[orlok]

Probably got enough to be getting on with now, but I thought I'd mention J.G. Ballard. Pretty much everything he wrote (perhaps with the exception of Empire of the Sun, though this has its bleak moments too) was dark and depressing.

Particularly Crash:

When Ballard, our narrator, smashes his car into another and watches a man die in front of him, his sense of sexual possibilities in the world around him becomes detached. As he begins an affair with the dead man's wife, he finds himself drawn with increasing intensity to the mangled impacts of car crashes.

And The Drowned World:

In this future our old world has been gradually drowned as global warming melts the ice-caps and primordial jungles and swamps have returned to tropical London, recreating the ancient ecology of the Triassic age.

And Concrete Island:

An architect is driving home from his London offices when a blow-out sends his speeding Jaguar hurtling out of control. Smashing through a temporary barrier he finds himself, dazed and disorientated, on a traffic island below three converging motorways. But when he tries to climb the embankment or flag-down a passing car for help it proves impossible - and he finds himself marooned on the concrete island. In this twisted version of Robinson Crusoe, our hero must learn to survive - using only what he can find in his crashed car.

And lastly The Crystal World:

Through a ‘leaking’ of time, the West African jungle starts to crystallize. Trees metamorphose into enormous jewels. Crocodiles encased in second glittering skins lurch down the river. Pythons with huge blind gemstone eyes rear in heraldic poses. Most flee the area in terror, afraid to face a catastrophe they cannot understand.

All beautifully depressing...