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Book Cover for: Infinite Blues: A Cold War Fever Dream, Gerald Brennan

Infinite Blues: A Cold War Fever Dream

Gerald Brennan

June, 1968. An air force astronaut flies to an orbiting observation platform for a forty-day stint spying on the Soviet Union from space-and discovers a plot that will determine the fate of the world.

The fourth book in the Altered Space series, Infinite Blues imagines a militarized Space Race in a Cold War that never was, with America trying to find its way back to normalcy after the MacArthur presidency, and warily watching as Beria's Soviet Union builds the ballistic missiles that threaten to destroy it on a half-hour's notice. A thoroughly researched thriller full of political paranoia and imaginative intrigue, it's also a look at today's America through the lens of an alternate past, as well as a literary examination of observation and participation, individualism and collectivism, the ideas and attitudes that hold our country together-and the ones that might send it careening towards catastrophe.

The titles in the Altered Space series are wholly separate narratives, but all deal with the mysteries of space and time, progress and circularity. Each one is an ensō of words in which orbits of spacecraft, moons, planets, and people allow us fresh perspectives on the cycles of our own lives.

Book Details

  • Publisher: Tortoise Books
  • Publish Date: Apr 6th, 2021
  • Pages: 726
  • Language: English
  • Edition: undefined - undefined
  • Dimensions: 8.00in - 5.00in - 1.80in - 1.70lb
  • EAN: 9781948954181
  • Categories: Science Fiction - Space ExplorationAlternative HistoryLiterary

About the Author

Brennan, Gerald: - Mr. Brennan earned a B.S. in European History from the United States Military Academy at West Point and an M.S. in Journalism from Columbia University in New York. His writing has appeared in the Chicago Tribune, Newcity, The Good Men Project, and Innerview Magazine; he's also the founder of Tortoise Books, and was a frequent contributor and co-editor at Back to Print and The Deadline. He resides in Chicago. Follow him on Twitter: @jerry_brennan

Praise for this book

"Brennan's most ambitious novel to date is an engaging adventure thriller showing how just a few changed moments in history-perhaps even chosen by the reader themselves-can alter our world forever. The spine-chilling descriptions will remain with me long after finishing it." - Francis French, author, In the Shadow of the Moon

"Gerald Brennan's new Cold War thriller is a bracing, surreal look at what could have happened juxtaposed with the shock of the new, all set against the background of a proposed crewed reconnaissance program in low Earth orbit. You won't be able to put it down!" - Emily Carney, blogger and space historian, AmericaSpace

"Though 'alternate' and 'alternative' history are often used interchangeably, the words don't mean the same thing. The fourth installment of Gerald Brennan's Altered Space series is shaped by a sustained engagement with the very concept of alternatives: wrenching decisions and random occurrences that determine the course of stories, histories, and individual lives. Employing the scrupulous detail of classic technothrillers alongside James-Ellroy-esque reality-scrambling and a fractal elegance that recalls the work of Agustín Fernández Mallo, Infinite Blues plays out against the perilous backdrop of a reimagined Cold War in which the conquest of space has been undertaken neither in peace nor for all mankind." - Martin Seay, author, The Mirror Thief

"Tense, dense and claustrophobic, Infinite Blues is a captivating Cold War thriller from a world that never was-hitting the ground running like an alt-history Hunt for Red October in space, and escalating the paranoia as it boils to its inexorable conclusion(s)." - David Hitt, author, Homesteading Space