Collateral Damage Blues is a genre‑bending, time‑shifting fusion of speculative spy thriller, romantic comedy, and experimental poetry, in which Eileen R. Tabios builds an expansive universe of reincarnated lovers, orphan‑spies, mythic blue imagery, and parallel worlds that collide through fate, devotion, and danger. The novel and its companion poetry collection BLUE move in tandem—each chapter paired with a haybun or reverse‑haybun that refracts the plot through lyric intensity—creating a reading experience that is both propulsive and meditative. Assassins, secret agencies, ancient empires, color theory, perfume, cosmology, and love across centuries converge into a narrative that is lush, surprising, and emotionally resonant, offering readers a hybrid work that is as thrilling as it is philosophically daring.