History Literature / GiantsSeries

* AmazingTechnicolorWildlife: JustifiedTrope. The native Minervan land animals had no predators, so they were generally brightly colored; one is described as bright blue with pink stripes. Earth researchers finding a room decorated with them initially thought they had found a nursery with cartoon FunnyAnimals. Deconstructed later; when Earth predators are imported, it's a slaughter that gives Earth prey species enough time to grow their numbers to survive.

* TheCaptain: Garruth. He makes the tough calls, up to and including taking his ship and all of his people away from Earth because he feels it's the right thing to do.

* DoingResearch: The entire plot of the first book - trying to figure out how a 50,000-year-old dead body could be on the Moon by researching the body and the artifacts found on it, and that those facts lead them to.
* EarthShatteringKaboom: The ultimate fate of Minerva, with most of it becoming the asteroid belt and the core becoming Pluto.

* HeelFaceTurn: Verikoff, after being caught, turns against the Jevlenese and helps distract JEVEX enough for VISAR to take control.

* GoodCannotComprehendEvil: The Thuriens truly have no idea what the Jevlenese are up to, and the idea that they might be up to something is completely foreign to them.

* TransplantedHumans: The Lunarians were brought to Minerva, and one chunk of them (the Lambians) became the Jevlenese.

'''The Giants Series''' is a 5-book series by Creator/JamesPHogan. Scientists at a lunar base find a dead body hidden in a cave, only to discover that the body is 50,000 years old. The first book covers the research into where the body came from, and how it got there. Later books cover interactions with an alien species referred to as the Ganymeans (as they were first discovered on a ship that had crashed into Ganymede) and a hidden conspiracy that has controlled much of human history.

* AliensSpeakingEnglish: Averted by the crew of the Shapieron; we get to watch ZORAC learning English. Justified for the Thuriens and Jevlenese, through their monitoring of Earth, but they don't speak English directly - VISAR and JEVEX translate for them.

* BluffingTheMurderer: The Thuriens let the Jevlenese think their destruction of the Shapieron succeeded, giving them enough rope to hang themselves.

* BreakOutTheMuseumPiece: JEVEX is able to prevent VISAR from getting any ships near Jevlen, because it can neutralize any portals VISAR attempts to open. However, the Shapieron predates the portal technology, and is self-powered and self-contained, so it can go in.

* CoolShip: Escalating through the series. ''Inherit the Stars'' has ''Jupiter Five''. ''Gentle Giants'' has the ''Shapieron''. Played with in ''Giants' Star'' with the perceptron, which looks like a standard Boeing 1017 but has the neural links Earth needs to communicate with Thurien.

** Much of the plot of the third book could have been bypassed if the humans hadn't been idiots at the end of the second book. The humans send a message on the path to Gistar, telling them about the ''Shapieron''. They get a response back almost immediately. Then they spend 2 days decrypting it before sending a message to Ganymede that they've gotten a reply. The Shapieron had left 17 minutes before the message arrives at Ganymede, meaning they had 2 days to send a message to Ganymede saying, "Hey, we got a response, when the ''Shapieron'' gets there can you let them know?"

* {{Infodump}}: Oh so many. The first two chapters dump information on the setting, then there's a dump on the Trimagnescope, and it only continues from there.

* OddCouple: Hunt and Danchekker, the brilliant-but-casual iconoclastic researcher and the equally-brilliant but extremely hidebound biologist.

* OmnidisciplinaryScientist: Subverted strongly; while Hunt is knowledgeable in many scientific fields, he generally acts as a conduit between the experts.

* OutrunTheFireball: The Shapieron needs to do this on an interplanetary basis when their test causes the star Iscaris to go nova.

** The Shapieron, alone, against Jevlen.

* MurphysLaw: Discussed. Vic Hunt proposes Hunt's Extension: "Everything that can go wrong, will...unless somebody makes it his business to do something about it."

* BenevolentBoss: Gregg Caldwell.

* DeepCoverAgent: Many of these among the Jevlenese on Earth.

* {{Determinator}}: Koriel. This becomes the [[PlanetOfHats hat]] of humans compared to Ganymeans.

* DoingResearch: The entire plot of the first book.
* EarthShatteringKaboom: The ultimate fate of Minerva.

* TheFinickyOne: Danchekker starts off this way, but mellows a bit over time.

* FlyingCar: Common background elements on Earth.

* HandsomeLech: Niels Sverenssen.

* HigherTechSpecies: Ganymeans, and the Jevlenese they gave technology to.

* HumanityIsInsane: The view of at least some of the Ganymeans and Thuriens.

* {{Infodump}}: Oh so many.

* LotusEaterMachine: VISAR and JEVEX can become this.

* OddCouple: Hunt and Danchekker.

* SetRightWhatOnceWentWrong: The premise of ''Mission To Minerva''.

* VideoPhone: Of course.

* NoSuchThingAsSpaceJesus: Jesus alone of major religious figures is specifically mentioned as not working for the Jevlenese, although they did take over the church afterwards.

* TheGreatPoliticsMessUp: The USSR is still around long after it fell in real life.

->The face leaped out at them from the screen in grotesque close-up, skull-like, the skin shriveled and darkened like ancient parchment, and stretched back over the bones to uncover two rows of grinning teeth. Nothing remained of the eyes but a pair of empty pits, staring sightlessly out through dry, leathery lids.\\
Caldwell's voice, now a chilling whisper, hissed through the fragile air.\\
"You see, gentlemen—Charlie died over fifty thousand years ago!"

* AlienGeometries: The Entoverse. The dimensions and shape of an object are affected by its motion, so (for example) contstrained circular motion is impossible.

'''The Giants Series''' is a 5-book series by Creator/JamesPHogan. Scientists at a lunar base discover a dead body hidden in a cave, only to discover that the body is 50,000 years old. The first book covers the research into where the body came from, and how. Later books cover interactions with an alien species referred to as the Ganymeans (as they were first discovered on a ship that had crashed into Ganymede) and a hidden conspiracy that controlled much of human history.

Because so much of the series revolves around major revelations, marking spoilers below leaves the examples looking like Swiss cheese. For that reason, '''spoilers are unmarked'''.

* AlienGeometries: The Entoverse.

* NamesGivenToComputers: ZORAC, VISAR, and JEVEX all get all-caps names, implying they're acronyms of some sort, but we never find out more. ZORAC may be inspired by Automatic Computer-type names.

* UpliftedAnimal: Downplayed, but all Earth animals brought to Minerva were [[GeneticEngineering genetically engineered]] in a way that accidentally increased intelligence. Including humans.

* ChekhovsGun: The neural links in the percepticon work perfectly for humans. This is a key for helping the Earthlings realize that the Thuriens have worked with humans before.

** The ''Shapieron'' just ''happens'' to slow down enough to shut off their main drive a few months after Earthlings have discovered the crashed ship on Ganymede, instead of at any other time.

* ArtifactTitle: In-universe. The Lunarians are so-called because the first example (Charlie) was found on the moon. The Ganymeans, similarly, were first found on Ganymede. Both of them, arguably, should be called Minervans, for the world they both lived on.

* {{Zeerust}}: Relatively little, but there is some. Early on, a character uses a "briefcase computer" (laptop) to reserve a FlyingCar...by calling up a rental car place with its built-in VideoPhone and talking to the attractive young woman at the other end.

-->The face leaped out at them from the screen in grotesque close-up, skull-like, the skin shriveled and darkened like ancient parchment, and stretched back over the bones to uncover two rows of grinning teeth. Nothing remained of the eyes but a pair of empty pits, staring sightlessly out through dry, leathery lids.\\

* NiceJobBreakingItHero: The Thuriens show up and save the remaining humans, both Cerians and Lambians, after the destruction of Minerva. To keep them separated, the Cerians choose to go to Earth, while the Lambians (the aggressor side of the war) go with the Thuriens. Integrating the Cerians is difficult enough that the Thuriens are too busy to help when Earth captures Luna, causing devastation that regresses the Cerians back to Stone Age levels. [[IdiotBall Then they put the Lambians/Jevlenese in charge of surveillance over their arch-enemies]].

* OrbitalBombardment: The Annihilator base at Seltar was using its radiation projector this to bases on Minerva. It's implied that these hits were part of what led to Minerva's destruction.

* WeWillNotUsePhotoshopInTheFuture: Completely averted. JEVEX creates massive amounts of fake surveillance footage of the false Earth history it's feeding VISAR and the Thurians. VISAR returns the favor with false Earth/Thurien alliance surveillance footage.

* {{Zeerust}}: Relatively little, but there is some. Early on, a character uses a "briefcase computer" (laptop) to reserve a FlyingCar...by calling up a rental car place with its VideoPhone.

* HumansAreBastards: Played with. Initially, it appears that Lunarians (Minervan humans) were even bigger bastards than Earth humans. Then it comes out that we were manipulated into being bastards by the Jevlenese. Then it comes out that the Lambians - ancesters of the Jevlenese - were manipulated into it by time-lost Jevlenese as part of a time loop. ''Then'' it comes out that Jevlenese leadership being bastards is due to being taken over by beings from the Entoverse, ultimately subverting the trope.