In Thunder from a Clear Blue Sky, Justin Bryant creates a world as irresistible as it is unsettling, as soulful as it is strange. While a rag-tag team of military operatives navigates dystopian conditions, from extreme weather and technology blackouts to a fabled jaguar and a mysterious mercenary, this fever dream of a novel becomes increasingly feverish. But for all its beautiful ambition, at its heart lies a simple and powerful tale of love, longing, and devotion. I adore this bold, poignant book!
—Jennifer Wortman, author of This. This. This. Is. Love. Love. Love
Cover by Angelo Maneage
Readers who enter the world of Justin Bryant's Thunder From a Clear Blue Sky will find themselves in a setting at once familiar and elusive. Here, a young man opts for military service as a way to alleviate his student loans -- and soon finds himself enmeshed in a surreal conflict, seemingly without end. Things get stranger from there, and that's before the solar storms come into play. Its reference points aren't the ones you'd expect -- Paul Auster's In the Country of Last Things, Lucius Shepard's Viator, and Adolfo Bioy Casares's The Invention of Morel all come to mind -- and its destination is wholly unexpected. This is a journey worth taking.
—Tobias Carroll, author of Ex-Members and Reel
The Big West: a largely unexplored region of Calem, Central America, where time and gravity obey different laws, where sloped lakes and mineral snow decorate the landscape, and where a grand resort hotel existing simultaneously in three different eras hides from the modern world. As satellites rain from the sky during a solar storm, Geoff has come here to fulfill a mission he once believed in, but increasingly suspects is pointless. Is it just a malarial fever dream, or are his dead parents really here? Who is the shark-human hybrid always waiting ahead in the shadows? What business does a mercenary known only as ‘the tall man’ have with him? And is there any way for him to find his way back home?
202 pages
ISBN: 979-8987465417
Available directly from Malarkey Books, as well as most book retailers, including Amazon, Bookshop, B&N, and Indiebound.
