World of Trouble

Girlfriend in a Coma

Douglas Coupland1998

A woman wakes up from a seventeen-year coma to find her friends have aged into despair and the world is ending.

Same elegiac register, still end of the world

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Dover Beach

Richard Bowker1987

A private investigator searches for a scientist in a post-nuclear Britain. He travels through a landscape of ruins and small settlements.

Same elegiac register, still post-apocalyptic

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Glimmering

Elizabeth Hand1997

As the millennium approaches, environmental collapse causes the sky to glow. Characters navigate a decaying society in the year 1999.

Same elegiac register, still end of the world

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Where Late the Sweet Birds Sang

Kate Wilhelm1976

A wealthy family clones themselves to survive a global collapse. The story follows three generations as the clones lose the ability to innovate.

Same elegiac register, still post-apocalyptic

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Invisible Cities

Italo Calvino1972

Marco Polo describes fifty-five imaginary cities to Kublai Khan. The book is a series of short, prose-poem meditations on urban existence.

elegiac → meditative

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Dhalgren

Samuel R. Delany1975

An amnesiac wanderer enters Bellona, a city cut off from the world where time and geography shift. He joins a gang and writes poetry.

elegiac → dreamlike

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On a Pale Horse

Piers Anthony1983

After accidentally killing the personification of Death, a man must take over the office. He navigates the bureaucracy of the afterlife.

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Royally Screwed

Emma Chase2016

A crown prince visiting Manhattan pursues a bakery worker who threw a pie at him. The story follows their class-clash courtship.

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Hell Divers

Nicholas Sansbury Smith2016

Skydivers jump from massive airships to a ruined Earth to scavenge parts for humanity's survival. One team is stranded in a hostile zone.

elegiac → tense, still post-apocalyptic

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The Demolished Man

Alfred Bester1953

In a future where telepathic police make premeditated crime impossible, a businessman plans a murder. He uses a catchy song to block his thoughts.

elegiac → propulsive, still noir

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Dhalgren

Samuel R. Delany1975

An amnesiac wanderer enters Bellona, a city cut off from the world where time and geography shift. He joins a gang and writes poetry.

elegiac → dreamlike

pace-1·prose+2·bleak0

Invisible Cities

Italo Calvino1972

Marco Polo describes fifty-five imaginary cities to Kublai Khan. The book is a series of short, prose-poem meditations on urban existence.

elegiac → meditative

pace-1·prose+2·bleak-1

A Scanner Darkly

Philip K. Dick1977

An undercover narcotics agent in a near-future California becomes addicted to the drug he is investigating and begins to spy on himself.

elegiac → bleak, still noir

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Watchmen

Dave Gibbons1986

Retired costumed vigilantes investigate a conspiracy after one of their own is murdered. The story uses a comic-within-a-comic and backmatter.

elegiac → cold, still noir

pace+1·prose+1·bleak+1