Where the Sky Meets the Ocean and the Air Tastes Like Metal and the Birds Don't Make A Sound

by Mike Kleine, Dan Hoy

Detectives Michael and Daniel try to solve a murder on planet Earth.

“A fever of invention and imagination; I’m bewitched. Kleine and Hoy take the dense and conceptually complex and brings it to human scale with the ergonomic, precise poetics of a deconstructed and swirling detective novel. Peculiar and beautiful.”

—BRONTEZ PURNELL, author of 100 Boyfriends

“This is what might happen if Richard Brautigan and Derek McCormack were co-hired to rewrite the movie Collateral to make it a buddy film in which reality is constantly in the process of collapsing. Weird and wonderful and playful, this is the detective novel on acid.”

—BRIAN EVENSON, author of Song for the Unraveling of the World

”This book is a quest, a doorway, a surrealist play—I don’t know what the hell to call it, which is why I can’t recommend it enough. You’ve never read anything else that’s fun like this is fun.”

—AMBER SPARKS, author of And I Do Not Forgive You

Genres: Science Fiction

136 pages, Paperback

First published July 13, 2021

About the author

Mike Kleine is an author who grew up in West Africa. He currently resides in the American Midwest.

Reviews

[Janie · Rating 5 out of 5]

I am Jane from Yesterday. I was murdered before I could find The Place, but Detective Michael from the Future has a vision and it is sustainable. Can you hear the tides? Goodbye, Man of One Thousand Years. Today you will rest.

[Grant Wamack · Rating 5 out of 5]

I was feeling kinda down until I cracked open Mike Kleine and Dan Hoy’s book Where The Sky Meets The Ocean and The Air Tastes Like Metal and The Birds Don’t Make a Sound. There’s a vibrancy and boundless nature to the text that uplifted my spirits. I can only file this under bizarro and absurdism.

Short choppy sentences, short chapters, and a never-ending flow to the book. It has vampires, detectives, the Man With One Thousand Faces, and more. One of my favorite books I’ve read this year.

[Angela · Rating 4 out of 5]

if any book was deserving and crazy enough to be called a fever dream it would be this one. this shit got me laughing out loud one second and having an existential crisis in the next. just absolute chaos and absurdity in the best way. also the publication being in the middle of the book? genius. do i understand the book? hell no.

(i also love how nothing abt this book’s design is conventional either: the super long title, the title being displayed in an unreadable way on the cover, the long ass title being written horizontally on the spine despite it being such a short book too)

[John Trefry]

I'm always fascinated by collaborative works and what the mechanics were for the composition. I can definitely see Michael's inimitable voice in here but it's really seamless!

[Mike Kleine · Rating 5 out of 5]

Notes on the Investigative Novel. A review by Mike Corrao.
A review by Jared Harvey.
Windows into Mike Kleine's Universe by Paul John Adams.

[Franco Romero · Rating 5 out of 5]

this novel made me think about images that recur throughout our lives, gaining meaning each time we encounter them. it also made me think about how strange every moment of life is. how unlikely. don't think too much, just enjoy the ride. a truly unique, thoughtful experiment in prose and collaborative writing.

[in8 · Rating 4 out of 5]

https://5cense.com/22/1044.htm

[alexggrandma]

Im sure they had so much fun making this and i love that they did but it didnt resonate with me, should have though! Its got Two Guys, its wacky, it plays with form, it’s got a lot of dialogue

Listing out these qualities makes me want to reappraise because on paper its mecore but it didnt do it for me

[Barry Paul Clark · Rating 5 out of 5]

This reads like a screenplay of a film I REALLY want to see. Simple in language, direct in idea, absolutely fantastic execution.

[Joshua Chaplinsky]

DNF. As short as it was, I did not have the patience.

[Sam · Rating 5 out of 5]

I originally gave this four stars for some reason, maybe I didn’t fully understand it on first-read? (Also, who am I to rate someone’s art?) Anyways, it’s become one of my favorite books I’ve read this year and felt like it deserved an update at the very least.

This book reads like no other, but is strewn with visuals, and certain references had me laughing out-loud.

[S Gallien · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book was like coming home. <3

[Benjamin Niespodziany · Rating 5 out of 5]

Mike Kleine and Dan Hoy have created a back-and-forth collaborative apocalyptic fever dream of a detective novel. Sparse and speedy and wild every step of the way. Evenson’s description of “detective novel on acid” is pretty spot on. I’ll build off his blurb and say it’s like if Brautigan rewrote Blade Runner 2049, or if Hunter S. Thompson rewrote Sin City. Since all parties mentioned are dead, this book will have to do. Out now with Trnsfr Books.