MATT RUFF worries, with tongue firmly in cheek, that his writing may be changing reality. There was the scene in his novel "Sewer, Gas, and Electric: The Public Works Trilogy", published in 1998, where a plane crashes into the Empire State Building. After 9/11 his publishers moved swiftly to change the book's cover, which originally featured New York's Twin Towers. The same book insinuated that a Queen Elizabeth in a dystopian alternative reality had her enemies mysteriously eliminated. Mr Ruff wrote and published these passages prior to Princess Diana's death and the subsequent conspiracy theories. In "Mirage", his most recent work, now out in paperback, Mr Ruff managed to prefigure parallels to events in the Arab spring and even predict the end of Osama bin Laden's life with eerily specific accuracy. Your correspondent's neck hairs prickled upon hearing that these details were written between 2007 and 2010.

Mr Ruff is the author of five novels. His books defy classification as science fiction or fantasy, but bookstores tend to shelve them in one or both places. Dog-eared copies also litter the rooms of university students. Mr Ruff's first novel, "Fool on the Hill" (1988), is set at his alma mater, Cornell University, and sees a dragon-type creature battling a group of fairy-like people, egged on by a modern version of a Greek god. It's a romp: silly, frightening and full of detailed characterisations. "Mirage" (2011) tracks a what-if alternative history of America and Europe that sees the western powers devolve into sectarian violence, whereas the Arab countries unite as a modestly democratic United Arab States (UAS), protected by their own Homeland Security. The details echo not a few of the events of the last two years. In a busy coffeeshop in his hometown of Seattle, Mr Ruff recalls the way Egypt erupted the day after he handed in his manuscript. He found himself rushing to meet the deadline, he says, as "the longer I waited, the more likely real history would diverge."

He did not aim to be prophetic. Rather Mr Ruff wished to illustrate some of the hubris of nation building. His book features Saddam Hussein as a criminal mastermind, bin Laden as a UAS senator with dark motives, Qaddafi as a sort of Al Gore who promoted the UAS's internet, and Lyndon Johnson as a UAS-deposed 40-year despot. Dick Cheney, David Koresh, Timothy McVeigh and others also make guest appearances. His writing elegantly oscillates between the light-hearted and the serious, allowing readers to have their cake and eat it, too.