History Literature / BlackMan

* KickTheSonOfABitch: [[spoiler:When Tom Norton finds out his own brother is behind everything, he stops Carl from killing him, but then confesses that he slept with his wife, and implies he'll continue doing so while his brother is serving his long prison sentence. It works too well as his brother is DrivenToSuicide.]]

* AntiHero: Marsalis flip-flops between Type V and Type IV depending on how personally involved he gets in the matter at hand.

* AdultFear: How would you like your six-months-of-pregnancy unborn child to be removed from your womb and cryogenically frozen until its legal (and genetic) status as a human is ascertained? Those that procreate with human variants are swiftly stripped of human rights to a level comparable to those of the variants themselves.

* MohsScaleOfScienceFictionHardness: Very hard, right on the line between 4.5 (one small fib) and 5 (Mohs/SpeculativeScience). Space travel is highly realistic (no FTL, no unlimited energy, although as the aforementioned fib they do seem to have artificial gravity), no energy weapons exist, most communication and transportation technologies are extrapolations of existing tech and even the genetics are fairly plausible.

* NotSoDifferent:

* {{AI}}: the n-djinns of the Thirteen universe are not [[AIIsACrapshoot defective]] in any way. They are used as spaceship pilots, powerful search engines (so powerful they can link people through many degrees of separation), and can even [[spoiler: map out the spread of a immune system-killing virus]]. Despite their usefulness, they are fundamentally alien and impossible for any human (or variant) to fully understand, despite being created by humanity.
* AndIMustScream

* ThousandYardStare: People marooned in space can get it as part of the PTSD package. People returned to Earth from Mars get it whenever they see any body of water larger than a puddle.

* TakeAThirdOption: a thirteen has two options post-Jacobsen Accords: stay imprisoned on Earth for the rest and know when and where you're going to die, or go to Mars and become a part of the workforce (as well as something of a minor celebrity). Or you can run, in which case you'll have a UN-backed thirteen-hunter (who is probably a thirteen) come after you.

* LighterAndSofter: Than the ''[[Literature/TakeshiKovacs Takeshi Kovacs]]'' novels. It’s still a treasure trove of human brutality, but the protagonists have better goals and (somewhat) cleaner methods, and the world as a whole is a much nicer place to live in.

** Doubles as as FridgeBrilliance for why Marsalis carries less psychological baggage than [[Literature/TakeshiKovacs Kovacs]] or [[Literature/ALandFitForHeroes Ringil]].

* CategoryTraitor: Most of the other thirteens view Marsalis as a traitor for helping the UN hunt down and imprison his own kind.

* TestosteronePoisoning: Comes with the territory with all Thirteens. [[spoiler:Carmen Ren is an attempt to avert the harmful aspects of this trope, by creating a female Variant 13.]]

* CategoryTraitor: Most of the other thirteens view Marsalis as a traitor for hunting his own kind and capturing them for the UN.

** WordOfGod is that the book is set in the aftermath of a series of ill-conceived genetics experiments [[https://web.archive.org/web/20090804051247/http://www.yourmomsbasement.com/archives/2005/08/interview_with_2.html the author compares]] to 20th-century environmental abuse as an examination of "[[InTheblood heredity as destiny]]" and if people can defy their instincts; such topics are irrelevant in the Kovacs universe, where one ''can'' change one's body like clothing -- or refuse to. It can be considered an AlternateUniverse, the divergent point being the discovery of Martians - ''Broken Angels'' explicitly lists the date, and it has already passed in this book's timeline.

** WordOfGod is that ''[[https://web.archive.org/web/20090804051247/http://www.yourmomsbasement.com/archives/2005/08/interview_with_2.html Black Man]]'', being set in the aftermath of a series of ill-conceived genetics experiments comparable to 20th-century environmental abuse, is an examination of "heredity as destiny" and if people can defy their instincts; such topics are irrelevant in the Kovacs universe, where one ''can'' change one's body like clothing -- or refuse to. It can be considered an AlternateUniverse, the divergent point being the discovery of Martians - ''Broken Angels'' explicitly lists the date, and it has already passed in this book's timeline.

** WordOfGod is that ''[[https://web.archive.org/web/20090804051247/http://www.yourmomsbasement.com/archives/2005/08/interview_with_2.html Black Man]]'' -- set in the aftermath of a series of ill-conceived genetics experiments comparable to 20th-century environmental abuse -- is an examination of "heredity as destiny" and if people can defy their instincts; such topics are irrelevant in the Kovacs universe, where one ''can'' change one's body like clothing -- or refuse to. It can be considered an AlternateUniverse, the divergent point being the discovery of Martians - ''Broken Angels'' explicitly lists the date, and it has already passed in this book's timeline.

* BolivianArmyEnding: Debatable; [[spoiler:The book ends with a wounded Marsalis trapped in a house by a dozen gang-bangers. Even if Marsalis kills them all, he's got to get back to civilization to get his wounds treated... but they're a bunch of baselines who are already scared out of their wits, while he's a thirteen with multiple fully-loaded weapons and elite military training]]. The closing quip?

* HalfHumanHybrid: Nothing prevents human variants from breeding with baseline humans. Glossed over until the each of the {{Wham Line}}s happen. It's [[DiscussedTrope pointed out]] that nobody really knows what, if any, modified traits the offspring will inherit since most human variants have only been created in the last few decades.

* {{Jerkass}}: thirteens are Jerkass the Species. Navant, Marsalis, Keegan (the thirteen who extorts Ethan Conrad), and implied with Ethan Conrad. Merrin [[spoiler: and his twin Onbekend]] are outright evil. Everyone thirteen but Isaac Sutherland is an ass, who is never in an actual scene. A [[JerkWithAHeartOfGold heart of gold]] may accompany the jerkass part, but it's rare among them.

* [[spoiler:BolivianArmyEnding]]: Debatable; [[spoiler:The book ends with a wounded Marsalis trapped in a house by a dozen gang-bangers. Even if Marsalis kills them all, he's got to get back to civilization to get his wounds treated... but they're a bunch of baselines who are already scared out of their wits, while he's a thirteen with multiple fully-loaded weapons and elite military training]]. The closing quip?

* [[spoiler:BolivianArmyEnding]]: Debatable; [[spoiler:The book ends with a wounded Marsalis trapped in a house by a dozen gang-bangers. Even if Marsalis kills them all, he's got to get back to civilization to get his wounds treated... but he's a thirteen with multiple fully-loaded weapons and elite military training. They're a bunch of baselines who are already scared out of their wits]]. The closing quip?

-->"Look, the fucking cudlips, they talk such a great fight about equality, democratic accountability, freedom of expression. But what does it come down to in the end? [[spoiler:Ortiz. Norton. Roth]]. Plausible, power-grubbing men and women with a smile for the electors, the common fucking touch, and the same old agenda they've had since they wiped us out the first time around. And every cudlip fucker just lines right up for that shit. ...You know how you breed contemporary humans from a thirteen? You fucking domesticate them. Same thing they did with wolves to make them into dogs. Same thing they did with [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Domesticated_red_fox fox farming in Siberia back in the 1900s.]] You select for fucking ''tameness'', Marsalis. For lack of aggression, and for ''compliance''. Tell you how you get that. How you get a modern human. You get it by taking immature individuals, individuals showing the characteristics of fucking puppies. Area thirteen, man. It's one of the last parts of the human brain to develop, the final stages of human maturity. The part they bred out twenty thousand years ago because it was too dangerous to their fucking crop-growing plans. We aren't the variant, Marsalis-we're the last true humans. It's the cudlips that are the fucking twists. Modern humans are
fucking infantilized adolescent cutoffs. Is it any wonder they do what they're told? They tried to contain us. But we'll beat that.
We will, we're fucking ''wired'' to beat it. We're their last hope, Marsalis. We're what's going to rescue them from the Ortizes and the Nortons and the Roths. We're the only thing that scares those people, because we ''won't comply'', we won't stay infantile and go out and play nice in their plastic fucking world."

** WordOfGod is that ''[[https://web.archive.org/web/20090804051247/http://www.yourmomsbasement.com/archives/2005/08/interview_with_2.html Black Man]]'' -- set in the aftermath of a series of ill-conceived genetics experiments comparable to 20th-century environmental abuse -- is an examination of "heredity as destiny" and if people can defy their instincts; such topics are irrelevant in the Kovacs universe, where it ''is'' change one's body like clothing -- or refuse to. It can be considered an AlternateUniverse, the divergent point being the discovery of Martians - ''Broken Angels'' explicitly lists the date, and it has already passed in this book's timeline.

-->'''Marsalis''': "You don't understand what you're up against. You think because Merrin's killed a couple of dozen people, he's some kind of serial killer writ large? That's not what this is about. Serial killers are ''damaged'' humans. You know this, Sevgi, even if Tom here doesn't. They leave a trail, they leave clues, they get caught. And that's because in the end, consciously or subconsciously, they ''want'' to be caught. Calculated murder is an antisocial act, it's hard for humans to do, and it takes special circumstances at either a personal or a social level to enable the capacity. But that's you people. It's not me, and it's not Merrin, and it's not any variant thirteen. We're not like you. We're the witches. We're the violent exiles, the lone-wolf nomads that you bred out of the race back when growing crops and living in one place got so popular. We don't have, we don't need a social context. You have to understand this: ''there is nothing wrong with Merrin.'' He's not damaged. He's not killing these people as an expression of some childhood psychosis, he's not doing it because he's identified them as some dehumanized, segregated extratribal group. He's just carrying out a plan of action, and he is ''comfortable'' with it. And he won't get caught doing it-unless you can put me next to him."

* YouHaveNoIdeaWhoYoureDealingWith: Explored in the context of true HumanSubspecies; what make the thirteens so awesome and terrifying is that they are not ''super''human but ''other''human. It is ''abnormal'' for baseline humans to be [[TheUnfettered Unfettered]] {{Sociopath}}ic {{Badass}}es, and the process of developing those traits ''damages'' humans in [[ShellShockedVeteran predictable]] ways. Thirteens have those traits from birth, and have to ''learn'' to follow laws, recognize the rights of others, and deal with situations by means other than violence. This makes dealing with them a ''nightmare'' because where damaged humans have [[SanityHasAdvantages diminished capacity]], on-mission thirteens are firing on all cylinders.

* StealthPrequel: For the ''Literature/TakeshiKovacs'' series, even though WordOfGod explicitly says it was not intended as one. Still, much of the backstory fits (right down to the chronology and details of the colonization of Mars, as well as numerous tech-related {{CallForward}}s), and it's stated that [[BodyBackupDrive cortical stacks]] are in the pipeline.

** OTOH, it can be considered an AlternateUniverse, the divergent point being the discovery of Martians - ''Broken Angels'' explicitly lists the date, and it has already passed in this book's timeline.

%%* BolivianArmyEnding

* StealthPrequel: For the ''Literature/TakeshiKovacs'' series, even though WordOfGod explicitly says it was not intended as one. Still, much of the backstory fits (right down to the chronology and details of the colonization of Mars, as well as numerous tech-related {{CallForward}}s), although it can be considered an AlternateUniverse, the divergent point being the discovery of Martians - ''Broken Angels'' explicitly lists the date, and it has already passed in this book's timeline.