Quote:
Originally Posted by Belfaborac
I guess I just have to accept that what I requested simply doesn't exist, but at least you have made my already far too lengthy TBR list even longer.
|
I think it exists, only you're going to have to go a lot closer to the edges overlapping horror or science fiction to get it, probably because sf is a lot more accepting of non-overturned dystopias and horror is, well, horror.
Anyway, I did recently finish a George Alec Effinger book which I think came very close to being an sfnal take on the 2nd of your requirements, which is probably the harder to ultimately fulfill.
Sandor Courane, the protagonist of the stories collected in
A Thousand Deaths, is based upon this one gimmick idea: no matter what happens in the story, he always dies. No last minute rescues, no deus ex machina saves, he lives and dies separately for every story and that way the author gets to play out whatever scenario he likes whether it ends up being a "win", "loss", or "WTF just happened?!" from the view of the character.
The first story in which Courane appears is a novel-length serious sf work (some of the later stories get progressively more meta and spoofier) which combines the classic basic plots of man vs himself, man vs the world, and man vs the machine all into one nicely assembled package which is gradually opened up as Sandor has to put together the pieces of what really happened to him and his world and find out what, if anything he can do about it.
Since you were specifically asking for "non-heroic" books I will tell you straight off that no matter how it may look like it's going at points, the endgame is definitely tilted in favour of the opposing force. Not to mention, the "hero" dies in the end and the expected heroic sacrifice does not exactly have the effect intended by said hero.
Anyway, if you think you might be interested, it's available
DRM-free MultiFormat from Fictionwise, though I would advise waiting for one of the 50%+ weekend discount coupons regularly posted in the Deals forum, as there are a few minor typos and some apparently missing linespaces which would naturally divide section breaks. This doesn't render the book unreadable as the storyline can be easily followed even with the run-on scenes, but it's something that one really shouldn't pay the list cost the re-publisher has set it at when they could have done a somewhat better job with the conversion considering the regular asking price.
And don't read the Mike Resnick introduction until you've finished at least the first novel and the two or so stories immediately after it, because his commentary is thoroughly spoilertastic.
Resnick, by the way, has an sf novel that IIRC almost fits your scenario, with a guy who goes around arranging disasters and committing genocide because all that death brings him closer to some vision of his ideal anthropomorphic personification or something. I forget exactly what happens in that, though, but you might want to look up reviews for
The Dark Lady (which Resnick
sells directly off his website) to see if it's the kind of thing you think you might want to try. ISTR that the people trying to stop the guy don't quite succeed and he manages to get at least part of whatever he ultimately wanted. But I don't recall him being a primary viewpoint character.