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These books are ranked using the setting labels extracted for The Infernal Desire Machines of Doctor Hoffman.
Setting labels used: unnamed South American city, unnamed South American country, dreamlike reality, alternative reality, war-torn city
This does not mean the books share the same plot, setting, quality, or difficulty. It means their setting embeddings are close.
A retired inspector investigates a vanished office worker and is drawn into an uncanny South American world where reality frays.
Why this is here
Setting labels: South American summer · unnamed South American country · unnamed South American city · rainforest interior · urban-to-jungle progression · corporate workplace · natural world
Semantic match: ranked by setting
Distance: 0.1771
A near-future refugee tale follows an American exile navigating unnamed countries, political factions, and unstable identity.
Why this is here
Setting labels: near future · unnamed country · multiple unnamed countries · foreign land · immigrant enclave · migrant encampment · post-civil-war America · post-collapse society · unnamed city
Semantic match: ranked by setting
Distance: 0.1879
In a collapsing city, an unnamed woman shelters a girl and survives by watching both the streets and a strange world beyond her walls.
Why this is here
Setting labels: unnamed city · near future · post collapse · urban ruin · apartment block · parallel world · interior world · unnamed country
Semantic match: ranked by setting
Distance: 0.2004
A young woman writes from a collapsing city while scavenging to survive and searching for her missing brother.
Why this is here
Setting labels: unnamed city · unnamed country · post-collapse urban setting · resource scarcity · harsh winter · unstable government · anonymous future
Semantic match: ranked by setting
Distance: 0.2058
A grieving mother crosses a violent borderland to bury her children and becomes entangled in a fight over an illegal cemetery.
Why this is here
Setting labels: unnamed Latin American country · border town · frontier land · borderland · dreamlike purgatory · dystopian world · arid landscape · rural town · illegal cemetery
Semantic match: ranked by setting
Distance: 0.2089
A street preacher faces chaos, prophecy, and reality-bending forces in a sprawling, metafictional urban saga.
Why this is here
Setting labels: unnamed city · urban neighborhood · poor neighborhood · isolated community · mental hospital · religious community · contemporary setting · alternate reality · time-bending reality · dimension-crossing reality · rural-carnival imagery
Semantic match: ranked by setting
Distance: 0.2108
A secret affair becomes public in a strange city where adulterous couples can live openly, until paradise starts to crack.
Why this is here
Setting labels: unnamed city · alternate reality · liminal space · dreamscape · faux-utopia · secret city · hotel rooms · real world · surreal city · claustrophobic setting
Semantic match: ranked by setting
Distance: 0.2147
A war-displaced family is moved to a transparent city where safety, comfort, and happiness come with total loss of privacy.
Why this is here
Setting labels: unnamed war zone · rural comarca · transparent city · glass city · postwar society · dystopian future · surreal reality · utopian facade · seemingly safe refuge
Semantic match: ranked by setting
Distance: 0.2154
A scientist tests a women-only drug, but one volunteer draws him into a destabilizing triangle with his artist wife.
Why this is here
Setting labels: Colombia · unnamed city · lab setting · urban dystopia · near-future · alternate reality · slightly distopic present · class-divided city · art world · pharmaceutical milieu · decaying modernity · global south
Semantic match: ranked by setting
Distance: 0.2170
After a family tragedy leaves a teen girl alone in an ash-covered world, she must survive grief and rediscover hope.
Why this is here
Setting labels: unnamed town · unnamed city · country setting · post-disaster landscape · ash-covered world · lawless setting
Semantic match: ranked by setting
Distance: 0.2208
In a post-uprising Middle Eastern city, citizens wait in an endless line for a state gate that never opens.
Why this is here
Setting labels: unnamed Middle Eastern city · unnamed Arab country · Egypt-coded setting · post-Arab Spring · post-uprising · authoritarian state · surreal realist setting
Semantic match: ranked by setting
Distance: 0.2244
A troubled waitress in a near-future city of bombs and activism is pulled toward choices between escape, resistance, and collapse.
Why this is here
Setting labels: near future · alternate present · alternate reality · post-industrial city · urban decay · war-torn America · apocalyptic atmosphere
Semantic match: ranked by setting
Distance: 0.2337
