History Literature / Helm

!!''Literature/{{Helm}} provides examples of:''

* BornInTheSaddle: The Rootless clans.

* HeroicSacrifice: [[spoiler:Ricard de Laal]].

* UpgradeArtifact: The Helm. Unusually, it does ''not'' induce {{Instant Expert}}ise.
* WritersCannotDoMath: Two errors in the calculation of ages, and a third possible in the calculation of mass:
** Marilyn de Noram is first described, through Leland's eyes, as a young woman who "couldn't have been much older than Leland" (two years older, it is later revealed). Later, Dulan de Laal says that Dillan de Laal is "fifteen years older" than Marilyn. In the family tree at the beginning of the book, Leland is 17 and Dillan is 27.
** At another point, it is said that when Dulan was 25, Dillan was 2 and Dexter "a slight swelling in his mother's figure". Dillan is in fact listed as three years older than Dexter (27 and 24), but Dulan is listed as 52.
** The Floating Stone at Laal Station is described as "a single piece of granite carved in the shape of a half cylinder" four meters high and five meters in diameter, and is stated to weigh thirty-seven metric tons. A solid granite half-cylinder of those dimensions would have a volume of thirty-nine cubic meters and weigh over one hundred metric tons. That said, the text does not strictly specify that the cylinder is solid -- and a half-cylindrical granite shell fifty centimeters thick would have the specified mass.

[[TimeSkip Generations later]], the story resumes on the now-terraformed planet with Leland de Laal, the youngest son (at just under seventeen) of the high steward of the prosperous house of Laal, defying the proclamation of his father to climb a granite pillar to reach the legendary Helm that sits atop it -- a choice which will thrust him into the midst of machinations far beyond his prior imaginings.

* PregnantHostage: The post-climactic confrontation involves the desperate son of the villain choosing a pregnant girl from among 20 hostages and holding a dagger to her throat. But she's ''very'' pregnant--so much so that her water breaks during the showdown, startling the bad guy into a human reaction that momentarily shakes up his screw-em-all villainy.

* ApocalypseHow: On a planetary scale on Earth, somewhere just shy of total extinction, due to antimatter bombs dropped during a war.

Written by Steven Gould, the author better known for writing the book ''Literature/{{Jumper}}''. Falls in the Mohs/SpeculativeScience class on the MohsScaleOfScienceFictionHardness.

* OutGambitted: [[spoiler:Arthur de Noram]], trying to scheme with [[spoiler:Siegfried Montrose]].

* WritersCannotDoMath: Two errors in the calculation of ages:

** At another point, it is said that when Dulan was 25, Dillan was 2 and Dexter "a slight swelling in his mother's figure". Dillan is in fact listed as three years older than Dexter (27 and 24), but Dulan is listed as 52.

Written by Steven Gould, the author better known for writing the book ''{{Jumper}}''. Falls in the Mohs/SpeculativeScience class on the MohsScaleOfScienceFictionHardness.

* ApocalypseHow: On a planetary scale on Earth, somewhere just shy of total extinction.

** First, on Earth, the impetus for the war was the use of imprinters to force religious conversions.

** Third, [[spoiler:the use of the Helm, which was the last of the surviving imprinters, by Sigfried of Cotswold after capturing Laal Station to convert key persons into traitors for his side.]]

** Marilyn de Noram is first described, through Leland's eyes, as a young woman who "couldn't have been much older than Leland". Later, Dulan de Laal says that Dillan de Laal is "fifteen years older" than Marilyn. In the family tree at the beginning of the book, Leland is 17 and Dillan is 27.

Written by Steven Gould. Falls in the Mohs/SpeculativeScience class on the MohsScaleOfScienceFictionHardness.

* TrainingFromHell: Dulan de Laal subjects his son Leland to this after Leland wears the Helm.

* {{Bookends}}

* ChekhovsGun: The nook in Laal's library.

* {{Terraform}}: Epsilon Erdani II -- Agatsu -- is terraformed prior to the colony's landing.

* SpaceStation: The moon base, designed for six hundred, holding -- prior to the colony's departure -- seven thousand.

Falls in the Mohs/SpeculativeScience class on the MohsScaleOfScienceFictionHardness.

!!Literature/{{Helm}} provides examples of:

'''Malcolm''' [''smiling'']: Maybe he knows more about fighting than you think.