History Literature / TheDoomedCity

* [[EverythingsBetterWithMonkeys Everything's Worse with Baboons]]

* GainaxEnding: In the end, [[spoiler:after getting shot by what appears to be his mirror image, Andrei is back in our world's actual reality in Leningrad, in his mother's apartment, shortly before dinner - and apparently he wasn't gone at all, to her.]] That means that [[spoiler: it was either a dream or hallucination during the span of a few minutes, OR an instantaneous trip to a parallel universe OR an example of time travel, having been sent back by the Advisors after the experiment, OR he's still ''in'' the experiment and "actual reality" is only a hallucination, OR... [[{{MindScrew}} seriously, what is going on?]] We are only told, via Andrei's Mentor, that he has passed the "first circle" but that "there are many of them ahead".]]

* ANaziByAnyOtherName: Party of Radical Revival. Later they turned out to be more of WellIntentionedExterist flavour.

* ANaziByAnyOtherName: Party of Radical Revival.

Set in a city where mysterious Mentors run a sociological Experiment. The City is filled with volunteers from various places and times, yet all can effortlessly communicate with each other. Apparently, the experiment runs out of control, the City is shaken by a social unrest and an egalitarian system of job assignments is replaced by a dictatorship. The leader of the new regime sends the main character to explore the bordering desert that limits their expansion. He is told to search for another city that the leader sees as a threat, despite having no evidence it exists. The expedition proves difficult in the extreme. One by one, the members turn back or perish. Only the hero Andrei and his friend remain. They pass the Crystal Palace, a briefly mentioned place that contains everything man desires, but still proceed, pondering their strange world and the meaning of human existence.

* Dismotivation: Chinese caretaker Wang is extremely determined to remain at the lowest possible position of hierarchy, even if it would bean breaking the law. It's implied that he was high-ranking party official in Mao's China, and it didn't end well for him.

* EasilyForgiven: Although more like Easily Forgotten: in just a few years Andrei can't recall who murdered his friend Kensi righ before his eyes.

* WhatHappenedToTheMouse: We never learn the fates of anyone left in the City - it can be assumed that they are perfectly fine and life in the City goes on as it did before, but we don't know for certain. While Andrei thinks about both his wife Selma (and his assistant/secretary Amalia, for that matter) and his friend/boss/commander-in-chief Geiger while the expedition is still going ''comparatively'' well, neither of the two main characters ever brings up any of the others during the entire last act. True, they ''do'' have bigger problems, [[spoiler:such as [[DeathWorld trivial survival]], after the collapse of the entire expedition and the death or disappearance of all other members, along with dealing with the [[RealityIsOutToLunch extremely weird stuff]] close to the "origin of the world"]], but even so, it is jarring that Andrei not even ''once'', not even in a throw-away half-sentence, thinks of his wife, at least.

* ColonelBadass: Col. St.James, even when gravely ill, commands uncontested authority, remains unfazed by starnge happenings and maintains expedition' coherency. Things swiftly went sideways, when he dies.

* InsaneTrollLogic: Much of the City policy before [[spoiler: Geiger's coup]] seems to run this way.

* ReasonableAuthorityFigure: Much to characters' surprise, Geiger ends up establishing not a Nazi dictatorship, but competent and adequate, if authoritarian, government.