Fiction Chronicle.

PLAYER ONE What Is to Become of Us. By Douglas Coupland. Anansi, paper, $15.95. Where will you be when the apocalypse drops? For the anguished strangers in this novel by the author of ''Generation X,'' the answer is the cocktail lounge of an airport hotel in Toronto. Karen, a lovelorn divorced mother, is here to meet a man from her online discussion group about peak oil. Rick, the bartender, is a recovering alcoholic who intends to give his life savings to a self-help guru. Luke, a pastor experiencing a crisis of faith, is on the run after stealing from his church. And Rachel, a ''cool Hitchcock blonde'' whose brain isn't wired to understand ''humor, beauty, voice inflection, musicality, irony, sarcasm and metaphor,'' is here because her father called her a robot and she wants to prove him wrong by finding a mate and having a baby. When the price of oil quickly and inexplicably rises, a public panic ensues, chemical explosions go off and the characters are cut off from the outside world. What is to become of them and humanity in general? Coupland warns that Rachel and her personality deficiencies portend our future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]