History Literature / TowerAndTheHive

%%* DemotedToExtra: Damia's older siblings.

* FlightStrengthHeart: Several Talents have been shown to have unique abilities in addition to the standard telepathy and/or telekinesis: Damia has her Super Empowering ability. The Rowan's twin subordinates, Mick and Mawi, have a lesser version that when in a merge together. Afra... Can tell when a woman is pregnant and identify the child's sex, even before the woman can even tell herself.

* ''The Rowan'': The story of The Rowan, an orphaned Prime Talent, as she deals with life, loneliness and a possible alien invasion.
* ''Damia'': ''The Rowan'''s sequel is part straight sequel, part-POVSequel and part backstory for Afra Lyon, a secondary character from the previous book. The book is mostly about the relationship between Afra and the most important women in his life (his beloved older sister, The Rowan and The Rowan's middle child, Damia). And another alien invasion.
* ''Damia's Children'' and ''Lyon's Pride'' stars [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin Damia and Afra's kids]] who work with humanity's new alien allies, the Mrdini, to deal with the threat of the Hivers - the insectoid race responsible for the attacks in ''The Rowan''.
* ''The Tower and The Hive'': The wrap-up to the threat of the Hivers (and probably the series itself after [=McCaffrey's=] death).

* SuperpowerfulGenetics: As Talents began producing offspring together, more and stronger Talents came forth.
** This becomes a case of controversy in the final books, as it's pointed out that this means the Gwyn-Raven-Lyon clan essentially owns the FT&T organization because 90% of all Prime Talents are related to that family. It's treated as a big deal that one of the neophyte Primes from ''The Tower And The Hive'' ''isn't'' part of that family (She's David of Betelgeuse's granddaughter). However, it's also evident that, prior to Jeff Raven's and the Rowan's rise to prominence, many Prime talents, such as Siglen and Capella, deliberately isolated themselves from social interaction to a great degree, and the comparative lack of Prime-level talent at the beginning of ''The Rowan'' was due to the fact that high-level talents simply weren't having children (with the Reidenger family as the notable exception). It should also be pointed out that while it's controversial, the lack of Primes means that it's not like the Gwyn-Raven-Lyon clan beat out the competition- there just ''isn't'' any, and the need for Primes far outstrips the numbers.

* CoolPet: The Barque Cats and the Coonies (genetically altered and domesticated raccoons).
** As the Coonies were at times referred to as "Coonie cats", and [=McCaffrey=] was known to have owned several Maine Coon cats over the course of her life, many fans believe that Main Coons were at least a partial basis for the Coonies (despite the cover artist for ''Damia'' taking "coonie" at face value and placing a raccoon with the title character).

* SkunkStripe: Most of Raven and Rowan's children and grandchildren have them.

* TelepathicSpacemen: The ''Rowan'' series has psychics as not only the means of communication between colonized star systems, but also the means of transportation (via psychokinetic [[{{Teleportation}} teleport]]) that makes such colonies possible to begin with. From the point of view of the Mrdini, who have no psychics of their own, ''humans'' are the telepathic spacemen.
* {{Teleportation}}: One of the psychic abilities featured in the series. The basis of the humans' interstellar civilization is high-powered psychics teleporting objects, included spacecraft, across immense distances.

* AliensMadeThemDoIt: Laria and Kincaid hooking up due to their Mrdini companions "encouraging" it.

* CleaningUpRomanticLooseEnds: Every important character must be attached by the end of ''The Tower And The Hive'', even if the Mrdini have to [[AliensMadeThemDoIt rewrite]] [[IfItsYouItsOkay someone's sexuality]] to make it happen. No exceptions.

* DaChief: Peter Reidinger.

* DemotedToExtra: Damia's older siblings.

* IfItsYouItsOkay: Gay Kincaid sleeping with his straight best friend, Laria, because they were both lonely and hurting over bad breakups. Turns out their Mrdini companions mentally "[[AliensMadeThemDoIt nudged]]" them towards each other. They didn't really mind.

* TalkingInYourDreams: The Mrdini have a limited ability to manipulate human dreams. This works out quite well for first contact betweeen humanity and Mrdini: they're able to communicate through dreams until they learn enough of each other's language to do so verbally.

* SacrificialLion: In ''Damia'', Larak Gwyn-Raven (younger brother and closest relative of the title character) dies when he absorbs the brunt of a psychic attack meant for another. A good amount of the book is spent establishing that Larak his coming into his own as an adult, contrasting the conflicted, unsatisfied life of his sister.

* TheAce: Jeff Raven. A "Wild Talent" from a boondocks colony no one had ever heard of until aliens attacked it, he first shows up as a mental presence in the middle of ''The Rowan''. By the end of the book, not only are he and the title character a couple (with a child), he's on the fast track to take over as head of Federated Teleport & Telepath - a position The Rowan had been considered for.

** Similarly, ''Damia'' made a point of speculating on the effects of the anti-hiver mega-merge on The Rowan's second child, Cera (in-utero at the time) and the subsequent attempt to bond her to her older brother, Jeran, to try and stablize her. Unlike their younger siblings, Daria and Larak, that bond was never portrayed, in-story. And outside of a throwaway line about Cera having "odd notions", nothing came of the "possible effects" angle.

* CleaningUpRomanticLooseEnds: Every important character must be attached by the end of ''The Tower And The Hive'', even if the Mrdini have to [[AliensMadeThemDoIt rewrite]] [[IfItsYouItsOkay someone's]] [[SuddenlySexuality sexuality]] to make it happen. No exceptions.

* SuddenlySexuality: The previously, explicitly gay Kincaid becoming a couple with his female best friend, Laria.

* LamarckWasRight: The Rowan's hair turned white because of trauma, and her descendants' white streaks are a family trait.

* TheJailBaitWait: Afra and Damia. Afra was waiting not for Damia's legal status, but for her to see him as something more than "Good ol' Afra; Mom's best friend."

* NoConservationOfEnergy: Averted - the Talents explicitly tap external power sources for anything more than floating things across the room.

* TheImmodestOrgasm: A telepathic variant. The Rowan and her lover, Jeff Raven, are having "a late breakfast" in her quarters. Then Afra, her second-in-command, discreetly informs her that she's "[[ForgotAboutTheMindReader broadcasting]]".

* DeadGuyJunior: [[spoiler:Laria.]]

* DeadGuyJunior: At the end of Damia, she asks Afra if they can name their first daughter Laria after her late brother Larak.

* AbortedArc: Zara's mental connection with the captive Hiver queen at the end of ''Damia's Children''. It looked to be forshadowing Zara's part in the ultimate endgame, but was pretty much shrugged off with "No one knows how she did it, not even Zara," and she was eventually PutOnABus (shipped off to train as a medical Prime).

* ItsAllAboutMe: Siglen.

* SuperpowerfulGenetics: As Talents began producing offspring together, more and more powerful Talents came forth.

* LovableAlphaBitch: The Rowan is undisputably a good person, but she's very aware of her exalted status as a Prime (and one of the strongest, before Jeff Raven enters the picture), has poor social skills due to being raised in-house at FT&T and trained by Siglen, and is prone to temper tantrums. She mellows out a bit after meeting Afra, then getting married to Jeff Raven, but she's still a bit of a prima donna. FT&T takes advantage of this when a diplomatic incident breaks out and they need to send someone to indicate their displeasure; Rowan is very intimidating, even to the Mrdini.