Sewer, Gas & Electric: The Public Works Trilogy

Sewer, Gas & Electric: The Public Works Trilogy opens up with a crazy businessman building the tower of Babel in New York City, and a hapeless new hire to the Department of Sewers being eaten by a sewer-dwelling mutant great white shark. It's 2023, and New York is on the brink of a giant earthquake, and that's the least of the city's problems. Penned by Matt Ruff, it's a novel of ecoterrorism, mad AIs, absurdly spacious sewers and an AI construct of Ayn Rand spouting objectivist philosophy and generally having melting down arguments with the rest of the cast.

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Tropes used in Sewer, Gas & Electric: The Public Works Trilogy include:

• Absurdly Spacious Sewer: Under New York City. The sewers even have their own ecosystem.
• A.I. Is a Crapshoot: G. A. S. and the Eye of Africa.
• Best Is Average, Better Is Best: When two employees of Gant have to decide which is the best kind of toothpaste. One of them finds this trope is the solution, which is correct.
• Big Applesauce: A great deal of the book takes place in New York.
• The Croc Is Ticking: Once Meisterbrau swallows a cellphone.
• The Comically Serious: Befitting her philosophy, Artificial Ayn Rand has great difficulties understanding jokes.
• Death by Irony: There are one hundred of them. Orchestrated by the Big Bad.]]
• Everything's Even Worse with Sharks: Mutant sharks especially.
• Eye Scream: The "Shiva's Heat weapon". It consists of a laser, which scans the landscape for reflecting surfaces like binoculars or glasses, and in case of a discovery is tuned to full power to burn out the eyes of anyone in range.
• Flying Seafood Special: Meisterbrau eventually unfolds wings.
• General Ripper: Troubadour Penzias, in an unusually cruel and racist way.
• God Save Us From the Queen: Queen Elizabeth II, still ruling Great Britain in 2023, is moody, arrogant, and tends to poison recalcitrant subordinates.
• Good People Have Good Sex: Lexa Thatcher, Philo Dufresne and Toshiro Goodhead.
• Hidden Depths: Matt Ruff apparently likes to eventually unfold detailed backstories for previously sketchy characters.
• Knock-Knock Joke: Abbie Hoffman has to teach Ayn Rand humor in heaven as punishment for committing suicide. He tries this kind of joke, but Ayn doesn't like to pretend he was knocking a door, because that's unlogical if she can see it!
• Methuselah Syndrome: Kite
• New Meat: Eddie Wilder.
• Multinational Team: The crew of Philo Dufresne's u-boat.
• No Celebrities Were Harmed: Not quite. Queen Elizabeth II. and many other real-life persons that were still alive at the time of the book appear undisguised. Some are not portrayed especially pleasantly, and others are eventually killed off.
• Psycho for Hire: Troubadour Penzias.
• Shark Pool: Meisterbrau is kept in an outside pool by the aquarium employees Frankie and Salvatore. It does not end well.
• Shell-Shocked Veteran: Maxwell and Troubadour Penzias. Both are rather insane, in different ways.
• Take That: Atlas Shrugged is acerbically dissected by Joan.
• Tiny Guy, Huge Girl: Harry Gant's mother is a tall, husky construction forewoman, while his father is a short, rather frail history buff.
• War Is Hell: A recurring theme. Several characters are insane Shell Shocked Veterans, and Kite stopped viewing war as an adventure when the actual killing began.
• Why Am I Ticking?: A subplot involves a greedy capitalist who has been fitted with an explosive collar. It will go off in twenty-four hours, killing him, unless he manages to earn $1000 by begging in Grand Central, and feed all the bills through a shredder attached to the collar. Naturally, people are less likely to give him money when they see what he's doing with it...