthood, anonymity, climate catastrophe, and the total moral and aesthetic decline of Western civilisation bearing down on her. In short: planet Earth is cooked, and Abby Horne wants off.

After a drunken bender, she wakes up one morning with an all-new, all-consuming purpose in life: to be the first person on Mars. As luck would have it, charismatic billionaire Tor Skovgaard is currently recruiting for a one-way mission to colonise the red planet through his mysterious new start-up, MarsNow. So begins Abby’s final, ill-fated quest for purpose, fame and fortune. And if she can’t be humanity’s saviour … she’ll settle for being its martyr.

Blue Giant is an unruly eulogy for millennial optimism; a helter-skelter love letter to a generation torn between helplessness and selfishness, where every sentence brims with the detritus and anxieties of life in the 2020s.

Jordan Prosser says:

‘I could not be happier to be publishing my second novel with Aviva and the team at UQP. 'Blue Giant' is a story very close to my heart; it’s my attempt to paint a heightened, satirical picture of how it feels to be alive right now, at a time when the demands of runaway capitalism and hyper-individualism sit so at odds with the collectiveness required to secure our very future as a species. Beyond that, it’s a story about one woman’s search for meaning. Abby Horne sees herself as a blue giant: a type of star that shines too bright too fast, burning through its energy reserves too quick. Even though she’s still young, she has lost her capacity for wonder and all sense of purpose – a feeling I believe we can all relate to on some level. My hope is that, flawed though she may be, Abby’s last-ditch attempt at reclaiming that purpose – by whatever means necessary – will resonate with readers.’

Publisher Aviva Tuffield says:

‘While 'Big Time' (also published in the UK, Italy and Russia) was a brilliant ride through hallucinogens, the time–space continuum, and the power of pop music in the face of fascism, 'Blue Giant' is something else again: a hilarious journey through the self-delusions of youthful idealism that come crashing down even as our protagonist is literally reaching for the stars. Jordan Prosser has a luminous imagination, with talent to burn. I can’t wait for readers to encounter this giant of a book.’

About Jordan Prosser

Jordan Prosser is an author and filmmaker living in Naarm/Melbourne. His writing has appeared in Meanjin, Kill Your Darlings, the Guardian, The Age and Australian Book Review, while his short films and screenplays have won multiple international accolades. His short story ‘Eleuterio Cabrera’s Beautiful Game’ won the Peter Carey Short Story Award in 2022. His debut novel, Big Time, was released in 2024, and was shortlisted for the Matt Richell Award for New Writer of the Year at the ABIA Awards, and the Aurealis Award for Best Science Fiction Novel. Rights to Big Time were sold in the UK, Italy and Russia.

UQP has acquired world rights and will publish in August 2026.

For more information, contact UQP Marketing and Publicity Manager Jean Smith on jean.smith@uqp.com.au.