Literature / City of No End

"Into the Cloud, may our consciousness Ascend."

City of No End is a 2024 Science Fiction novel by Nathan Karnes and the first of a planned series. Set millions of years into a Feudal Future, in the ruins of a endless city that was once so advanced that mankind lost control of its technology, the book follows the schemes and ambitions of six noble houses who are trying to control the election of a new Receiver — an Elective Monarchy which is the only institution that has succeeded at maintaining at least some peace among the squabbling remnants of humanity.

The six Great Houses are:

• House Norn, the house of the most recent Receiver. They rule the Depths below the crust of the City, living in massive fortresses amidst vast caverns. They maintain the hydraulic systems that facilitate transportation and keep everyone alive and oppose the Ascensionist religion of the surface peoples in favor of traditional hydraulic shamanism. However, Aldrich Norn, heir to the Seer's Throne, has recently converted to Ascensionism, alarming his family...
• House Kendar, who rules the vast and imposing arcologies of Hab Spire Rise, the only part of the City known to be both well-lit and well-fed. They have the most powerful army and are known for brutal aggression against the Norns... but recently, a feud has broken out between Lord Odham Kendar and his idealistic heir apparent.
• House Leibowitz, who rules the protruding shard known as Dorith's End, a section of broken infrastructure that juts into the howling winds of a malfunctioning gravitational field. Dorith's End is the holy land of Ascensionism, an ascetic religion that commands that humanity restrict its material pleasures in favor of ensuring that every human mind has the chance of salvation through Brain Uploading. Lord Setheus, the head of House Leibowitz, is also the head of the Ascensionist Church, leading many to wonder: is this a corrupt union of faith and power, or is he the only leader with the interests of all humanity at heart?
• House Djevak, who rules the toxic land of Mold Marsh, a region afflicted by chemical spills and fungal infestations so potent that only highly evolved mutants can venture outside without protection. From their hidden lair in the uncharted mists of the Marsh, House Djevak has built a reputation for espionage and blackmail, and their hidden hand is suspected in most affairs throughout the Realm.
• House Arktentek, the guardians of Fibre Tower, the last known repository of the ancient advanced technologies. Their guilds of Sorcerers keep many carefully guarded trade secrets which make the Arktenteks critical allies in any conflict between the other houses.
• House Redmond, the newest of the Great Houses. Once mere mercenary nomads, they made their name and were granted nobility for pacifying the eastern frozen Wastelands and annexing that region under the Receiver. Experts in defeating mutant barbarians, they have recently been contracted by House Djevak against a mysterious threat emerging in Mold Marsh.

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City of No End contains examples of:

• Above Good and Evil: A subtle but integral part of Ascensionist philosophy, particularly emphasized by Setheus in his encyclical Niriseb Vaha.
• Absent Aliens: The only known distinction among sapient lifeforms is between pureblooded humans and various kinds of mutant humans.
• Action Prologue
• Aerith and Bob
• Affably Evil: Avram Djevak.
• Alien Sky: There’s no sun. Only an unexplained Ambience that lights the City.
• Altar Diplomacy: A frequent trope given the Feudal Future setting.
• The Alternet: House Arkentek has been developing a prototype internet called the Datalink, which so far is a simple videocall system. Its spread throughout the Realm is a major subplot of the series.
• Amazing Technicolor Population: The Enders are black, but with a greyish tint. Some of the mutants in Mold Marsh have green skin.
• Ambiguous Robots: It’s unclear whether the King of the Depths is completely robotic or is organic somewhere beneath the machinery.
• Ammunition Conservation: Guns in general are considered rare and high-tech in this world, so they are used only when necessary.
• Anti-Human Alliance: The Lowlands Horde is a union of several diverse tribes of mutants who are organized against pureblood humans in revenge for centuries of Fantastic Racism.
• The Anti-Nihilist: Setheus, as demonstrated in his encyclical Niriseb Vaha.
• Arcology: Hab Spire Rise.
• Arms Dealer: House Arkentek. It’s not their only purview, but it’s one aspect of their role as a source of advanced technology for the Realm.
• Arranged Marriage: As to be expected in a feudal culture, this happens in this world sometimes, such as when Setheus drops by at Smelted Keep to arrange a marriage for Sibyla.
• Artificial Afterlife: What Ascensionism believes in. It’s unclear if this belief is true.
• Artificial Limbs Are Stronger: Reconstructed. The Men of Iron are only immensely strong because most of their flesh has been replaced with augments.
• Ascend to a Higher Plane of Existence: The goal of Ascensionism, especially the Augmentinian school of thought.
• Badass Preacher: Fraedrik counts because most of the Ascensionist clergy stays out of direct conflict, despite their Church Militant tendencies. (The Men of Iron are its military wing.)
• Bald Black Leader Guy: Setheus. Also his Castellan, Chandler Pa.
• Bald Mystic: Setheus.
• Bald of Authority: Setheus and Pa.
• Barbarian Tribe: The Lowlands Horde.
• The Beforetimes: The City once had an extremely advanced Golden Age. It’s unclear what exactly befell it.
• The Berserker: How Fraedrik fights.
• Big Bad Duumvirate: The plot of book 1 starts off with Lord Kendar and Lord Djevak teaming up to ramp up food prices to gain power over the Realm. It’s an uneasy alliance, however, and both houses try to subvert the other.
• Big Fancy Sword: The Men of Iron wield massive, thirty-pound swords. Justified in that, being mostly machine, the Men of Iron are significantly stronger than a normal human and can wield weapons that un-augmented humans could not.
• Blood Knight: Sark Leviticus. Fraedrik does not count, despite his enthusiasm in combat; he fights fanatically in any battle he believes is righteous but loathes the idea of fighting for any secular reason.
• Blood from the Mouth: Part of how Ywain dies at the end of Book 1.
• Blue-and-Orange Morality: Ascensionist morality tries to maximize the number of minds that can be saved from entropy and uploaded into the Cloud. So in that regard, it’s a fairly straightforward form of utilitarianism that tries to minimize death. Where it becomes truly blue-and-orange is its philosophy of facilitating this transfer by encouraging detachment from the material realm and by manipulating society to help guide humanity towards Ascension.
• Brain Uploading: What the religion of Ascensionism is built around. It’s unclear if this actually works or if it’s a sham.
• Book Ends: The first and last chapters of book 1 are both titled "The Funeral," as both of them cover a funeral of a Norn.
• Breach of Promise of Marriage: In the backstory, this was the catalyst that started the Wedding War. Kendar and Norn were going to resolve their rivalry through a dynastic union between Ywain and Alicia, whose legitimately affectionate romance could have finally ended a centuries-long blood feud. Then Kavin overrode his sister’s engagement, sparking the war.
• Cargo Cult: The religion of the Depths follows animistic traditions around maintaining the pipe systems. These superstitions do have the benefit of keeping the City alive.
• Caring Gardener: Ywain. Subverted in that, despite caring about them in his conscience, he never does quite bring himself to intervene to protect Roman or Kavin.
• Chastity Dagger: Beatrix Maison pulls one out when startled.
• Chemical Messiah: The Sacrament.
• Character Filibuster: Setheus and Quine both tend to do this. Justified in that these characters are major religious leaders and thus have a natural tendency to being preachy.
• Church Militant
• Code Name: Blue Root.
• Common Tongue: Civic. It’s even spoken beyond the Realm.
• Contraception Deception: A subplot of Book 1 is that Layna is secretly taking contraceptives, and Ywain and Maud want to put a stop to that so that Ywain can produce an alternate heir.
• Cool Uncle: Their relationship isn’t perfect, but Roman gets along much better with Ywain than with Odham.
• Court Physician: Odham keeps one around at all times.
• Crapsack World
• Creepy Uncle: Celvyn has made advances on Sibyla in the past, to the point of her becoming automatically uncomfortable at the mention of his name.
• The Creon: Maud Atlee.
• Crystal Dragon Jesus: Ascensionism is a weird example, mostly functioning as an atheistic, scientific-materialist mimicry of Catholicism. However, a major faction has turned to theism and worships Jacob Crom as a god.
• Cuckold: Ywain. He’s aware that Layna is cheating on him, and is generally resigned to that fact, but still has the affair investigated for political reasons.
• Cuckoo Snarker: Sammael Animus.
• Cultured Warrior: Asa Janus is both the Captain of the Tunnheld Guard and the author of an acclaimed prose rendition of the Narosek, the national epic of the Depths.
• Cyanide Pill: Dane Perrick poisons himself upon capture.
• Days of Future Past
• Dead Person Conversation: The Norns use an arcane device to question the corpse of Roman Kendar on who killed him. It appears to function by accessing the corpse’s memories instead of actually bringing the person back.
• Death or Glory Attack: Sark Leviticus tries one in the climactic battle of Book 1, by motorcycle-jumping with a sword into Kavin Norn’s face as the latter pilots a Mini Mecha. He succeeds.
• Defector from Decadence: Roman becomes one against the Spiremen.
• Deus est Machina: The King of the Depths.
• Domesticated Dinosaurs: The Tyrannics aren’t explicitly dinosaurs, since this setting is millions of years in the future instead of the past, but they’re basically raptors. Zvarak and House Edirne keep them as pets.
• Dr. Genericius: A particularly common naming convention in Fibre Tower, a culture dominated by scientists who deliberately act like mages. This is also a trend among the Ascensionist clergy, fitting their “Gospel of Science,” and also applies to House Animus, the Mad Scientist vassals of House Norn.
• Ear Ache: Sark Leviticus loses an ear in the final battle of book 1.
• Eerie Pale-Skinned Brunette: The signature look of House Norn and most other Depths nobles.
• Elective Monarchy: The office of Receiver.
• Emperor Scientist: Pontius Arkentek, and nearly all past Lords of House Arkentek.
• Encyclopedia Exposita
• Endless Winter: The Wastes have constant icy winds, and massive glaciers caused by broken pipes leaking onto the surface. It never snows, however. Dorith’s End has the same freezing wind but has to import its water.
• Ending Memorial Service: For Kavin Norn at the end of Book 1.
• Ensemble Cast: The characters who get at least one POV scene in Book 1 are Welund, Ywain, Piyra, Aldrich, Quine, Beatrix, Roman, Yene, Setheus, Carston, Davion, Avitus, Lebbik, Saloth, Pa, Janus, Kavin, Leviticus, Odham, Maud, and Dakku. And there are plenty more characters, some of which are equally or even more important than those who get POVs.
• Evil Is Not Well-Lit: The throne room of the King of the Depths is described as quite dark, lit only by a few braziers of blue flame, with most of the place shrouded in shadows. Averted, however, with House Kendar, who conduct their business under bright electric lamps as befits their Light Is Not Good theme.
• Evil Tower of Ominousness: House Kendar lives in the skyscraper variant.
• Evolutionary Stasis: Averted. There are many different kinds of mutants and even purebloods have some interesting variations.
• Eyeless Face: Altun Greybourne, the Blind Knight, and Kifos the Sniffer. Both are Wellborn, mutants without eyes.
• Fantastic Flora: The few plants that do exist in the city aren’t really anything an Earthling would recognize.
• Fantastic Racism
• Fantasy Counterpart Culture: Largely averted by the extremely distinct and unique cultures of CoNE. However, there are some clear influences and parallels. The Wastes are very Scottish, for example.
• Fantasy Counterpart Religion: The Church of Ascension is based heavily on the Catholic Church in several ways. However, its philosophy derives much more from Gnosticism.
• Feudal Future
• Feuding Families: House Norn and House Kendar have been rivals for centuries.
• Finger in the Mail: Djevak informs Norn of Dreir’s capture by this method, with no further elaboration. Dreir himself is never mutilated, however, so perhaps the finger comes from Tawad’s corpse.
• First Church of Mecha: The King of the Depths is a massive robot worshipped by his people as a God Emperor.
• Founder of the Kingdom: Jacob Crom.
• Four-Philosophy Ensemble: House Norn has this dynamic in Book 1, with Kavin as the Optimist, Aldrich as the Cynic, Yene as the Realist, and Ulrich as the Apathetic.
• Four-Temperament Ensemble: In House Kendar, Odham is the Choleric, Ywain is the Phlegmatic, Roman is the Melancholic, and Layna is the Sanguine.
• Freaky Funeral Forms: Spiremen bury the dead in their greenhouses to feed their plants. Pale Ones send corpses into the pipes to be recycled into food, and ritually drown criminals to send as heralds for deceased nobles. Enders throw corpses into the Abyss as a final casting away of sinful flesh.
• Full-Conversion Cyborg: The Men of Iron.
• The Fundamentalist: Fraedrik.
• Future Food Is Artificial: In Dorith’s End, the most devout Ascensionists shed the fleshly act of eating in favor of nutrient injections.
• Future Primitive: The mutant barbarians.
• Gambit Pileup: There are a lot of characters with a lot of schemes and hidden agendas, and the plot consists of their interplay.
• Gaia's Lament: Assuming nature ever existed to start with, that is...
• Generican Empire: The Realm is simply… the Realm.
• Gentleman Wizard: Pontius Arkentek has this kind of aura, although his type of Sorcery is of the Sufficiently Advanced Technology type.
• Gentle Touch vs. Firm Hand: The Kendar brothers disagree over how to handle Roman. Odham is solidly the Firm Hand while Ywain tries to influence him more towards Gentle Touch. However, since Ywain is never particularly assertive or confident, he doesn’t have much success before Roman turns on House Kendar and gets himself killed.
• Gilligan Cut: From Chandler Pa being confident that a heretic ringleader will give up his secrets during interrogation to Setheus lamenting that the heretic killed himself before interrogation.
• God-Emperor: The King of the Depths.
• Gratuitous Latin: Briefly spoken, somewhat inexplicably, by Aldrich as he burns his hand to swear allegiance to the King.
• Gravity Screw: The Abyss has a malfunctioning artificial gravity field, allowing ships to sail in it and harvest floating chunks of metal and concrete.
• Hates Their Parent: Roman hates Odham. The feeling is mutual.
• Haunted Technology: Davion thinks his armor is this, as he can hear “ghosts” whisper from its electronics.
• Heavyworlder: Enders have generally evolved to become short and squat, to deal with the fluctuations in the gravity field.
• The Heretic: There’s a small cell of heretics who are up to mysterious business in Dorith’s End.
• Hidden Agenda Villain: What exactly is House Djevak up to? No one knows in-universe, and neither of the brothers get POV chapters in the first book.
• Hiding the Handicap: Odham keeps his epilepsy under tight wraps since he does not believe in showing any kind of weakness.
• High Priest: The office of High Partaker.
• Hobbling the Giant: How the Mini-Mecha warrior Nikkail Raven was defeated in the backstory of the Wedding War.
• Holy City: Dorith’s End, particularly Dredmor, functions as such for Ascensionism.
• Honor Before Reason: The Norns’ decision to burn the documents that Roman brings them.
• The Horde
• Hordes from the East: The Wraiths in House Redmond’s backstory are a literal example. Zvarak’s horde, which features much more prominently in the books, is an aversion since it comes from the west. However, the Fantasy Counterpart Cultures of the Realm have a bit of an east-west inversion going on: the Wastes are a kind of Wild West populated by Violent Glaswegians, and Mold Marsh draws on Japan, Vietnam, and the Middle East; so this would make the Lowlands Horde fits squarely into the “Asia” of this world. Zvarak’s lieutenant Saloth is even named after Pol Pot’s real name.
• Human Subspecies: The various kinds of mutants qualify, although even pureblooded humans in the Depths or Dorith’s End have evolved certain environmental adaptations. In two of the epigraphs, Saint Augmentine explains why the mutant-pureblood distinction is a bit of an arbitrary social construct.
• Human Resources: The nutrients produced and consumed by the Depths are extracted by sending bodies into the pipe system to be recycled.
• Hyperlink Story: There are a lot of plotlines to deal with, given the complex worldbuilding, and many different protagonists who shift in and out of focus. However, the disparate plotlines constantly interact and affect each other over the course of the series.
• Iaijutsu Practitioner: Djevak soldiers are trained in this skill, as demonstrated when one of them kills Tawad.
• Identical Twin Mistake: An interesting variant that does not actually involve identical twins: Because of their resemblance, the King of the Depths is unable to visually distinguish Aldrich from Ulrich, and unwilling to admit any error. Aldrich thus decides to play along and pretend to be Ulrich, resulting in the King declaring war when Ulrich becomes Lord and refuses to submit to the King.
• Immortal Ruler: The King of the Depths.
• Impartial Purpose-Driven Faction: The Cult of the Receiver. Theoretically, the Men of Iron, but certain mysterious events may put that in question...
• Innate Night Vision: Many inhabitants of the Depths have evolved this, and it gets more common the deeper they go.
• Interface Spoiler: It’s subtle enough that many readers won’t catch it, but during the final battle of Book 1, the POV for the Kendar brothers switches from Ywain to Odham just in time for the latter to witness and react to the former’s death.
• Interfaith Smoothie: The Church of Ascension has a lot of strong parallels to the Catholic Church, but its philosophy draws a lot on Buddhism and Gnosticism.
• Klingon Scientists Get No Respect: Avitus isn’t a Sorcerer but is instead a merchant and diplomat. The other nobles of Fibre Tower tend to look down on him for this.
• Knowledge Broker: How House Djevak wields its influence. Bit of an interesting example in that they never trade knowledge directly, they just leak it strategically to harm rivals.
• Lady-In-Waiting: Beatrix Maison.
• Large and in Charge: Zvarak the Conqueror and the King of the Depths are colossal leaders of factions outside the Realm.
• Light Is Not Good: The Kendars are themed around light – their motto is “Light is Life,” their nickname is the Lords of Light, they maintain the electric lights that make the Spires the best-lit part of the City, and their symbol is a mythological heavenly being called the Sun. However, they are aggressive and power-hungry, and Odham is the main villain of the first book.
• Lost Technology
• Lotus-Eater Machine: House M’kai owns the Coils of Pleasure, a seedy establishment that offers full-immersion hallucinations using ancient psionic technology. This is an example in which users are aware they are about to enter a fantasy world, but nevertheless, as with the original Homeric trope, the seductive power of the Coils often traps users, makes them addicted, or drives them mad.
• Mad Scientist: House Animus.
• Mage Tower: A sci-fi example, in which the Sorcerers, who practice Sufficiently Advanced Technology, live in Fibre Tower.
• Magic from Technology: The setting has a lot of fantasy-like flair, and the characters routinely refer to advanced tech as “magic,” “spells, “sorcery,” et cetera. But it’s all technology fulfilling Clarke's Third Law.
• Manipulative Bastard: Sohlem Lebbik manipulates Piyra into killing Roman.
• Mega City
• Mini-Mecha: The Rig Armor used by House Norn and their soldiers.
• Missing Mom: None of the main characters has a known surviving mother.
• Mistaken Identity: When Aldrich meets the King, the King mistakes him for Ulrich. Aldrich decides to play along, as the King tolerates no correction.
• Mole in Charge: Sohlem Lebbik, AKA Blue Root.
• Morality Kitchen Sink
• My Horse Is a Motorbike: Kendar lancers ride bikes.
• Nature Spirit: Not nature, per se. But the City is so ancient that the people of the Depths have come to consider its pipe systems to be natural and inhabited by spirits that maintain the web of life, and so have druids and shamans to maintain this “natural” order.
• No, Mr. Bond, I Expect You to Dine: Avram Djevak does this to Carston Dreir.
• Noble Fugitive: Aldrich becomes one in the latter half of the first book, while trying to protect Piyra.
• The Nose Knows: Kifos, the “sniffer.”
• "Not If They Enjoyed It" Rationalization: Roman’s conscience is somewhat perturbed after he sleeps with a singer who was ordered to “make his stay comfortable” by Kavin Norn; but her apparent eagerness and enjoyment of the liaison allays his guilt over the dubious consent.
• Offing the Offspring: Odham orders Roman’s assassination, but Sohlem and Piyra kill Roman first.
• One-Steve Limit: Averted multiple times: Celvyn Leibowitz and Celvyn M’kai; Harrad Quine and Harrad Royl; Gawen Seerward and the petty criminal named Gawen in the Action Prologue.
• Ordered Apology: Odham sends Roman to meet Setheus and apologize for going hunting in Dorith’s End. Setheus forces Celvyn to apologize to House Redwater for unspecified unwanted advances towards a Redwater girl.
• Our Giants Are Bigger: Giants are a mutant subtype of human in this world.
• Outgrown Such Silly Superstitions: A core doctrine of orthodox Ascensionism, which is officially atheist, is that all prior religions were unscientific superstitions and that only the material realm exists. However, there’s a growing movement that entertains concepts of the supernatural and believes that Crom has become a god.
• Overpopulation Crisis: The Lowland Horde is migrating because it has outgrown its food supply.
• Painful Transformation: The drug that Dreir uses in order to disguise as a mutant is quite agonizing and takes an hour to finish altering his appearance.
• The Patriarch: Kavin and Odham, as the leaders of their respective Houses.
• The Philosopher King: Setheus, ruler of Dorith’s End, is a compassionate and perceptive ruler who gives deep insights at length.
• People of Hair Color: There is broadly a caste distinction between the jet-black-haired nobles of the Depths and the platinum-blonde commoners.
• Plot-Triggering Death: The overarching plot of the series is a Succession Crisis to replace Janrad Norn, who dies of old age just before the first book begins. However, most events in the series can also be traced to the assassination of Roman Kendar partway through Book 1 and the ensuing crises it causes.
• Poke in the Third Eye: While Yene and Tavanna are using the Scrying Pool to track Aldrich and Piyra, the King of the Depths abruptly appears and shuts off the vision.
• Polluted Wasteland: Mold Marsh has developed into a more “natural” environment, but it’s implied to have originated from toxic chemicals.
• Posthumous Character: Several. Jacob Crom, Janrad Norn, Alicia Norn, Farica Norn, Nikkail Raven, Olav Kendar, Adoelv Hanlish.
• Powered Armor: Davion Redmond owns one such suit, an ancient artifact from eons past.
• Prefers the Illusion: Often happens to those who use the Coils of Pleasure.
• Prophet Eyes: Non-supernatural example. Harrad Quine, having some minor mutant ancestry, has nictitating membranes in his eyes, giving this look when they cover the sclerae.
• Proud Scholar Race: The Sorcerers of Fibre Tower.
• Proud Warrior Race: Spiremen are the Proud Soldier Race subtype. They’re a militaristic society focused on maintaining their strength and protecting their comfortable region and their impressive food supply, but they aren’t into war for war’s sake.
• Questionable Consent: Roman’s encounter with the singer in the room prepared for him by House Norn. From his perspective, it looks as if Lord Norn straight-up ordered her to service him, but she seems unbothered and even enthusiastic about sleeping with him. Roman’s POV is the only one that observes the situation, so it is never clear whether it was arranged by order or invitation; though the power dynamic around Lord Norn makes it still dubious if the latter.
• Reading The Enemy's Mail: Carston snoops on Quine’s contacts in HSR.
• Rebel Prince: Roman Kendar.
• Room Disservice: How Piyra assassinates Roman.
• Run for the Border: Aldrich and Piyra escape the Realm and head down to the King’s lands.
• Satanic Archetype: Not immediately obvious, but the King of the Depths slowly becomes this trope as the plot develops. He rules a spooky underworld far below the known world, and characters keep making deals with him that go poorly.
• Scary Black Man: Fraedrik.
• Scavenged Punk: A common aesthetic, but it does not completely dominant the setting.
• Scavenger World: What most of the City is.
• Scienceville: Fibre Tower.
• Screw the Rules, I Have Money!: Avitus performs a rare benevolent example of this trope near the end of Book 1, in which seeing the plight of a breadline (well… slurry-line) of Norn serfs moves him to break the laws of the Realm against hiring the serfs of other regions.
• Secondary Color Nemesis: When the Djevak brothers first appear, they are wearing deep purple robes with dull green scarves around their heads.
• Settling the Frontier: The job of House Redmond and their vassals. The Wastes are a recent addition to the Realm.
• Shotguns Are Just Better: The Wastelanders’ gun of choice.
• Shoulder Cannon: Kavin Norn’s Rig Armor has one.
• Shout-Out: House Leibowitz's name is an obvious reference to A Canticle for Leibowitz. It's an extremely fitting name, given their whole ethos of using organized religious tradition to preserve scientific knowledge after a cataclysmic collapse of civilization.
• Significant White Hair, Dark Skin: The standard look for Spiremen — because of their continual exposure to the lighting systems of HSR, they have tanned-bronze skin and bleach-blonde hair.
• Skyscraper City: The Low Halls, but especially the Spires and Fibre Tower, which stretch higher than the eye can see. The rest of the City was once like this, but several regions have been leveled by various catastrophes.
• Sleep Deprivation Punishment: Part of the torture that Carston Dreir goes through in Djevak captivity.
• Sliding Scale of Shiny Versus Gritty: Most of the City is on the Gritty side, being the collapsing ruins of a once-advanced civilization.
• Spare to the Throne: In short succession, Aldrich Norn is disinherited by Kavin, who soon after is killed in an ambush by the Kendars. Ulrich Norn is thus abruptly thrust onto the Seer’s Throne without much preparation.
• The Spymaster: Maud Atlee for House Kendar and Chandra Dioden for House Norn. House Djevak is a whole family built around being spymasters.
• Star Scraper: Fibre Tower and Hab Spire Rise.
• Succession Crisis: The plot begins with the funeral of Receiver Janrad Norn, necessitating a replacement. It’s explained that this happens every time the Receiver dies, as it gives all the houses a chance to get up to sinister shenanigans before the next Receiver is elected.
• Super-Senses: The Wellborn are mutant humans from the Depths who have evolved these, in exchange for losing their eyesight.
• Super-Soldier: Men of Iron, and the Templars of the King.
• Swamps Are Evil: Mold Marsh.
• Switching P.O.V.
• Symbolic Mutilation: Ascensionism makes an entire ritual of this. Aldrich does it to his hand to swear fealty to the King.
• Sympathetic P.O.V.: As a general rule, if a character gets a POV the narration will usually make them seem sympathetic for that scene. And the POV bounces around a lot, with the more villainous characters not usually getting as much focus.
• Take a Moment to Catch Your Death: Near the end of Book 1, when Kavin Norn fires his barrage of spikes to destroy the boulder cover of the Kendar brothers, they are unharmed. Then Ywain stands up, and abruptly gets shot and killed.
• Teaser-Only Character: The criminals in the Action Prologue.
• Technicolor Fire: Torches in the Depths glow green.
• The Theocracy: Dorith’s End does not technically qualify as this trope, since (as it is explained multiple times) House Leibowitz and the Church are separate entities, though they both have great power in Dorith’s End. However, the current situation in which Setheus is both Lord Leibowitz and High Partaker means they are effectively united under one man.
• Theotech
• A Tragedy of Impulsiveness: Two major examples: Piyra stabbing Roman, and Aldrich not correcting the King on his mistaken identity and instead deciding to lie about his family.
• Truce Zone: The Low Halls, in theory, are supposed to be one between the Great Houses. In practice… not so much. The Hall of the Receiver is a more straightforward example that is rigidly enforced by the Cult.
• Torture Technician: Esmour Heron.
• Underground City: The Depths is the underground region of the City. The Kingdom is even deeper.
• Unspecified Apocalypse: Dorith’s End, the Abyss, and the Wastes were created by some kind of cataclysmic explosion of unknown origin.
• Unspoken Plan Guarantee: Zig-zagged with Odham’s plan to kill Kavin. The ambush works, but Kavin manages to kill Ywain just before he dies.
• The Upper Crass: The Wastes nobles have shades of this, being rough adventurers recently promoted to nobility.
• A Villain Named "Z__rg": Zvarak the Conqueror.
• Violent Glaswegian: Wastelander culture is basically just this trope.
• Vow of Celibacy: Standard for Ascensionist clergy.
• Warrior Monk: Fraedrik Leibowitz and the Men of Iron.
• White Sheep: Roman Kendar. Aldrich is too for readers who see Ascensionism as better than Norn culture, though that dichotomy is more Gray-and-Grey.
• Why Couldn't You Be Different?: Odham sees Roman as an unworthy heir to House Kendar, and Kavin loathes the fact that Aldrich has converted to Ascensionism.
• Will Not Tell a Lie: Avram insists that this is true of the Djevaki themselves, and that lying is for commoners. It’s unclear if he is telling the truth.
• World in the Sky: Dorith’s End is an odd variant – it’s connected overland to the rest of the City, but it is a small continental shard that juts out into thin air, and is presumably prevented from collapsing by whatever weirdness is going on with the artificial gravity in the area.
• Young Conqueror: Zvarak.