Set This House in Order: A Romance of Souls is a fantasy/mystery novel by Matt Ruff, published in 2003.
Andrew Gage, created two years ago, is the public face of a multiple personality. There are hundreds of souls in his head. In the world outside, Andy works on ambitious, but unlikely, virtual reality projects.There, new programmer Penny Driver turns out to be a multiple personality, too, and the boss wants Andy to help her. Several of Penny's other souls ask for help, which Andy finally, reluctantly, agrees to give, thereby setting himself on a path that threatens the stability of his house.
This book provides examples of the following tropes:
- Awesome, but Impractical: Julie's virtual environment project
- Cluster F-Bomb: Maledicta
- Dark and Troubled Past - obviously, but not sensationalized
- Deadpan Snarker: Adam
- Epiphany Therapy - beautifully averted
- Fighting from the Inside: Gideon vs. Aaron, Gideon vs. Andrew
- Gollum Made Me Do It
- Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Maledicta, Adam
- Magic Realism (perhaps, probably not)
- Manchild: Jake
- Nice Guy: Andrew
- Rape as Backstory
- Shown Their Work
- Split Personality - obviously
- Split-Personality Merge: Penny, at least partially
- Split-Personality Takeover: the original Andy Gage doesn't exist any more
- Talking to Themself - a lot
- The Lad-ette: Maledicta
- Tsundere: Julie
