History CrapsackWorld / Literature

* ''The Bone Ships'' by RJ Parker. You know a world is really awful when they give a woman great political power simply because she survived several births. Deaths of infants and mothers who gave birth is depressingly common in this world. As an ocean world, precious land is scarce and the seas are full of things happy to eat human flesh. Finally the two main island nations have a ForeverWar spanning decades.

* The novel ''Literature/AConfederacyOfDunces'' by John Kennedy Toole seems to personify this entire trope in the character of Ignatius J. Reilly: Fat, ugly, repulsive, arrogant, full of useless facts but little actual intelligence, utterly lacking in empathy and humor, sponging off his mother with zero gratitude whatsoever, and generally making the world a worse place to live. It doesn't help that all of the other characters in the novel are defined by their flaws and inadequacies, and stumble through their lives without a clue as to what they're doing or how they're affecting others. The novel's climax gives the reader [[HopeSpot the hope of Reilly finally getting his comeuppance]], then dashes it by giving him an [[KarmaHoudini easy out that promises the continuation of his repugnant behavior]]. It's worth noting that the author committed suicide eleven years before the novel's first publication.
** It's also worth noting Ignatius is often considered to be a self-portrait of Toole, who went into a depression after no one picked up his "amazingly brilliant" piece of work. Theory goes his suicide was not so much for a bitter outlook on the world as from a bitter moment of self-realization. There's an additional theory that Toole's suicide may have been the result of a conflict with his own sexuality.

* Discussed in "Literature/AModelLife": Charlie offers the dissatisfied James a home in a different model, where he'd be a powerful law-enforcer in an apocalypse, with the complete authority to hurt or kill anyone. James finds the idea utterly horrifying.

** "Literature/TwoDooms": This {{novella}} imagines a victorious Axis partitioning North America between a Japanese West and a Nazi East - the same premise as ''Literature/TheManInTheHighCastle'' but played much nastier. The Japanese half is made up of fanatic pseudo-samurai ruling over a wretched population of slaves whom they'll murder at the slightest provocation; meanwhile, the Nazis are every bit as evil as you would expect (they enjoy torturing prisoners to death) but they're also ''insane'' - the protagonist, an American scientist from the 1940s who's become [[TimeTravel temporally displaced]], saves his life by convincing a Nazi commandant that [[spoiler: he's really an "Aryan" who's been the victim of a plot by Jewish magicians.]] This is taken ''absolutely seriously'' by the commandant and every one of his officers. [[note]]None of this was actually invented - Kornbluth was just taking the very worst aspects of Nazism and Totalitarian Shinto/ Bushido and turning them up to eleven.[[/note]]

* Literature/{{Darwath}} is being invaded by flesh-eating Lovecraftian monsters, but that's just their top problem; also, their world is sliding into an Ice Age, and the Church is zealously destroying the wizards and magic-tech that are the only things that just might save them. Hambly spends three books basically raising hopes in order to dash them. Even when, at the very last minute, [[spoiler:the wizard persuades all the monsters to emigrate to a warmer climate]], that still leaves them with a collapsing ecology and a politico-religious state that makes Afghanistan look like a shining city on a hill.

* Let's discuss ''[[Creator/ClarkAshtonSmith Zothique]]''. It's the last inhabited continent--all the others either had all their inhabitants slaughtered or sank beneath the sea. Technology has been smashed back to the level of bows and arrows. Zul-Bha-Sair, one of the better locations, is ruled by the "Charnel God" Mordiggian. Naat, meanwhile, is run by particularly nasty necromancers, and Uccastrog is also known as "[[TortureTechnician The Isle of the Torturers]]." A typical story in the setting, "The Last Hieroglyph," sets up a standard [[TheHerosJourney heroic journey]] that turns out to be [[spoiler:to the fate of all living things: being stored as a hieroglyph on a god's record of the world, which will be complete on the approaching day when everything in the setting is wiped out.]] For added fun, the author and his buddies loved shared-universe fiction, so this is the future of the above-mentioned Franchise/CthulhuMythos, which is the future of the above-mentioned [[Franchise/ConanTheBarbarian Cimmeria]], so the inhabitants were actually ''lucky'' that they weren't all eaten by {{Eldritch Abomination}}s.

* The ''Franchise/CthulhuMythos''. An entire universe where Humanity is surrounded by unimaginably horrifying {{Eldritch Abomination}}s, compared to whom we are insignificant ants, and who will plunge all of us into madness, despair, and insignificance when they awaken from their slumber. Plus there's a TrueNeutral race of alien time travellers, who also confirm that humanity will go extinct in a horrible way.

* ''Literature/TheAstralWandererAndTheForestOfTears'' by Creator/AmelieCLanglois is set in a sentient forest that slowly drives its occupants insane and contains soul-devouring trees of flesh; predatory, hallucinogenic plants; and all manner of EldritchAbomination{{s}}.

* ''Literature/TheBookOfTheNewSun'' takes place millions of years in the future. The sun has grown red and dim, forcing people to migrate to escape increasingly colder climates, humanity has grown ignorant and superstitious - having lost control of [[MagicFromTechnology miraculous technology like dimensional portals]] limiting their use to an elite few (some of whom aren't even human). It's also a world where a GodEmperor-like figure can have anyone arrested and tortured to death by a professional guild of Torturers (from where the protagonist comes from) and fighting him are power-hungry aristocratic rebels who are in league with EldritchAbomination{{s}} that are prophesied to destroy the world.

* ''Literature/AFrozenHeart'': In this TieInNovel to Disney's ''WesternAnimation/Frozen2013'', Prince Hans of the Southern Isles comes from a kingdom that has been transformed into a PoliceState by his father, a cruel tyrant who reacts violently when his authoritarian rule is criticized and crushes his subjects with excessively high taxes. In one instance, the king even seizes a poor farmer's livestock and torches his barn out of pettiness. It leaves Hans wondering how someone like his father [[TheCaligula "could be so stupid"]] and is one reason why he hates his family. However, if this were Hans's story, he would be TheHero revolting against his abusive family, so his father [[VillainOfAnotherStory ends up being a minor character]] as the majority of ''A Frozen Heart'' focuses on covering the same plot as the original ''Frozen'' movie.

Examples relating to ''Literature/DiaryOfAWimpyKid'' are on [[CrapsackWorld/DiaryOfAWimpyKid their own page]].
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* The world of ''LightNovel/TheUnexploredSummonBloodSign'' is run by secret factions of summoners. In the setting, magic-users are InvisibleToNormals, making it difficult for normal people to even think of resisting. On top of that, any summoner can summon Materials, supernatural beings which are completely indestructible by non-magical means. Several years prior to the series' beginning, many high-ranking summoners died in an event known as the Secret War, and their loss broke the BalanceOfPower between the factions. As a result, internal discipline has been weakened, allowing many summoners to go rogue. Finally, [[spoiler:the White Queen, the ultimate Material who is worshipped as a goddess, [[GodIsEvil is an insane Eldritch Abomination who's responsible for all of this]]]].

* Creator/CMKornbluth:
** "Literature/TheMarchingMorons": Also the setting for prequel story "Literature/LittleBlackBag" and inspired ''{{Film/Idiocracy}}''. [[spoiler: The average intelligence has plummeted; the world is full of stupid people with a few geniuses desperately scrambling to keep everything running.]]

** How about this? North America has collapsed into a totalitarian nightmare composed of 12 (actually 13) districts ruled by the Capitol, a that city considers watching children slaughter each other on television to be the height of entertaining. Every year each district is forced to send two teens between 12 and 18 to fight until one survives as a constant reminder to the people how much power the government possesses over them. Oh yeah, everyone is also forced to watch the children brutally murder each other. People from the districts tend to be dirt-poor, starving and will be beaten or killed for pretty much no reason at all while those in the Capitol live outrageously decadent lives. Then you have the arena itself, complete with neurotoxic mists, nightmare-inducing bees ( a.k.a. tracker jackers), giant walls of fire, mad dogs who happen to be templated off your dead friends... did we mention the whole country is required to watch? The rest of the world is conspicuously absent, possibly destroyed in the vaguely implied calamity that brought the government in question to power. For a freakin' ''[[WhatDoYouMeanItsForKids young adult]]'' novel, the world of Panem is insanely brutal.

* How about Suzanne Collins's ''Literature/TheHungerGames''? North America has collapsed into a totalitarian nightmare that considers watching children slaughter each other on television to be the height of entertaining. People from the satellite states (which supply the children in question) tend to be dirt-poor and will be beaten or killed for pretty much no reason at all. Then you have the arena itself, complete with neurotoxic mists, nightmare-inducing bees ( a.k.a. tracker jackers), giant walls of fire, mad dogs who happen to be templated off your dead friends... did we mention the whole country is required to watch? The rest of the world is conspicuously absent, possibly destroyed in the vaguely implied calamity that brought the government in question to power.
** For a freakin' ''[[WhatDoYouMeanItsForKids young adult]]'' novel, the world of Panem is insanely brutal.

** [[spoiler: Even joining the rebels isn't much better. After risking everything following a rumor with risk of being killed or becoming a mute slave of the Capitol, you get to look forward to a civilization where everything must be rationed and everyone works. Cinna's prep team were locked in a dark room in chains and beaten for 'hoarding food.' Even Katniss — the Rebellion's symbol for hope — isn't given much special treatment by Coin. Coin herself is just President Snow playing for the good side. One of her suggestions when they beat the Capitol was to hold a Hunger Games themselves except using Capitol children. Which, other than completely destroying their pampered way of life would give them ample reason to start a rebellion on their own later down the line.]]

** 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.

* The two 'future worlds' shown in ''Literature/{{Animorphs}}''. One is in The Stranger and one in The Familiar. Both have the world controlled by the Yeerks, with all humans enslaved, and a lot of Earth's natural flora and fauna destroyed due to Yeerk tendancies.

* ''Literature/TheAstralWandererAndTheForestOfTears'' by Creator/AmelieCLanglois is set in a sentient forest that slowly drives its occupants insane, and contains soul-devouring trees of flesh; predatory, hallucinogenic plants; and all manner of EldritchAbomination{{s}}.

* ''Literature/BillTheGalacticHero'''s military system is seemingly designed to make the lives of the enlisted a living hell, from the moment they put their name in the dotted line. In fact, the only reason TheEmpire is even engaged in a war with the "vile [[LizardFolk Chingers]]" is because they needed someone to fight, so they picked a tiny race of peace-loving lizards from a heavy-gravity world. Now the Empire is losing, since the Chingers turn out to be ''very'' good at fighting and, unlike Empire leadership, are not complete morons. They also easily infiltrate the Empire thanks to their human-shaped robots (a tiny Chinger easily fits inside it). Since the public is told that Chingers are human-sized blood-thirsty lizards, they don't know what to look for.

* ''Literature/TheBookOfTheNewSun'' takes place millions of years in the future. The sun has grown red and dim, forcing people to migrate to escape increasingly colder climates, humanity has grown ignorant and superstitous - having lost control of [[MagicFromTechnology miraculous technology like dimensional portals]] limiting their use to an elite few (some of whom aren't even human). It's also a world where a GodEmperor-like figure can have anyone arrested and tortured to death by a professional guild of Torturers (from where the protagonist comes from) and fighting him are power-hungry aristocratic rebels who are in league with EldritchAbomination{{s}} that are prophesied to destroy the world.

* A political system where every four years, the two least qualified assholes around gets 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...

* In ''Literature/{{Citadel}}'', the central part of the US is a gang ruled war-zone, a significant part of the Upper Hemisphere was frozen solid, the entirety of Europe is under the complete mental control of Tyrant, and the Citadel itself admits to striving more towards brutal efficiency than actual justice.

* The Franchise/ConanTheBarbarian universe is a great example of a Crapsack World in fantasy. What you've got is a LowFantasy world full of assorted, real-world inspired ancient civilizations, and some barbarians. The choice that Creator/RobertEHoward gives you is basically Barbarism Vs. Civilization. Civilizations are generally decadent and corrupt old empires with scheming, militaristic kings who will do anything up to and including resurrecting a dead sorcerer from an ancient, evil empire (in ''Literature/TheHourOfTheDragon'') to get more land for their nation. The only nation that doesn't seem to be either full of evil sorcerers (Stygia, Koth, Khitai, Zembabwei) or expansionist kings (Koth, Ophir, Nemedia, Turan, everyone else) would be Aquilonia, a Rome/medieval England hybrid that winds up being the first nation that is completely annihilated by a horde of savages, along with every other halfway-decent place to live in Hyboria. Barbarians will find that the line is very thin between savagery and noble savagery, once again. Cimmerians prove to be the only race in this category that have even a rudimentary grasp on morality, everyone else is either a cannibal (the Darfari), an unapologetic savage (Picts fit this perfectly), or a Viking-esque village pillager (the Vanir and Aesir).

** Pretty much anything written by Creator/HPLovecraft is set in a Crapsack World, since he is after all a NietzscheWannabe.

** "Literature/SharkShip": Also known as "Literature/ReapTheDarkTide", this {{novelette}} shows a community of ocean dwellers who have forever forsaken the overpopulated land to lead a [[WoodenShipsAndIronMen regimented life on the open seas.]] They are the lucky ones: [[spoiler: a ship that loses its fishing net and goes back to the land in desperation finds that it has been taken over by a fanatical religious movement that glorifies torture, violence and a one-child policy. The land is no longer overpopulated. It's barely populated at all. Remarkably, this is probably the most optimistic ending in Kornbluth's entire body of work, as it's suggested that the ocean dwellers will recolonize the land and establish a sustainable, relatively humane society.]]

** "Literature/TwoDooms": This {{novella}} imagines a victorious Axis partitioning North America between a Japanese West and a Nazi East - the same premise as ''Literature/TheManInTheHighCastle'' but played much nastier. The Japanese half is made up of fanatic pseudo-samurai ruling over a wretched population of slaves whom they'll murder at the slightest provocation; meanwhile the Nazis are every bit as evil as you would expect (they enjoy torturing prisoners to death) but they're also ''insane'' - the protagonist, an American scientist from the 1940s who's become [[TimeTravel temporally displaced]], saves his life by convincing a Nazi commandant that [[spoiler: he's really an "Aryan" who's been the victim of a plot by Jewish magicians.]] This is taken ''absolutely seriously'' by the commandant and every one of his officers. [[note]]None of this was actually invented - Kornbluth was just taking the very worst aspects of Nazism and Totalitarian Shinto/ Bushido and turning them up to eleven.[[/note]]
* In the ''Literature/DanielFaust'' series, God is missing or dead, angels are genocidal, and the only reason the world isn't in Hell's hands is because the various demonic courts are too busy feuding with each other to really focus on us. Humanity is a guppy in a very big ocean filled with very hungry sharks.
* ''Literature/DarkFuture'': Welcome to [[TwentyMinutesIntoTheFuture the 1990s]] as envisaged by Creator/GamesWorkshop and Creator/KimNewman. A CyberPunk {{dystopia}} ruled over by mostly corrupt politicians who're in the pocket of [[JapanTakesOverTheWorld Japanese]] [[MegaCorp megacorp [=GenTech=]]] who may or may not be run by a Nazi refugee, where the population are divided into the rich; who live in [[LawEnforcementInc corporately-policed]] gated communities away from the slums of the poor, waited upon by mostly black slaves because [[AlternateHistory Racial Equality never really happened in this world]]. Where the world is slowly drying out, disappearing beneath rising sea levels and teeters unknowingly on the brink of the Apocalypse that [[ReligionOfEvil an evil faux-Christian sect]] headed by a TimeAbyss in the service of {{Eldritch Abomination}}s are actively seeking to hasten. Oh, and RockAndRoll was banned after riots in 1961; Music/JohnLennon went into politics and people are still buying Ken Dodd albums.
--> ''"Don't worry about the End of the Universe, because you could be the LUCKY WINNER!"''

* ''Literature/{{Divergent}}'': A war caused by a disastrous attempt to correct human genes that [[GoneHorriblyWrong went wrong]] claimed half of the US population and turned most of the environment into rough, uninhabitable wasteland. The entire human race is now sorted according to whether [[FantasticRacism they are genetically pure or damaged]], and being sorted into the latter is...not nice. This predictably resulted in violence that erupted in the metropolitan areas, which are practically the only places where people live. The United States is now [[FallenStatesOfAmerica a shadow of itself]], agreeing to a plan by a certain Bureau which necessitated an entire city, uhm, ''cities'', to be transformed into giant experimental bottles with the intention to produce more pure people. That goal is not noble by itself, but then the Bureau isolated them for eight generations and counting, which resulted in the people inside to forget why they live there and actually ''flipped'' the racism upside down, so that now the genetically pure (or as they call, Divergents) are persecuted, ensuring that the experiment will go on for a while.

* 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.

* Stephen King's ''Literature/ElevenTwentyTwoSixtyThree'' presents an alternate history which diverges from ours with the survival of John F. Kennedy. The civil rights movement was a failure. The Vietnam war ended with a nuke being dropped on Hanoi, which precipitated other atomic conflicts around the world, including the destruction of Miami, meaning radiation poisoning is prevalent. [[DividedStatesOfAmerica Maine seceded from the U.S. and became a Canadian province.]] President Hilary Clinton is now trying to hold the remains of the country together under martial law. Gang warfare, pollution, poverty, extremism, famine, and hate crimes are commonplace. [[FromBadToWorse The disruption of the timestream is also causing frequent, increasingly violent earthquakes all over the world, some of which are strong enough to sink whole islands.]] [[ArsonMurderAndJaywalking And Paul McCartney is blind.]]

* The world of ''Music/EvilliousChronicles'' certainly qualifies, given all the tragedies that happen in a thousand year stretch. Each time period has a host of issues- from diseases that drive people [[TooDesperateToBePicky mad]] [[HungryMenace with]] [[NoPartyLikeADonnerParty hunger]], to [[GodSaveUsFromTheQueen tyrannical princesses]], to the destruction of entire nations overnight. Still special mention goes to the [[JustBeforeTheEnd world by Gallerian's era]], where the "rules" that govern the world are breaking down and there are zombies roaming around, parents giving birth to bizarre (sometimes tiger-shaped) babies, and people are getting infected with Hereditary Evil Raiser Syndrome and more strange things, all for no reason. And it seems every power in the world, from the Freezis Foundation (now Freezis Conglomerate) to the Evillious governments, are maliciously corrupt.

*** [[spoiler: And Jezal gets kicked hard when his change of heart and indications he wants to make a got of the 'king' situation results in Bayaz reminding him who's running the show. Ouch.]]

* The world of ''Literature/TheGiverQuartet''. Either you live in a technologically advanced utopia that is tightly controlled, or a medieval tech level village where you can suffer cruelty from the forces of man, nature, or both.

* ''Literature/TheGodlessWorldTrilogy'': The Gods abandoned their creation 1000 years before the story starts, leaving it to all spiral out of control. There's never ending wars between the True Bloods and the Bloods of the Black Road, tensions between Huanin and Kyrinin that never end, relentless persecution of the ''[[HalfHumanHybrid na'kyrim]]'', and a general sense of misery and despair that never goes away. This gets worse once [[BigBad Aeglyss]] taps into [[TheLifestream The Shared]] and starts poisoning everyone with his own angst and misery.

** The ''Literature/ForestKingdom'' series' spinoff ''Hawk & Fisher'' has the city of Haven as the WretchedHive version, where even the "gods" aren't above greed, mayhem, sociopathy and a host of other antisocial tendencies, but still attract worshipers.

* ''Literature/HouseOfTheScorpion'' is set TwentyMinutesIntoTheFuture, where Mexico is under control of the corrupt quasi-communist Keepers, and life in the United States is so bad, that not only are people crossing the border into the United States, but ''into Mexico'' as well.

* How about Suzanne Collins's ''Literature/TheHungerGames''? North America has collapsed into a totalitarian nightmare which considers watching children slaughter each other on television to be the height of entertaining. People from the satellite states (which supply the children in question) tend to be dirt-poor and will be beaten or killed for pretty much no reason at all. Then you have the arena itself, complete with neurotoxic mists, nightmare-inducing bees ( a.k.a. tracker jackers), giant walls of fire, mad dogs who happen to be templated off your dead friends... did we mention the whole country is required to watch? The rest of the world is conspicuously absent, possibly destroyed in the vaguely implied calamity that brought the government in question to power.

* The Earth of the ''Literature/{{Idlewild}}'' series has been completely depopulated for at least fifteen years with skeletonized corpses commonplace. Without people, structures have fallen into disrepair and supplies are frequently questionable. The handful of survivors realize that just one unlucky day may result in their slow, agonizing, inevitable death and ''they won't even know that day.'' Disagreements commonly undercut teamwork. The burden of rebuilding civilization is constant, as is the fact that Nature has survived just fine and will be happy to bury them as well.

* Mars in Creator/EdgarRiceBurroughs' ''Literature/JohnCarterOfMars'', as well as its comic book adaptation ''ComicBook/WarlordOfMars'' is stated to be a dying word whose oceans dried up thousands of years ago due to a ecological catastrophe. The planet is an arid, extremely dangerous place, most of its fauna is hostile and carnivorous. Hordes of [[TheUsualAdversaries Green Martians]] [[RapePillageAndBurn roam the land raiding the weak]], while the last civilized peoples live in the city-states where {{Decadent Court}}s and [[EvilOverlord tyrants]] are depressingly common place with princesses and noblewomen being [[DamselInDistress regularly targeted for kidnapping]]. Resources are scarce. To keep their populations under control, the Martians developed a culture that causes them to exist in a constant state of perpetual warfare, consider assassination and kidnapping to be respectable and honorable professions, and fight duels at the drop of a hat. The predominant religion is a PathOfInspiration created by a society of cannibals that lures their unsuspecting victims in search of paradise to their domain in order to enslave and devour them. Said cannibals are also victims themselves of another PathOfInspiration created by others that feed on ''them'' and this cycle has been perpetrated for eras and nobody that returned alive was able to warn the world about it, being executed for heresy. To top it all off, the atmosphere is decaying and the one thing keeping all life on the planet from suffocating is a complex factory built by the {{Precursors}} that few people understand how it works. On the flip side, technology is so advanced that Martians are [[TheAgeless functionally immortal]] and can live for thousands of years, [[EverythingIsTryingToKillYou that is if they can get that far]].

* The basic idea of ''Literature/TheLaundryFiles'' is that creatures like those from the Cthulhu Mythos really exist, and that it's only through the efforts of a few top secret organizations that they don't invade our planet. This kind of business can get very, VERY nasty. In the first book alone they only saved the entire universe from being ''eaten'' by the skin of their teeth. And It Gets Worse. Especially when CASE NIGHTMARE GREEN gets brought up: [[spoiler: Basically, there will soon come a time when interdimensional boundaries wear so thin that unspeakable horrors will be able to be summoned by ordinary humans unintentionally, as a product of a particularly horrifying variation of ClapYourHandsIfYouBelieve]]. This is so serious, the government considers using the SCORPION STARE program to reduce the world's population by [[TakenForGranite turning random people to stone]] [[GodzillaThreshold a viable solution]].

* Most residents of Camorr, a sort of LowFantasy medieval Venice turned up to eleven in Scott Lynch's ''Literature/TheLiesOfLockeLamora'', would pay good money (doubtless stolen or extorted) to live in a Crapsack World instead. To elaborate, Camorr is a place where children as young as eight are hung for stealing a loaf of bread as a matter of course, slavery is openly practiced, nobles have literally no checks on their power and can do whatever they please, including torturing commoners for their own amusement, and gladiatorial combat between humans and giant octopuses, man-eating sharks and fist-sized wasps are a common and beloved form of entertainment. Characters like Vencarlo Barsavi, Maxilan Stragos and Requin, who would be monstrous {{Big Bad}}s ripe for getting their arses kicked by the heroes in any other 'verse, are here irreproachable pillars of the community and on-and-off allies of the protagonists.
* ''Literature/TheManInTheHighCastle'': An extremely hellish and oppressive one where the Axis won World War II. Not just for the actual characters, but also applies for the book-within-a-book ''The Grasshopper Lies Heavy'' -- an incredibly racist United Kingdom ends up winning the Cold War and conquering the world. Of course, compared to the one they live in, the characters view the one in the novel as paradise. Similarly, the divide between Nazi-occupied territories and Japanese-occupied territories reflects this divide; while the Japanese are certainly not nice to their subjects, they are on the whole far more humane, rational and sane than the Nazis are, who practically become {{Omnicidal Maniac}}s in their endless war to attain racial purity.

** Even without the supernatural elements, the premise is relentlessly bleak. World War III broke out, full scale nuclear exchange, turning the world into a blasted, radioactive wasteland full of man-eating mutants. The remnants of humanity is forced underground, into the titular metro, where they can only survive one day at a time, hoping against hope that one day, before the multivitamin tablets run out and everything breaks down, they can return to the surface in some limited capacity. Everything is scarce. Food, water, ammunition, parts, everything. Mutant attacks are commonplace. Only the bravest or most insane dare set foot on the surface, even for a few minutes. Even with humanity reduced to the fifty thousand people living in the Metro, life is among the cheapest commodities available.

** Finally, there's the Dark Ones. They're mutants. Probably. However, unlike other mutants, these ones are vaguely humanoid, entirely sapient, move completely silently and can kill humans with a touch. Even seeing a Dark One is likely to strip the poor sap who sees it of their sanity. Their presence is announced by a chill wind and a feeling of palpable dread. And no-one knows anything about them. What they are, beyond cold and antithetical to human life, is a complete mystery. [[spoiler: The fact that they are peaceful and that their driving people insane was an unforeseen and tragic side effect of attempting to communicate comes far too late to be of comfort to anyone.]]
* ''Literature/{{Mistborn}}'' features a world that starts out 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 it's problems, is overall a pretty nice place to live.

* ''Literature/MortalEngines'': Most of the world is a barren wasteland mainly made of mud and oil. Parts of the ocean have dried up and many species are now extinct. Giant predator cities chase each other for resources and often kill the inhabitants carte-blanche. Inside and outside these cities, pirates, murderers, and slavers are very common, with zero presence of law or justice. You can be turned into a zombie cyborg after death and be forced to live like that forever. The only opponents to the Municipal Darwinist system [[ALighterShadeOfBlack aren't much better]] and also frequently kill innocent people. Also, there are destructive orbital weapons which end up getting used. At least farther in the future everything seems to be better.
* [=NowWhat=] in ''Literature/MostlyHarmless'', a singularly miserable planet (which also happens to be an alternate of Earth) which Arthur Dent happens across in his travels to find a suitable alternate Earth (and Fenchurch?) So bad is this planet that the only picture of the president was after he'd ''shot his own face off'', and the only export is the useless skin of an animal that's just as cold and miserable as the colonists, whose only ambition is to leave at any cost.
* The world of ''Literature/TheMysteriousStranger'', written by Creator/MarkTwain at the height of his CreatorBreakdown, is certainly this trope. Featuring a small Austrian village at the height of the European witch craze, where the common folk are so miserable that anyone who has a run of good fortune, no matter how small, will be accused of witchcraft and [[ForegoneConclusion certainly]] burned at the stake-- and the condemned accept this without protest, because their lives are so horrific that they prefer death. Yet at the same time, paranoia is so high that everyone goes along with it even though the majority know that witches aren't real, because they're terrified that ''others'' are true believers who would suspect them for their skepticism. And this is ''before'' Satan shows up and reveals that all humans are doomed from the start, and that the only way to reduce suffering is either to let them die immediately, so that they no longer experience the horrors of the world, or to render them insane, so that they at least have the illusion of joy [[spoiler: which may or may not be the fate of the narrator at the end]]. Not that Satan is any better of course; despite ''not'' being the same entity as the [[{{Satan}} Devil]] (at least, [[UnreliableExpositor according to his own word]]), he cares naught for human beings at all, because he has [[BlueAndOrangeMorality no Moral Sense whatsoever]], and claims that humans are the worst of all creatures ''because'' of their sense of morality. Not that any of this matters because humans have no free will, and any attempt to change one's fate simply seals one's doom. The setting is so misanthropic and depressing that the story could have been written by Creator/GenUrobuchi and nobody would notice any difference.

* [[WretchedHive Earth]] in ''[[Literature/TheNightsDawnTrilogy Night's Dawn]]''. The environment was completely wrecked; giant storms rage across the surface, forcing all cities to built giant [[DomedHometown domes]] to protect themselves. Overpopulation is so great that the anything much greater than jaywalking will cause you to be sent as a indentured servant/slave to a colony world. And the Government ''allows'' the crime cults to thrive in the lower parts of the cities.
* The world of ''Literature/TheNightLand'' and ''Literature/AwakeInTheNightLand'' is plunged in eternal darkness after the Sun gone out, and it has Lovecraftian monsters lurking in the darkness.
* Modern day Britain in ''Literature/NoughtsAndCrosses'', a rare example of a functional world where although everyone can get enough to eat and can live well there is so much prejudice against non-African descended races that if you don't have dark skin, you will probably spend your life only having the most basic things on offer.

* ''Literature/OliverTwisted'': Set in a world where [[HellOnEarth monsters have escaped their infernal prison]] and roam amongst the living, darkness has sunk into the heart of society as the defenseless are preyed on and orphans are corrupted to be sacrificed in this twist of the tale of ''Literature/OliverTwist''. However, it is strongly implied that Oliver would fulfil his destiny with his newfound TrueCompanions to steer out and shut the [[{{Hellgate}} door of hell]] on all demons forever.

-->'''[[spoiler: Nino]]:''' He said that if the [[ItMakesSenseInContext mountain crashed into the ground]], it would be a mercy. He said the whole idea of a city in the void was insane. One by one, things would go wrong -- things that couldn't be fixed without help from outside. Within a generation you'd all be starving. Eating the soil. Begging for death.

* 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.

* The ''Punktown'' stories are set on 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 concotion 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 paleolithic era as portrayed in ''Literature/QuestForFire'': A beautiful but hellish landscape full of [[PrehistoricMonster bloodthirsty carnivores and equally nasty herbivores]] where human societies live as warring hordes who regularly [[RapePillageAndBurn kill, rape]] [[CannibalTribe and even eat one another]] in their struggle for survival. Early modern humans with their egalitarian foraging ways and [[PunyEarthlings comparitively frail bodies]] are barely managing to compete with the stronger and more aggressive archaic species. Even the diminutive Red dwarves are massacring them.

* The world of ''Literature/ReadyPlayerOne'' is PostPeakOil, resulting in most of the population crowding into slums surrounding cities (where trailers are literally stacked on top of each other for space) for the slim hope of employment.The economy is extremely weak, and resources are scarce. On top of that, exploitative MegaCorp IOI maintains a virtual monopoly on many industries, and has enough influence that they can legally imprison and enslave debtors. Just about the only redeeming factor of this world is the virtual reality of the OASIS, and even that is under threat from IOI's attempts to win control of it via Halliday's contest.
* Ten years before the beginning of ''Literature/TheReckonersTrilogy'', humans began to spontaneously manifest superpowers. Unfortunately, use of these powers almost instantly transforms any Epic, no matter how moral they might have been before, into a total psychopath. Now, humanity is crushed and shattered, with the only surviving civilization being ruled by Epic warlords. Newcago is one of the nicest places around, simply because it has running water and electricity, although you could easily still be killed by an Epic at any time. The only heroes are the titular Reckoners, a secretive organization which hunts and kills Epics.

* K.J Parker's ''Literature/TheScavengerTrilogy''. Life is hard, short and mired in failure. There is less and less secure government, and you don't want to know what is driving what order there is.

* Life under the rule of her stepmother is terrible, but arguably only gets worse after Snow White leaves the house in ''Literature/SixGunSnowWhite'', because now she has to face being biracial and a woman in a white man's world. Even when she finds the best haven she's going to find in Oh-Be-Joyful, Witch Hex tells her that "What's east is hungry. What's west is hard."
* ''Literature/SnowCrash'' presents a future USA which has broken up into a loose collection of autonomous corporate city-states guided by anarchist-capitalist principles. Just to give you an idea of what this means, TheMafia runs ''a pizza delivery company'', and they take it ''very'' seriously: if a pizza is half an hour late, the boss himself will personally visit to your house and apologise and offer you a guarantee that the delivery boy responsible will be wearing CementShoes the same evening.

** It really depends on the book and the author. The [[BittersweetEnding ending]] of ''Literature/OutboundFlight'' aside, Creator/TimothyZahn's novels, for example, tend to stay true to the original feel - there are dark times, but there is also joy and beauty and hope and adventure, and nothing is completely, unambiguously terrible. In some novels it's almost a [[WhiteAndGreyMorality white and grey]] contrast between the good guys and the bad guys, and the Empire is never some monolithic evil structure - it's made of people who are trying their hardest to do what they think is right.

** The entirely of Republic history shows this isn't exactly an uncommon thing either. Galactic society came into being as a direct result of the ancient and warmongering Rakata Empire subjugating and seeding life throughout the galaxy, only to fall and its technology reverse engineered centuries later. It's rare even a century or two can go by without some massive galactic war going on, usually between the two opposing Force orders, the Jedi and the Sith fighting one another. What's more since neither of these orders can actually ever manage to eliminate each other it's become an endless cycle of the two sides fight, one gets defeated, licks their wounds, and then rise up to do battle all over again. Entire planets are scoured of life during these wars and billions killed on a regular basis. If you are lucky you might be born, live, and die in one of the very rare times of true galactic peace, but even if there isn't a war on a galaxy wide scale going on right now, there are going to be multiple smaller intersystem and between system wars happening all the time that you could end up getting caught up in.
** Take the planet of Melida/Daan from ''Literature/JediApprentice''. The planet has been embroiled in a 300-year long CivilWar that has spiraled into a CycleOfRevenge that nobody knows how it started and has completely wrecked the planet; economies are driven towards new weapons, both sides are low on supplies, an entire generation has been wiped out, and whatever land is left goes towards masoleums encouraging future generations to fight harder. [[ArsonMurderAndJaywalking Plus the two sides can't even agree on a name]]; the slash between Melida and Daan is a compromise by the Republic.
* ''Literature/TheStormlightArchive'' (also in Literature/TheCosmere like Mistborn), was this for thousands of years. Periodically [[ApocalypseHow The Desolations]] would occur, forcing humanity to battle for survival against the demonic Voidbringers. Desolations were so severe that humanity was typically on the edge of extinction and knocked nearly back to the Stone Age, with the [[OurAngelsAreDifferent Heralds]] who lead them uncertain if humanity would even know how to make bronze upon their return. This is, however, subverted by the fact that the last Desolation was nearly four thousand years ago, and humanity is currently more advanced that it has ever been before. The world might not exactly be a great place to live, but it's certainly not a total crapsack.

* What do you think about living in ''Literature/{{The Passage}}'', where the majority of human population has been wiped out (possibly everyone outside North America, and mostly everyone in North America), there are superhuman zombie-vampires who are far stronger than humans, too fast to aim at and you turn into one of them after being bitten in one of five cases - and are simply devoured in other four? Oh, and all of them are controlled by several Big Bads who are using most remaining humans as a cattle, and strong light is only effective defense you have?

* The world of Literature/Timeline191 may not be a total Crapsack World, but it's definitely a much grimmer reality than our own. The United States is forced into geopolitics much sooner, and is never able to develop into the "land of opportunity" that defined its character from the late 19th Century onward. Surrounded by hostile countries, it instead evolves into a slightly less-oppressive version of the Soviet Union, becoming just another player in the global empire-building game. The world is far less idealistic and far more militarized. The most brutal battles of both World Wars take place between the Union and the Confederacy, and [[spoiler: nuclear weapons are used with more abandon. Ironically, Japan is the only major player in this timeline's version of UsefulNotes/WorldWarII ''not'' to have a nuclear bomb dropped on it.]]

** On the inverse side, if a king rules justly, a kingdom can prosper and greatly avoid being attacked by Youma. En, for instance, is a very good place to live under its current king and has been so for 500 years (though there are still some less pleasant people around). It's more of a WorldHalfFull, since the evil can be held back when people are good and just (contrast to most examples, where the good simply ''can't'' win for any significant period of time). It also has the [[IncorruptiblePurePureness twelve Kirin]], who do their best to advise their [[HumansAreFlawed less-than-perfect human monarchs]].

* In ''Literature/AWrinkleInTime'' and its sequels there are several crapsack worlds, and alternate futures in which Earth is a crapsack world.

* Let's discuss ''[[Creator/ClarkAshtonSmith Zothique]]''. It's the last inhabited continent--all the others either had all their inhabitants slaughtered, or sank beneath the sea. Technology has been smashed back to the level of bows and arrows. Zul-Bha-Sair, one of the better locations, is ruled by the "Charnel God" Mordiggian. Naat, meanwhile, is run by particularly nasty necromancers, and Uccastrog is also known as "[[TortureTechnician The Isle of the Torturers]]." A typical story in the setting, "The Last Hieroglyph," sets up a standard [[TheHerosJourney heroic journey]] that turns out to be [[spoiler:to the fate of all living things: being stored as a hieroglyph on a god's record of the world, which will be complete on the approaching day when everything in the setting is wiped out.]] For added fun, the author and his buddies loved shared-universe fiction, so this is the future of the above-mentioned Franchise/CthulhuMythos, which is the future of the above-mentioned [[Franchise/ConanTheBarbarian Cimmeria]], so the inhabitants were actually ''lucky'' that they weren't all eaten by {{Eldritch Abomination}}s.

-->"The truth is that something primal has changed during the night. There have been dark negotiations between those we exalt as gods and those we fear as demons. Treaties have been rewritten. Borders have been redrawn. The territories that once belonged to the realm of life now belong on the wrong side of death. For those of us living on Earth its a lot like learning that the government has decided to plow under our homes and neighborhoods using the right of eminent domain, except there's no warning and no appeal and no compensation and no other place to go. Yes. This is unfair. It certainly sucks to be us."

* In ''Literature/TheSunEater'', far in the future humanity has balkanized into various economic consortiums or political groups. The biggest of these is the Sollan Empire - a ChurchMilitant empire where feudal genetically-engineered nobles lord it over their standard human subjects and the Inquisition ferrets out proscribed technology and ideas. Rivalling the Sollan Empire is the [[CommieLand Lothrian Commonwealth]] which is the Soviet Union in Space and seeking to replace humanity with hermaphrodite clones. The third great power is the Extrasolarians, a motley assortment of amoral technologists/scientists who banded together against the Sollan Empire's decree. And for humanity, this is a huge improvement - millenniums ago, over 90% of humanity was conquered by American A.I. overlords and rendered into cancer chunks held in LotusEaterMachines pyramids.

* ''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 ''enjoy'' working for its intelligence apparatus. Authorities routinely use beatings and extrajudicial killings to brutally suppress dissent. 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.
* ''Literature/AFrozenHeart'': In this TieInNovel to Disney's ''WesternAnimation/Frozen2013'', Prince Hans of the Southern Isles comes from a kingdom that has been transformed into a PoliceState by his EvilOverlord of a father, a cruel tyrant who reacts violently when his authoritarian rule is criticized and crushes his subjects with excessively high taxes. It leaves Hans wondering how someone like his father [[TheCaligula "could be so stupid"]] and is one reason why he hates his family. However, if this were Hans's story, he would be TheHero revolting against his abusive family, so his father [[VillainOfAnotherStory ends up being a minor character]] as the majority of ''A Frozen Heart'' focuses on covering the same plot as the original ''Frozen'' movie.

* Most residents of Camorr, a sort of LowFantasy medieval Venice turned UpToEleven in Scott Lynch's ''Literature/TheLiesOfLockeLamora'', would pay good money (doubtless stolen or extorted) to live in a Crapsack World instead. To elaborate, Camorr is a place where children as young as eight are hung for stealing a loaf of bread as a matter of course, slavery is openly practiced, nobles have literally no checks on their power and can do whatever they please, including torturing commoners for their own amusement, and gladiatorial combat between humans and giant octopuses, man-eating sharks and fist-sized wasps are a common and beloved form of entertainment. Characters like Vencarlo Barsavi, Maxilan Stragos and Requin, who would be monstrous {{Big Bad}}s ripe for getting their arses kicked by the heroes in any other 'verse, are here irreproachable pillars of the community and on-and-off allies of the protagonists.

* Somewhat subverted with ''Literature/{{Discworld}}'''s city of Ankh-Morpork. It has all the makings of a Crapsack World and yet, due to the brilliance of the Patrician and the sheer stubbornness of its inhabitants, it is the place where everyone on the Discworld wants to live and always bounces back from whatever crisis it faces. In ''Literature/NightWatchDiscworld'', however, you see just how ''bad'' the city can be without Vetinari.