← Back to search
Cover of The Troika

The Troika

Stepan Chapman (1997)

SubgenreSpace Opera
Age groupAdult 18+
Content ratingPG-13
Pages (Standard (250-400))
Setting
CSM age16
Goodreads3.67

Content levels

ViolenceModerate
Sexual contentNone
LanguageMild

Trigger warnings

AmnesiaDeathViolenceBody HorrorMental Manipulation

Positive tags

MysterySurvivalSelf-Discovery

Tropes

Post-ApocalypticLost ColonySentient ShipMultiverseTime LoopMorally Gray ProtagonistFound FamilyHostile Planet

Themes

IdentityMemoryExistentialismSurvivalIsolationCyclical TimeReality vs Dream

Synopsis

Beneath the glare of three purple suns, three travelers—an old Mexican woman, an automated jeep, and a brontosaurus—have trudged across a desert for hundreds of years. They do not know if the desert has an end, and if it does, what they might find there. Sometimes they come across perfectly-preserved cities, but without a single inhabitant, and never a drop of rain. Worse still, they have no memory of their lives before the desert. Only at night, in dreams, do they recall fragments of their past identities. But night also brings the madness of the sandstorms, which jolt them out of one body and into another in a game of metaphysical musical chairs. In their disorientation and dysfunction, they have killed each other dozens of times, but they cannot die. Where are they? How can they escape?

Tags

SurrealismLiterary SFExperimental FictionWeird Fiction