In an interview, Jeter stated that he originally intended Farewell Horizontal to be the first of a trilogy, and that he used some of the material for the planned sequel in his 1991 novel Madlands.

[4] The novel takes place inside and on the exterior of a megastructural cylindrical building called Cylinder, which one character says "violates at least a dozen laws of physics."

[5] The novel begins with Ny Axxter, a "graffex" (graphic designer) on the exterior surface of the building trying to make a living as a freelancer, selling content to Ask & Receive, an information repository and apparent monopoly.

Axxter hatches a plan to travel through the center of the building back home, and to report on his odyssey as a form of entertainment for residents of Cylinder.

Axxter learns that the destruction of the site that he discovered at the start of the novel was not done by the Dead Centers, but instead by a collaboration between the two most powerful warrior tribes on the building, enabled by doctored information from Ask & Receive.