History WretchedHive / Literature

* "The Horror at Red Hook" by Creator/HPLovecraft is largely a long rant about how horrible the eponymous part of New York is, with all its degraded foreigners and illegal immigrants. Of course they also have a human-sacrificing {{cult}}, and the climax involves a vision of a FantasyKitchenSink of all possible hellish horrors underground under Red Hook that puts ''Film/{{Fantasia}}'s'' "Night on Bald Mountain" to shame.

%%* ''Literature/{{Nightside}}'': The titular Nightside, and certain neighborhoods within it like Freak Fair, the badlands, and Rats' Alley rate as this even by Nightside standards.

** In her novel ''Operation Time Search'' the city of Atlantis is described like this. It's a NotSoSafeHarbor ruled by evil demon worshipping priests, and TheHero goes to a BadGuyBar for information.

[[quoteright:350:[[Literature/ConanTheBarbarianhttps://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/streets_of_shadizar_color.jpg]]]]

[[quoteright:[[Literature/ConanTheBarbarian 350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/streets_of_shadizar_color.jpg]]]]

%%* Creator/SimonRGreen created at least two of these: Haven in the ''HawkAndFisher'' series, and the eponymous district of ''Literature/{{Nightside}}''.

* Sanctuary, the setting of Robert Asprin's ''Literature/ThievesWorld'' series, embodies this trope. The city of Sanctuary itself is a Wretched Hive (although sufficient wealth or power can get you a modicum of safety and luxury), while the area called The Maze is TheCityNarrows and the tavern called The Vulgar Unicorn is the BadGuyBar.

* ''Literature/TheHitchhikersGuideToTheGalaxy'': Han Dold City in ''Literature/MostlyHarmless'', which seems to be controlled by "police tribes" which lay ambushes for each other, and in which bass players are machine-gunned for playing the wrong riff one too many times.

* Any urban environment in Creator/WilliamGibson's novels counts as this, but particularly the settlements that each of his cyberpunk trilogies are named after: [[Literature/SprawlTrilogy the Sprawl]] -- a continent spanning enclosed megacity; and [[Literature/BridgeTrilogy the Bridge]], a lawless community built on the carcass of a crumbling Golden Gate Bridge. ''Literature/{{Idoru}}''[='=]s 'Walled City', an online community comprised almost entirely of hackers and (modeled after the real life wretched hive, the Kowloon Walled City) might also count, despite being virtual.
%%* Creator/SimonRGreen created at least two of these: Haven in the ''HawkAndFisher'' series, and the eponymous district of ''Literature/{{Nightside}}''.
* Creator/AndreNorton
** The Dipple--a refugee camp featured in several novels, such as ''Literature/{{Catseye|1961}}'' and ''Judgment on Janus''. Its ugliness is thrown into sharp relief by the fact that it is located in Tikil, the only city on the pleasure planet of Korwar.
** In her novel ''Operation Time Search'' the city of Atlantis is described like this. It's a NotSoSafeHarbor ruled by evil demon worshipping priests, and TheHero goes to a BadGuyBar for information.

%%* Parts of Darwin, especially New Town and of Kansas City in John Birmingham's ''Angels of Vengeance''.

* [[https://www.e-reading.club/chapter.php/1003374/63/Adams_John_-_The_Living_Dead.html "Calcutta, Lord of Nerves"]] by Creator/PoppyZBrite. A short story which asks what would happen if you took a real-life wretched hive and added zombies and an animate statue of the destroyer goddess Kali.

* Creator/DanBrown's ''Literature/DigitalFortress'' inexplicably depicts ''[[DanBrowned Seville, Spain]]'' as one of these. Its description was so over the top that [[http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qn4159/is_20050828/ai_n14899886 Seville's local government actually invited Brown to visit the city]] to prove him wrong. Bizarrely, he claims to have done so before writing the book.

* Creator/JohnCWright's ''Literature/TheGoldenOecumene'': In ''The Phoenix Exultant'', Talaimannr is the truly wretched home of everyone whose uncivilized habits make them unfit for society.

* The Proles from ''Literature/NineteenEightyFour'', because the government does not bother to interact with "animals". However, [[BigBrotherIsWatching the bureaucrats and people on the side of order live even more horrible lives]].
** This is at least how Winston and the party members view the Proles, due to party propaganda and the standard class warfare. To the Proles themselves, it's just your standard poor/working-class lifestyle, to the point that an older who remembers life before [=IngSoc=] considers there to be no real difference from his life before the revolution, save for the absence of a few novelties like top hats and coat-tails. And the Proles themselves are the lucky ones; Big Brother doesn't care so much if he doesn't consider you important.

* Before Literature/XandriCorelel was recruited by the ''Carpathia'', she lived in a miserable, crime-ridden slum where she was at a daily risk of being stabbed to death by her drunken neighbor or [[SexSlave recruited]] by the local brothel.

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** Havelock Vetinari seriously cleaned up the city, though, by ''legalizing the Thieves' Guild'' and putting them in charge of regulating the muggings. And the Watch became very efficient later under the influence of Captain Carrot and Samuel Vimes. To the point Ankh-Morpork is in the later books a bustling center of economic activity where, according to ''Discworld/GoingPostal'', "being attacked while going about your lawful business in Ankh-Morpork was now merely a possibility instead of, as it once was, a matter of course." You can still get killed at night just by wandering in the wrong places, but the pragmatic Ankh-Morporkians consider this "[[TheCoronerDothProtestTooMuch suicide]]". And a sure sign of being either a tourist (and thus accidental) or TooDumbToLive since if you're a local you ought to know better.
** Subverted in ''Discworld/FeetOfClay'', which has a bar named "Biers", a bar for supernatural creatures which contains at least a dozen deadly creatures every evening, but which is perfectly safe for a blind old widow named Mrs. Gammage to visit every evening. The creatures even go so far as to act like bar regulars she remembers from before the bar became "Biers", and protect her when she is not in the bar. Don't ask what happened to those poor idiots who robbed her aka committed suicide. It's best we don't ever find any details out. She did get her stuff back, however. And... an apology note.

** In her novel ''Operation Time Search'' the city of Atlantis is described like this. It's a NotSoSafeHarbor ruled by evil demon worshipping priests, and the {{hero}} goes to a BadGuyBar for information.

* ''Literature/BasLagCycle'': New Crobuzon from Creator/ChinaMieville's ''Literature/PerdidoStreetStation'' [[Literature/TheScar and]] [[Literature/IronCouncil sequels]] blows most examples here out of the water in terms of sheer ugliness. It's ruled by vicious capitalists who ignore crime against ordinary citizens, but send death squads to deal with dissenters, essentially ensuring that the city stays a brutal lawless mess forever.

%%* The planet Farius Prime plays this role in the Franchise/StarTrekNovelVerse.

** There's also Asshai-By-The-Shadow, a port city at the edge of the known world where nothing ever grows, the water is toxic, and everything is dark, even during the day. Since no crops grow there and no animals can long survive, anyone actually living there is heavily reliant upon food and drink shipped in from foreign lands, and the place is crawling with every kind of magic-user imaginable. Whatever you do, don't go out at night. Nobody knows for sure what happens and the rumours mushroom with each and every foreign sailor and/or idiot who vanishes, but they won't ever be seen again.

* In Creator/DanAbnett's ''Literature/GauntsGhosts'' novel ''The Armour of Contempt'', the swelter decks. One gambling den there sets out to [[NoHoldsBarredBeatdown beat]] Merrt to death, and when Ludd interrupts, intends to kill him as well. Hark was there to back Ludd up, but as he was in the swelter decks, some soldiers thought they could {{Revenge}} their captain on Hark safely; fortunately for Ludd, he dealt with them quickly enough.
* Han Dold City in Creator/DouglasAdams' ''Literature/MostlyHarmless'', which seems to be controlled by "police tribes" which lay ambushes for each other, and in which bass players are machine-gunned for playing the wrong riff one too many times.
* Sanctuary, the setting of Robert Asprin's ''Literature/ThievesWorld'' series embodies this trope. The city of Sanctuary itself is a Wretched Hive (although sufficient wealth or power can get you a modicum of safety and luxury), while the area called The Maze is TheCityNarrows and the tavern called The Vulgar Unicorn is the BadGuyBar

* In Creator/AngelicaGorodischer's ''Literature/KalpaImperial'', Mesziasdar sees the Font of Five Rivers, an artistic but somehow libertine city, as a wretched hive, so he seizes it and transformes it in a military garrison.
* Creator/SimonRGreen created at least two of these: Haven in the ''HawkAndFisher'' series, and the eponymous district of ''Literature/{{Nightside}}''.
* In William King's ''[[TabletopGame/Warhammer40000 Warhammer 40,000 Space Wolf]]'' novel ''Wolfblade'', the underhive that they raid because of the {{Cult}}. There are dispossessed people down here, and a [[GoodShepherd Brother Malburius]], ministering and acting as TheMedic, but also plentiful horrors.
* Lankhmar of Fritz Leiber's ''Literature/FafhrdAndTheGrayMouser'' series.
* [[Literature/BasLagCycle New Crobuzon]] from Creator/ChinaMieville's ''Literature/PerdidoStreetStation'' [[Literature/TheScar and]] [[Literature/IronCouncil sequels]] blows most examples here out of the water in terms of sheer ugliness. It's ruled by vicious capitalists who ignore crime against ordinary citizens, but send death squads to deal with dissenters, essentially ensuring that the city stays a brutal lawless mess forever.
* Creator/MichaelMoorcock's [[Literature/TheElricSaga Elric]]'s first adventure involved his tracking down his evil cousin Yyrkoon to the "mean nations" of Oin and Yu. Their shared capital city Dhoz-Kam is seedy, filled with corrupt, dirty, disease-ridden lazy people. Their navy consists of a dozen or so filthy, unseaworthy fishing boats. And Elric was once compelled to visit a city called Nadsokor, also known as the "City of Beggars". This city's population consists entirely of those who are physically, mentally, and morally deformed.
* Creator/AndreNorton
** The Dipple--a refugee camp featured in several novels, such as ''Literature/{{Catseye|1961}}'' and ''Judgment on Janus''. Its ugliness is thrown into sharp relief by the fact that it is located in Tikil, the only city on the pleasure planet of Korwar.
** In her novel ''Operation Time Search'' the city of Atlantis is described like this. It's a NotSoSafeHarbor ruled by evil demon worshipping priests, and the {{hero}} goes to a BadGuyBar for information.

* In the ''TabletopGame/MutantChronicles'' novels based on the games, Luna was one big Wretched Hive.
* ''Franchise/ConanTheBarbarian'': The pirate town of Tortage in the Barachan Islands. And throughout almost all ''Conan'' media, Shadizar, otherwise known as Shadizar the Wicked, capital of Zamora, Crossroads of the World.
* Verel in Creator/DavidEddings's ''Literature/TheTamuli''.
* The ''Literature/XWingSeries'' has Gavin Darklighter from Tatooine going to the underlevels of Coruscant and thinking that "if Mos Eisely was considered the armpit of the galaxy, this part of Coruscant could be considered anatomically lower and decidedly less hygienic." A few chapters on, Corran Horn, wandering around and not paying attention to his surroundings like an ''[[TooDumbToLive idiot]]'', finds himself at a very low-level bar. He was a cop, and thinks to himself that his beat on Coronet City had seedy spots, but they appeared positively immaculate and safe compared to here. He'd chased fleeing Selonians through sewers with better atmosphere and more consistent lighting than this bar, the Headquarters.
* Vanity Faire in ''Literature/ThePilgrimsProgress'' is pretty nearly the UrExample.
* In Creator/JohnCWright's ''[[Literature/TheGoldenOecumene The Phoenix Exultant]]'', Talaimannr is the truly wretched home of everyone whose uncivilized habits make them unfit for society.
* Perdido Beach in ''Literature/{{Gone}}'' seems to be turning into this, [[CrapsackWorld and in the FAYZ, it's one of the nicest places to live.]]
* The Proles from ''Literature/NineteenEightyFour'', because the government does not bother to interact with "animals". However, [[BigBrotherIsWatching the bureaucrats and people on the side of order live even more horrible lives]].
** This is at least how Winston and the party members view the Proles, due to party propaganda and the standard class warfare. To the Proles themselves, it's just your standard poor/working-class lifestyle, to the point that an older who remembers life before [=IngSoc=] considers there to be no real difference from his life before the revolution, save for the absence of a few novelties like top hats and coat-tails. And the Proles themselves are the lucky ones; Big Brother doesn't care so much if he doesn't consider you important.
* Lampshaded in C.R. Jahn's ''Underground''. The Twisted Spokes in an "Ultimate Biker Bar" which sells hard drugs and permits duals on premises.
* An interesting variant in the ''Literature/HyperionCantos'': Settlements on [[HeavyWorlder Lusus]] are all underground and called "Hives;" most of them are quite nice. However, there are definitely bad--nay, [[IncrediblyLamePun wretched]]--areas, in which drugs abound and [[BackAlleyDoctor doctors of questionable qualification and dedication to the Hippocratic Oath]] are everywhere.

* The Port in ''Literature/SeptimusHeap'' is described as this.
* Any urban environment in Creator/WilliamGibson's novels counts as this, but particularly the settlements that each of his cyberpunk trilogies are named after: [[Literature/SprawlTrilogy the Sprawl]] -- a continent spanning enclosed megacity; and [[Literature/BridgeTrilogy the Bridge]], a lawless community built on the carcass of a crumbling Golden Gate Bridge. ''Literature/{{Idoru}}''[='=]s 'Walled City', an online community comprised almost entirely of hackers and (modeled after the real life wretched hive, the Kowloon Walled City) might also count, despite being virtual.
* Parts of Darwin, especially New Town and of Kansas City in John Birmingham's ''Angels of Vengeance''
* King's Landing, the capital of the Seven Kingdoms in ''Literature/ASongOfIceAndFire'' is a vice layer cake of a city. Parts of it are pretty on the surface and even escape the smell thanks to careful landscaping, but it is still a ''very'' dangerous and nasty business trying to navigate those corrupt political waters. Other layers are fairly typical for what is the largest city in a country not known for stirling community services or civic pride in general; not safe and quite corrupt, but not unusually so -- but, hey, it boasts sewerage systems (that feed into the bay and still stink to high heaven)! Other districts, like Flea Bottom or the newer parts outside the city walls, live much closer to truth in advertising by wearing their incredibly ad hoc, lawless, dangerous and squalid natures quite openly, thank you very much.
** Lordsport in the [[{{Pirate}} Iron Isles]] has an unsavoury reputation with rumours of foul deeds and vile undertakings. The thing is, it's likely to be subverted a little in this case. It ''is'' still a [[NotSoSafeHarbour waterside port]] in the [[HornyVikings Iron Isles]], so, yes, it's very highly unlikely to be included in the top ten Westerosi safe places to get black-out drunk in if you want to wake up alive. But, what the Ironborn consider truly "vile, underhanded, sinful, godless and lewd" other people would call "upfront trading enterprise using contract law rather than blatant piracy to take you to the cleaners with". Yup: [[DeliberateValuesDissonance different strokes]].
** There's also Asshai-By-The-Shadow, a port city at the edge of the known world where nothing ever grows, the water is toxic, and everything is dark, even during the day. Since no crops grow there and no animals can long survive, anyone actually living there is heavily reliant upon food and drink shipped in from foreign lands, and the place is crawling with every kind of magic-user imaginable. Whatever you do, don't go out at night. Nobody knows for sure what happens and the rumours mushroom with each and every foreign sailor and/or idiot who vanishes, but they won't ever be seen again.

* The entire [[AncientRome Roman Empire]] (with special mention given to the [[ViceCity cities of Rome and Ephesus]]) is portrayed as this in ''Literature/TheMarkOfTheLion'' trilogy—sexual deviance and debauchery are the norm for all social classes, [[AristocratsAreEvil especially the aristocracy]], infidelity, domestic abuse, and divorce are unremarkable, religious intolerance is rampant, murder is easily hushed up, and then there’s the GladiatorGames and the fact that the vast majority of citizens are totally accustomed to the violence, sometimes even bored by it.
* ''Literature/AClockworkOrange'' takes place in one of these, which certainly doesn't bother our SociopathicHero Alex at all, until the police [[NiceJobBreakingItHero try to]] [[RestrainingBolt make it]] [[ColdBloodedTorture better]]...
* If you ever end up on [[Literature/JohnCarterOfMars Barsoom]], avoid the old cities like Torqas and Warhoon (''especially'' Warhoon). They tend to be crawling with either Green Martians, white apes, or both. Phundahl and Toonol are also pretty horrible; the former is filled with religious fanatics, while the latter is populated by the closest Martian equivalent to Objectivists.

* In ''Literature/TheCandlemassRoad'',The Disputed Lands are a lawless place inhabited by reivers and killers.
* The ''Literature/VenusPrime'' series has Labyrinth City on Mars and Shoreless Ocean on Ganymede. The former is a corrupt frontier town being used as a battleground in a war between labor unions, while the latter is a hotbed of racism.
* Tarbean in ''Literature/TheKingkillerChronicle''.

* Ysai, the capital city of the planet Gammu from ''Literature/HereticsOfDune'' definitely counts. Miles Teg notes the development of the city was purposefully directed into something "worse than ugly", and Reverend Mother Lucilla is eventually driven to tears after seeing the corrupt, desperate and dangerously violent state of the city's inhabitants firsthand. Think about that for a moment. The city was so bad it made a ''Reverend Mother'' cry.
* ''Literature/TheReynardCycle'': The Anthill, Calyx's slum quarter, is a perfect example. The Calvarians, Isengrim in particular, tend to view all Southern cities this way.
* Ashland, Kentucky is portrayed as this in the ''Literature/ElementalAssassin'' novels.
* The planet Farius Prime plays this role in the Franchise/StarTrekNovelVerse.
* Cenaria, capital of Cenaria, in ''Literature/TheNightAngelTrilogy''.
* With the story largely focusing on the city's undergound, poor, and criminal elements, Paris in ''Literature/LesMiserables'' gives off this feel.
* Literature/ASymphonyOfEternity has [[HubCity Maramanakama]] that up untill now was a pretty decent place to live, untill the conflict between the Empire and the resistance turned in into [[SceneryGorn Hellhole, courtesy of a massive artificial forest fire, man made earthquake, an intentional volcanic erruption and destruction of it's sanitation system]], that make it live up to its new name.

* In ''Literature/{{Victoria}}'' this is ''every'' city.
* "The Horror at Red Hook" by Creator/HPLovecraft is largely a long rant about how horrible the eponymous part of New York is, with all its degraded foreigners and illegal immigrants. Of course they also have a human-sacrificing {{cult}}, and the climax involves a vision of a FantasyKitchenSink of all possible hellish horrors underground under Red Hook that puts ''Film/{{Fantasia}}'s'' "Night on Bald Mountain" to shame.

* ''Literature/TheDivineComedy'': The lower circles of Hell gradually become less individual and more of a connected society of back-stabbing, lying, and eternally self-destructive shadows of what were men.
** The corrupt politicians send secret signals to tell the others that the demons hunting them are elsewhere, a fact we only learn because one of the politicians offers this information to the demons in exchange for safety.
** The thieves know each other names, form in groups, and refer to each other as comrades, until one of gets turned into a snake. At that point, the still-sentient thief will seek out their friends and attack them, returning to their normal form while reducing their supposed comrade to a snake. The cycle repeats forever.
** Dante can't even talk to the inhabitants of the tenth ''bolgia'', designated for pure falsifiers, because they're too busy running from, fighting with, or screaming at each other. The poem's MentorArchetype has to order Dante to leave, lest the infernal society take some hold in his mind.
** The core of Hell is occupied by Satan, whose giant mouths make him most qualified to communicate. But by his sin, his faculty to communicate has been turned only to destroy others, and so Satan's mouths serve as meatgrinders reducing Judas and two other traitors to blood.
* In ''Literature/TheAngaranChronicles'' the underground city of Valtagan and capital of Hamar in the novella ''[[https://www.wattpad.com/story/123095410-the-angaran-chronicles-hamar-noir/ Hamar Noir]]'' is this. The main character Anargrin being accosted by criminals quite quickly as he investigates the streets.

* King's Landing, the capital of the Seven Kingdoms in ''Literature/ASongOfIceAndFire'' is a vice layer cake of a city. Parts of it are pretty on the surface, but it is still a ''very'' dangerous and nasty business trying to navigate those corrupt political waters. Other layers are fairly typical for what is the largest city in a country not known for sirling community services in general; not safe and quite corrupt, but not unusually so. Other districts, like Flea Bottom, live much closer to truth in advertising by wearing their incredibly dangerous and squalid natures quite openly, thank you very much.

* King's Landing, the capital of the Seven Kingdoms in ''Literature/ASongOfIceAndFire''. Parts of it are very pretty on the surface, but it is still a ''very'' dangerous and nasty business trying to navigate those corrupt political waters. Other parts live much closer to truth in advertising by wearing their dangerous and squalid natures quite openly.

** Lordsport in the [[{{Pirate}} Iron Isles]] has an unsavoury reputation with rumours of foul deeds and vile actions. The thing is, it's likely to be subverted a little in this case. It is a waterside port in the [[HornyVikings Iron Isles]], so, yes, it's highly unlikely to be included in the top ten Westerosi safe places to get drunk in. But, what the Ironborn consider "vile, underhanded, sinful, godless and lewd" other people would call "upfront trading enterprise using contract law rather than piracy". Yup: [[DeliberateValuesDissonance different strokes]].

* ''Calcutta, Lord of Nerves''. A short story in which the author asks what would happen if you took a real-life wretched hive and added zombies and an animate statue of the destroyer goddess Kali.

* Literature/ASymphonyOfEternity has [[HubCity Maramanakama]] that up untill now was a pretty decent place to live, untill the conflict between the Empire and the resistance turned in into [[SceneryGorn Hellhole, courtesy of a massive artificial forest fire, man made earthquake, an intentional volcanic erruption and destruction of it's sanitation system]],[[{{Understatement}} that makes it a not so pleasent place to live anymore.]]

** Lordsport in the Iron Isles has an unsavoury reputation with rumours of foul deeds and vile actions. The thing is, it's likely to be subverted a little in this case. It is a waterside port in the [[HornyVikings Iron Isles]], so, yes, it's highly unlikely to be the safest place to get drunk in. But, what the Ironborn consider "vile, underhanded, sinful business" other people would call "honest, upfront trade using contract law".

* King's Landing, the capital of the Seven Kingdoms in ''Literature/ASongOfIceAndFire''.
** There's also Asshai-By-The-Shadow, a port city at the edge of the known world where nothing ever grows, the water is toxic, and everything is dark, even during the day. Since no crops grow there and no animals can long survive, anyone actually living there is heavily reliant upon food and drink shipped in from foreign lands, and the place is crawling with every kind of magic-user imaginable.

* Dead Donkey, Nevada, from ''Literature/YouAreDeadSignHerePlease''. The main municipal pasttimes are arson and Muleball, a sport [[NonIndicativeName have nothing to do with mules or balls]] but that consists of people beating each other up on the street and stealing each other's valuables. The main income is from tourism, which is to say, the city offers free trips there for the gullible and then charges them outrageous fees for the trip back home.

* Sanctuary, the setting of Robert Asprin's ''ThievesWorld'' series embodies this trope. The city of Sanctuary itself is a Wretched Hive (although sufficient wealth or power can get you a modicum of safety and luxury), while the area called The Maze is TheCityNarrows and the tavern called The Vulgar Unicorn is the BadGuyBar

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* In William King's ''[[TabletopGame/{{Warhammer 40000}} Warhammer 40,000 Space Wolf]]'' novel ''Wolfblade'', the underhive that they raid because of the {{Cult}}. There are dispossessed people down here, and a [[GoodShepherd Brother Malburius]], ministering and acting as TheMedic, but also plentiful horrors.

* [[Literature/BasLagCycle New Crobuzon]] from Creator/ChinaMieville's ''PerdidoStreetStation'' [[Literature/TheScar and]] [[Literature/IronCouncil sequels]] blows most examples here out of the water in terms of sheer ugliness. It's ruled by vicious capitalists who ignore crime against ordinary citizens, but send death squads to deal with dissenters, essentially ensuring that the city stays a brutal lawless mess forever.