Books › The Electric State
The Electric State
144 pages
A haunting, visually arresting road trip through the rusted, VR-addicted ruins of an alternate 1990s America.
What it feels like
Reading this book feels like driving down a foggy, abandoned highway at twilight, surrounded by the colossal, rusting ghosts of a future that never happened. It is a deeply atmospheric, multimedia experience where sparse, clinical prose works in tandem with breathtaking, hyper-realistic artwork to build a world of profound isolation. The narrative moves at a steady, deliberate pace, inviting you to linger on the eerie details of a society that simply plugged into virtual reality and wasted away. There is a pervasive, quiet melancholy that seeps into your bones as the journey progresses westward. It will deeply resonate with readers who are drawn to liminal spaces, retro-futuristic aesthetics, and stories about the hollow, lonely aftermath of consumerist collapse.
- Mood
- eerie
- desolate
- retro-futuristic
- lonely
- atmospheric
- Tone
- melancholic
- detached
- haunting
- bleak
- Pace
- steady
- Themes
- technological alienation · societal collapse · the death of the American Dream · isolation · consumerist decay
- The writing
- Sparse, clinical, and quietly devastating, acting as a stark, grounded anchor to the lush, hyper-detailed visual artwork.
- The arc
- Begins with a quiet, lonely determination and descends into a surreal, unsettling grief as the true scale of the world's emptiness is revealed.
- Who it's for
- Readers who love liminal spaces, retro-futurism, and quiet apocalyptic narratives where the atmosphere speaks louder than the dialogue.
Content notes
- societal collapse
- virtual reality addiction
- gun violence
- child abandonment
- grief
About the book
"A teen girl and her robot embark on a cross-country mission in this illustrated science fiction story, perfect for fans of Ready Player One and Black Mirror. In late 1997, a runaway teenager and her small yellow toy robot travel west through a strange American landscape where the ruins of gigantic battle drones litter the countryside, along with the discarded trash of a high-tech consumerist society addicted to a virtual-reality system. As they approach the edge of the continent, the world outside the car window seems to unravel at an ever faster pace, as if somewhere beyond the horizon, the hollow core of civilization has finally caved in"--
Description from Open Library.
Books like The Electric State
See why they match
Sea of RustC. Robert CargillA gritty, dust-choked robot western that explores the heavy burden of a soul in a world where humanity is already extinct.
Ready Player OneErnest ClineA high-octane, nostalgia-fueled treasure hunt through a sprawling digital universe.
On a sunbeamTillie WaldenA breathtakingly gorgeous, slow-burn journey through space that feels like a warm hug from a found family.
The PeripheralWilliam GibsonA gritty, mind-bending plunge into a rusted-out future where virtual gig work bleeds into high-stakes, cross-temporal murder.
Waking GodsSylvain NeuvelA breathless, documentary-style thriller where the awe of discovery rapidly curdles into apocalyptic dread.
Void StarZachary MasonA tense, cerebral plunge into a flooded, drone-patrolled future where memory is a commodity and artificial intelligence borders on the incomprehensible.