History CrapsackWorld / Literature

* ''Literature/FromRussiaWithLove'': Creator/IanFleming spends ''a third of the book'' outlining how life in the Soviet Union sucks and why only depraved sociopaths such as Red Grant actually ''enjoy'' working for its intelligence apparatus. Authorities routinely use beatings and extrajudicial killings to brutally suppress dissent and torture prisoners. They also have no qualms [[ThePurge purging]] so-called "enemies of the state" and sending them over to TheGulag as they did under Stalin. The book also states that nobody would dare utter TheDreaded spy agency [[SecretPolice SMERSH's]] name openly in the public lest they face StateSec knocking at their door. In short, the average Joe in Soviet Russia has no stomach for a possible revolt.

* Welcome to the glorious society of Oceania from ''Literature/NineteenEightyFour'', the poster child and one of the most triumphant examples for {{Dystopia}}. A VastBureaucracy that has control over almost anything, called The Party, rules over Oceania's inhabitants. BigBrotherIsWatching You. By the way, 1984 presents multiple Crapsack Sub-Worlds to choose from:
** Do you want to just be one of the vast majority who lives in blissful ignorance and just cares about living happily? Then, welcome to the Proles! The Proles are the vast majority ApatheticCitizens of the population of Oceania who have been conditioned as a [[WorkingClassPeopleAreMorons bunch of politically uncaring idiots]], only surviving and breeding in WretchedHive habitats with next to no technology, education, or luxury. The Party will never give a shit about you and your wants, and will treat you like an animal in an African reservation while rocket bombs fall on your head. [[BreadAndCircuses But at least you can still have limitless fun and sex, right]]? Yes, but if you get too smart the Party can still kill you here.
** What's that? You want to join the Party so that you can take part in killing Proles and running the bureaucracy? Then congratulations! [[BigBrotherIsWatching Big Brother's eyes will be constantly watching you]] for the rest of your life, whether it's your public life with other people, or your private life in your own bathroom and apartment, which in some cases is shittier than the Proles. You have to master the art of Doublethink, the art of holding two mutually contradictory ideas and believing in both of them at the same time, while constantly denying the self and Reality. You will constantly be informed that Oceania is at war with either Eurasia or Eastasia at any given time, and insists that they've ''always'' been at war with whoever they're fighting -- the records of history and news are changed constantly in order to favor whatever The Party had in mind, which is done by TheMinistryOfTruth. If you have some unresolved anger issues, you can dispose of them in our "Two Minutes Hate" sessions, where all your anger and wrath can be directed to the first traitor to the Party, Emmanuel Goldstein. The best part? NoSexAllowed; the only sex you're allowed to have is with the partner the Party assigns to you, and only for procreation -- sex for pleasure is strictly ''verboten''. And by the way, unless you're a Prole which are nothing but animals compared to The Party, if you even ''[[NotHyperbole think]]'' about dissenting against the rest of the Party and despise the watchfulness of Big Brother, which is called {{Thoughtcrime}} ("crimethink" in their "purified" language), the [[SecretPolice Thought Police]] will come to take you away, but instead of just killing you, they will "cure" you in the [[HellholePrison Ministry of Love]], where you will be subjected to ColdBloodedTorture and MindRape in {{Room 101}} until you come face-to-face with the DespairEventHorizon itself and choose to love Big Brother. (You may want to join the Thought Police, but the rest of your comrades can still torture you there).
** What's that? You want to get the fuck off Oceania and take a vacation in Eastasia and/or Eurasia? Then congrats! You are now hated by Oceanians, but at least you can mind your own business, right? Wrong! Both Eastasia and Eurasia have the exact same ideology as Oceania, the "Obliteration of the Self", the "Neo-Bolshevism" or as Oceanians like to call it, Ingsoc. Why all the wars and tortures despite being [[NotSoDifferentRemark not so different]]? It's all just an excuse to waste as many resources as we can, provide the Proles with a cheap and easy reason should they come to complain about the crapsackness, and/or just because of [[ForTheEvulz pure power]].
--->"There will be no curiosity, no enjoyment of the process of life. All competing pleasures will be destroyed. But always -- do not forget this, Winston -- always there will be the intoxication of power, constantly increasing and constantly growing subtler. Always, at every moment, there will be the thrill of victory, the sensation of trampling on an enemy who is helpless. '''If you want a vision of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face ... forever.'''
** Wait, you want to TakeAThirdOption and live ''outside'' the three horrible superstates? Slick move, because now you're a lowly near-slave of the Disputed Zone that the three superstates fight over! And it doesn't even matter which of them currently controls your particular region because they'll all treat you just as harshly while you do the same kind of slave labor for them. Oh, and to add insult to injury, whatever you're producing is ''not'' in any way necessary to the economies of any of your masters, and the whole Disputed Zone could be removed from the planet without changing anything about all the oppression going on.
** What makes it even more horrific is that [[spoiler:O'Brien]] spends a good part of his second conversation with Winston detailing exactly why the {{Dystopia}} of the book will never ever be dismantled. [[spoiler:Unless you include the Appendix.]]
** Thanks to the Ministry of Truth's absolute control over the flow of information and constant historical revisions, there's no way of knowing how much of this world is even real. All that hoo-hah about Eurasia and Eastasia? It could all be lies. Maybe Oceania is an all-powerful OneWorldOrder that keeps its citizens in check with [[FalseFlagOperation false flag operations]] that are blamed on nonexistent enemies, or maybe it's a North Korea-style dictatorship limited to all or some of Great Britain, which fabricates everything it about the outside world. Winston doesn't even know if it really ''is'' the year 1984.
---> "Who controls the past controls the future. Who controls the present controls the past."
** What makes this Crapsack World truly effective is that... it's completely normal. There's no monsters, demons, or aliens anywhere in sight. It's just regular human evil in a terrifyingly realistic world fueling the eternal misery for decades and decades.

* A political system where every four years, the two least qualified assholes around get nominated to try to fix a country that may well be beyond repair. A media that seems to have given up on actually taking the whole mess seriously and now just tries to capture the dim-witted viewing audience's attention with lowest-common-denominator spectacle. The halfway good people are the ones surest to suffer humiliation, hardship, and quite probably dismemberment as well, and the idiots and crooks aren't much better off in the long run. Yeah, the world of ''Literature/TheCandidatesBasedOnATrueCountry'' is a ''very'' dark take on the real world...

* ''Literature/ChildhoodsEnd'': This Creator/ArthurCClarke novel deals with [[spoiler: the end of humanity as we know it, shepherded along by alien overlords. Children are entering a new state of consciousness and in the process becoming something distinctly non-human in the way to their [[AssimilationPlot meld with the overmind of the universe]]. The remaining generation of adults, who are dying off without being able to reproduce, band together and go through the stages of grief as the death of human civilization approaches fast. World religions and cultures crumble with a whimper. Pretty sad.]]

* ''Literature/TheDresdenFiles''. Good or often merely neutral supernatural factions are outnumbered and outgunned by bad supernatural factions that are always chaotic evil and prey on humanity like cattle. Dark magic is hyper-addictive while most who fall to it aren't even warned of this. Cosmic horrors lurk in the background, as well as the threats of sacrificial ascension rituals and old gods. The breaking of the masquerade being an effective "nuclear" option, the divisions between various evil factions, and the web of rules and alliances are the only reasons why the evil factions haven't simply taken over. However, the current villains appear to be systematically breaking from those rules, such as killing tens of thousands of people in a nerve gas attack.
** But it's also arguably a WorldHalfFull. Insanely determined people like Harry Dresden and Michael ''can'' make a difference with a lot of effort and help from the benevolent supernatural powers. The whole Crapsack World and HopelessWar tropes get subverted [[spoiler: when Harry wipes out the entire Red Court at the end of ''Changes''.]]
** Of course, in the following book, it's revealed that [[spoiler: the destruction of the Red Court left a power vacuum open that was filled by an even nastier group, bringing the Crapsack back in full.]]
* In ''Franchise/{{Dune}}'', Arrakis was one to some degree or other for most of the people. And definitely the Harkonnen home planet, Geidi Prime, as detailed even more in some of [[Literature/PreludeToDune the prequels]] (with Gurney Halleck suffering horribly there as a slave child).
** The universe itself would count, as even when Paul is the new Emperor of the known universe, he is unable to stop the Jihad his Fremen have unleashed which result in the deaths of billions of people.
* The titular Edge in the obscure fantasy series ''Literature/TheEdgeChronicles'' isn't exactly an ideal spot for a vacation. The Deepwoods are dark and extremely dangerous, the Twilight Woods are a cursed place where anyone who enters will most likely go insane, the Mire is a polluted wasteland, Undertown is a dirty, overcrowded slum, Sanctaphrax is "a seething cauldron of rivalries, plots and counter-plots, and bitter faction-fighting", the river Edgewater is choked with sewage and the lands along the rim of the Edge are a desolate barren.
** Things get worse in the ''Rook Barkwater'' series. The city becomes even worse, slavery returns, Sanctaphrax becomes grounded and taken over by Nazi-like fanatics, all of the sky pirates are gone, and 95% of the "good" characters from previous books are either jailed or dead.
*** And later, both Sanctaphrax and Undertown get destroyed. But it's okay, just about everyone except the Guardians of Night and [[FatBastard Vox]] escaped.
*** By the end of the series, civilization has relocated to the Freeglades, and things are looking much, much better for everyone.

* ''Literature/TheJungle'' by Upton Sinclair. Anything which can go wrong, will in the [[NightmarishFactory Packingtown]]. The FridgeHorror is, of course, that an investigation revealed all the claims of Sinclair ''valid'', except [[HumanResources rendering workers falling in processing vats into lard and fertilizer]].

* In ''Series/DoctorWho'' novel ''[[Recap/PastDoctorAdventuresMatrix Matrix]]'', extra [[UsefulNotes/JackTheRipper Whitechapel murders]] gender an [[AlternateTimeLine alternate twentieth century]] of militia-ruled poverty; drug-crazed murderous gangs, and [[OurZombiesAreDifferent animate, flesh-shredding corpses]] infused by the malignancy of the gestalt entity behind this nightmare.
* In ''[[Literature/TheMazeRunner The Maze Runner Trilogy]]'', the world is crawling with those infected with the Flare and even those not infected have proven themselves to be just as nasty. Nearly everybody is willing to kill the protagonists (and everybody else) and there's nearly nothing in the way of plant life either.
* The ''{{Franchise/Metro}}''-series. Hoo boy.

* ''Literature/{{Mistborn}}'' features a world that starts out as a post-apocalyptic wasteland ruled by an EvilOverlord. Ash falls from the sky constantly and the majority of people (called Skaa) are either literally slaves or barely a step above it. [[spoiler: After the heroes kill the Lord Ruler, things start getting ''worse'', especially when the local OmnicidalManiac gets released from [[SealedEvilInACan his can]]. [[SubvertedTrope But Vin and Sazed manage to fix it in the end]]]]. By the time of the SequelSeries the planet is relatively technologically advanced (featuring things like electricity and firearms) and, while it still has its problems, is overall a pretty nice place to live.

* In the Literature/MoreauSeries, the Pan-Asian War left Tokyo and New Dehli radioactive craters, and the PRC conquered Japan and Taiwan. Tel Aviv was nuked by the Islamic Axis during the Third Gulf War, and sub-Saharan Africa and South America have been devastated by other, unnamed wars. [[UpliftedAnimal Moreaus]], created as soldiers, are second-class citizens at best throughout the world, and many are refugees from war or persecution. UsefulNotes/TheTroubles continue unabated in Northern Ireland. The U.S. verges on a PoliceState, with rampant political corruption as a bonus, and verges on civil war with the Moreau population, [[spoiler: and the alien invaders who caused much of this conspire behind the scenes to make it worse.]]

* [[WretchedHive Earth]] in ''[[Literature/TheNightsDawnTrilogy Night's Dawn]]''. The environment was completely wrecked; giant storms rage across the surface, forcing all cities to build giant [[DomedHometown domes]] to protect themselves. Overpopulation is so great that anything much greater than jaywalking will cause you to be sent as an indentured servant/slave to a colony world. And the Government ''allows'' the crime cults to thrive in the lower parts of the cities.

* In ''[[Literature/ThePowerOfFive Oblivion]]'', we get to see what the world looks like under the Old Ones. It's an endless string of natural disasters, wars, terrorist attacks, plagues, refugees, crazed despots, dystopian police states and, of course, the occasional EldritchAbomination attack.

* For all of its lightheartedness and optimism, the United States of America in ''Literature/TheCampHalfBloodSeries'' (''Literature/PercyJacksonAndTheOlympians'', ''Literature/TheHeroesOfOlympus'', and all SequelSeries afterwards) just ''sucks''. The country is lorded over by the [[Myth/ClassicalMythology gods of Olympus]], a bunch of [[JerkassGods selfish, petty, divine jerks]] who packed up and left Greece/Rome to settle down in America and now regularly take out their anger on whoever they feel like. If you're a normal human then you at least have the chance of staying off their radar and [[WeirdnessCensor the Mist]] will ensure that you remain blissfully ignorant of their existence. Unfortunately there's an equally good chance that you'll be the victim of a god's temper tantrum, which you won't see coming because of the aforementioned Mist. Even if you avoid it your entire life, the afterlife isn't any better. If you died without having accomplished great things in life, you get to spend the rest of eternity in the [[HellOfAHeaven Asphodel Fields]], doing nothing but standing around. And all of that is just if you're human. May God help you if you the had the misfortune of being born a [[SemiDivine demigod]] because the Olympians won't do much. If you're a demigod you get to spend the rest of your life looking over your shoulder for the many, many monsters that will hunt you [[FeelingOppressedByTheirExistence simply for having been born]] [[FantasticRacism with divine blood]]. The only safe place in the country is Camp Half-Blood and there's a very good chance you'll die on the way there - as a ''kid''. Your godly parent is likely aloof at best and abusive at worst, and any day they or another god may come to you with a dangerous quest or just show up to mess with you. Oh, and that's if your parent [[ParentalNeglect bothers to claim you at all]]. Let's just say there's a very good reason Percy starts off the first book with a SnicketWarningLabel about how you don't want to be a half-blood.
* Creator/ChinaMieville's world [[Literature/BasLagCycle Bas-Lag]], and especially its apparent largest city, New Crobuzon, featured in his novels in ''Literature/PerdidoStreetStation'', ''Literature/TheScar'', and ''Literature/IronCouncil'', fits this to a 'T'--if there's a pool of water in the city which is ''not'' stagnant and oily, or any non-corrupt person with any amount of noticeable power, we've not seen it or him.
** There are implied to be nice and happy things in Bas-Lag - Bellis wants to [[spoiler:save New Crobuzon from invasion]] for a reason - but thanks to the particular paths the novels take, we don't see much of them.
* Patrick Suskind's ''Literature/{{Perfume}}''. Everyone is either motivated by greed, selfishness, lust or desire for fame, or callous and apathetic to their fellow human beings. [[ArsonMurderAndJaywalking And they all smell terrible.]] Grenouille, a twisted little troll of a man who ''kills women for their scent'', actually comes across as the most sympathetic character in the whole book - at least he's motivated by a desire to create something beautiful, in the absence of anything else to give his life meaning.
* The ''Punktown'' stories are set in a dark future world that houses the titular dystopian city. Stories are a blend of horror, dystopian sci-fi, and film noir, and the resultant concoction has abominations, creepy future fetishes, and lots of violent crime. You know you live in a Crapsack World when Punktown has become a sourcebook for ''TabletopGame/CallOfCthulhu''.
* The ''Edge the Loner'' pulp western series by George G. Gilman featured a Wild West so violent and corrupt that the sociopathic walking scar called Edge may have been the only man strong enough to survive it. Inspired by the Eastwood/ Leone spaghetti westerns, the Edge books may well have inspired the equally vile western settings of Creator/VertigoComics' ''ComicBook/{{Preacher}}'' and ''ComicBook/JonahHex'' series.

* ''Literature/{{Victoria}}'' starts off ''easy'' with a dystopian near-future setting where America is ravaged by terrorism, gutted by economic meltdowns, torn by ethnic strife and suffering almost totalitarian Federal tyranny, and the rest of the world is little better off. It gets ''[[ApocalypseHow much]]'' [[AfterTheEnd worse]] before long...
* Wherever Davey Rice goes in ''Jumper'', somebody wants to beat the crap out of him. They often succeed.

* ''Witch and Wizard:'' Let's see, children ripped from bed in the middle of the night? Check. Evil overlord bent on taking over the world? Check. Said children constantly on the run from said overlord? Check check.

* ''Kraken Calling'' by political activist and anarchist author Aric [=McBay=] is set in a near-future North America where megacorporations flouting environmental laws have long since reached tipping point. So the world is in a state of ecological collapse from various causes and governments have gone totalitarian to rein in a starving population. One indication that everyone is hurting is the police/security forces have uniforms that are often not only second-hand, but they're ragged and patched over with whatever odd bits work. Even CEOs have to ration their air conditioning and this in a world that's really heated up with global warming.

* ''Literature/EmpireOfTheVampire'':What was until barely three decades past a rather by-the-numbers MedievalEuropeanFantasy setting went rapidly downhill after a falling star [[WorldWreckingWave crashed into the planet]], sending up clouds of dust and particles thick enough to conceal the sun itself. The initial problems were bad enough - most harvests failed, millions of people were rendered jobless and pennyless, and a continent-wide famine was only narrowly averted. And that was before [[{{TheUndead}} the Dead]] took advantage of the fact that the sun, though still faintly present, was now too weak to burn them. Fast-forward twenty-seven years, and most of the continent has been [[GaiasLament rendered a barren wasteland]], with forests of dead black trees constantly smothered in downpours of ashen grey snows and filthy muddy rain. Nothing grows except potatoes and mushrooms, much of the larger fauna has been rendered extinct and the last of humanity's food stores are finally running out. All that without taking into account the hordes of ravenous corpses rampaging across the Empire, draining entire cities and enthralling the survivors into chattle slavery for their ancient overlords. In the words of the protagonist himself:

* The world of the ''[[Literature/TheWitcher Witcher]]'' books is full of monsters that are often better than the humans they prey on, but are still hunted by the titular Witchers - humans mutated into perfect monster killers - who are hated and loathed by common people. FantasticRacism is everywhere - HumansAreBastards abusing their position of power; Elves, who are forced to live in ghettos, aren't really that much better - other races generally side with Elves but remember that they weren't so nice before the humans conquered them. TheEmpire is conquering other nations with force of arms (and WarIsHell in this setting, by the way) or economics, and it is made clear that [[spoiler: soon after the end of the last book, this world will suffer their equivalent of the Black Death, which the CorruptChurch will blame on magic users, leading to a wizard genocide]]. This world is so corrupt and rotten that [[spoiler: Ciri, who can travel between the worlds, abandons it in the end, which means that when the new ice age comes to wipe everybody out, there won't be any of her descendants to lead the survivors to another world]]. The games, despite being so dark that they're often compared with ''Franchise/DragonAge'', are still LighterAndSofter compared to the books.

* ''FKA USA'' by Reed King is a black comedy novel that takes place in a future America that survived a civil war that went nuclear but fractured the country into dystopian factions run by megacorporations, religious wingnuts, well-meaning but hapless hippies and whatnot. For example highly advanced robots are awesome, but expensive and increasingly hard to produce because most humans have an elementary education with a bare-bones job knowledge upload. Human labour however, is extremely cheap and a labour line will have hundreds if not thousands of employees doing "push one button" type jobs for the full work day.