History Literature / Deathstalker

* CloningBlues: They're perfectly identical copies of the original, but [[LaserGuidedAmnesia without any memories or experience]], and can be shot on sight.
** [[spoiler: Evangeline Shreck, full-stop. Cloned from the original after the original committed suicide to escape her incestuous father, she originally believed the original had died in a car accident. Daddy still "loves" her, but threatens to kill her several times if she lets it slip she's a clone, or refuses his advances. In fact, at least once he strongly implies that he can kill and clone her as long as it takes until one of them loves him back. Torn between duty to her Family name, her abusive father, keeping her clone nature a secret, and her love for Finlay Campbell (Campbells and Shrecks being mortal enemies and all)... well, the girl's got issues.]]
** In ''Deathstalker Return'', [[spoiler: James Campbell. Finn had him made to wrest power away from Douglas, and James is basically written as a child in the hands of a ''very'' abusive father, who only wants to make Finn happy, and doesn't understand why Finn keeps hitting him even when he's doing things right. (Just because he can.)]]

* BuxomBeautyStandard: [[JustForPun Largely]] averted with the main characters in the first five books, who aren't described as being particularly busty (and Hazel notably gets upset when she gets famous and is promptly given the MostCommonSuperpower in almost all adaptations.) But prevalent enough in minor characters in the first five books, and major characters in the last three, that one suspects some form of AuthorAppeal at work.

** [[spoiler: [[ParentalIncest Gregor Schrek and his daughter]], Evangeline (and the clone he made of her specifically to [[JustForPun keep it up.]]]]

* TheChick: Evangeline Shreck, though she gets her badass ActionGirl moment. Given the issues she's dealing with, it's amazing she's as well-adjusted as she is. [[spoiler: see "Cloning Blues", below.)]]

* TheLancer: Hazel d'Ark to Owen Deathstalker. While Owen is a proud, pampered aristocrat who, despite his impressive warrior training, only ever wanted to be left alone to write boring histories that no one ever reads (his own words, no less), Hazel is a streetsmart pirate and outlaw, hates "aristos" and the wealthy, privileged elite of the Empire, and knows the suffering and tragedy that opulence is built on, which Owen has never seen with his own two eyes. The switch? Despite being the main character and, indeed, hero of the story, Owen is ''much'' closer to being TheChick then the hero.

* BuxomIsBetter: [[JustForPun Largely]] averted with the main characters in the first five books, who aren't described as being particularly busty (and Hazel notably gets upset when she gets famous and is promptly given the MostCommonSuperpower in almost all adaptations.) But prevalent enough in minor characters in the first five books, and major characters in the last three, that one suspects some form of AuthorAppeal at work.

* MagicPlasticSurgery: Body shops. Want to be tall, beautiful, curvaceous, with [[BuxomIsBetter boobs the size of beachballs?]] Body shops will do it for you. Want to be tall, handsome, and so bulging with muscles you have to walk through doors sideways? Body shops will do it for you. Want to turn yourself into a BigRedDevil? Body shops will do it for you. As with everything else, you get what you pay for, and description will frequently note if a given body shop job is top-notch, good, bad, or ''really'' bad.

* RichIdiotWithNoDayJob: The first series features as one of its side characters the son of a noble clan who was well-known for his sole skill of always being up to date with court fashion, no matter how extravagant or obscure. He was also considered the greatest fop and dandy of his age. No one even suspected that he was secretly the Masked Gladiator, the deadliest and most revered fighter in the Arena (and actually the second person to inhabit the identity.) When his Family was obliterated by a rival Clan, he turned his skills to being a warrior and assassin for the Underground.

* FiveManBand:
** TheLeader: Owen Deathstalker /Jack Random.
** TheLancer: Hazel D'Ark / Finlay Campbell.
** TheBigGuy: Ruby Journey / Tobias Moon
** TheSmartGuy: Giles Deathstalker / Owen Deathstalker
** TheChick: Evangeline Shreck
** In the final three books:
*** Lewis Deathstalker (Leader)
*** Rose Constantine / Brett Random (The Lancer, alternately)
*** Rose Constantine / Saturday (The Big Guy, alternately)
*** Brett Random (The Smart Guy)
*** Jesamine Flowers / Brett Random (The Chick, alternately)

* AwesomeMcCoolname: In ''Deathstalker Legacy'', a criminal has the unlikely moniker of Toby Goddamnit. He never says how he got his name before he dies.

** To a much lesser extent, the Grendels. The city their Vaults are located in is described in tones reminiscent of HP Lovecraft, and the creatures themselves are something like the antagonist from ''Film/{{Alien}}'', [[UpToEleven only much more vicious and difficult to kill.]]

* HammerSpace: First Empire tech lets people store weapons, equipment, and even whole ''[[UpToEleven other bodies]]'' in "subspace pockets."

** Grendel aliens have one they can ''[[UpToEleven weaponize.]]'' Owen loses his hand in the first book when he shoots a Grendel in the stomach with his disrupter, making a tidy little hole that slows the alien down [[NoSell not at all.]] So Owen shoves a grenade in the hole, but the wound heals around his hand, trapping it inside the Grendel. [[LifeOrLimbDecision So Owen lops off his own hand to get away before the Grendel explodes.]]
** [[UpToEleven Up to twelve]] with [[spoiler: Valentine Wolfe after Shub decides to give him rapid-healing nanomachines.]]

** Hazel: MesACrowd. Turns this UpToEleven because each alternate has their ''own'' unique powers, too (it's implied Hazel could only call up duplicates from alternate realities where she went through the Madness Maze).

* TrouserSpace: Taken UpToEleven (like just about everything else in the series) when [[spoiler: Evangeline Shreck finally returns to give her father his much-needed and long-awaited comeuppance. Knowing she'd likely be thoroughly searched, but also knowing that her father wouldn't appreciate his guards "taking liberties" with his [[VillainousIncest beloved]] daughter, she smuggled a small, deactivated monofilament blade in her, eh... the one place she could guarantee the guards wouldn't look.]]

* UpToEleven: In general, the series reads like Star Wars meets the French Revolution on steroids and laughing gas.
** Specifically, the Grendels. Living weapons locked in Vaults deep underneath a planet, they're so vicious and deadly the last time they got out the only solution was to scorch the entire planet, and set up a blockade so no one else messed with them. They're kind of like the antagonist in Alien, but more so.

* BattleCouple: Jack and Ruby; Owen and Hazel; Lewis and Jesamine; Bret and Rose; Silence and Frost; Finlay and Evangeline; [[spoiler: David Deathstalker and Kit [=SummerIsle=]]].

* HalfTheManHeUsedToBe: Taken to a strange extreme with 'Half A Man', a former investigator, who is sliced in half ''vertically'', the missing half of his body replaced by a sinister energy being. [[spoiler: Eventually, that side ''devours'' him, and he's well aware that it's happening for quite some time.]]

* LoadsAndLoadsOfCharacters: Oh, yeah. Just for major POV characters, we have Owen, Hazel, Captain Silence, Dram, Valentine Wolfe, Finlay Campbell, Evangeline Schreck, and Jenny Psycho, and that's just in the first book. Then there's other major, minor, and supporting characters, many of whom have their own plot arcs and stories that intersect, and the scope of the series just keeps getting bigger. . .

* IncestIsRelative: Clarissa, [[spoiler: formerly one of Lionstone's handmaidens,]] is Toby Shreck's [[KissingCousins cousin]]. And [[NotBloodSiblings stepsister]]. "It's that kind of Family" he says. They plan to be married soon in the fifth book.

%%* LoadsAndLoadsOfCharacters:

* DemocracyIsBad: Empress Lionstone XIV claims this, and does her best to stamp it out wherever she can, to the point of declaring an entire planet ([[specifically, Virimonde]]) to be in rebellion for experimenting in it in ''Deathstalker War''.

* ContemptibleCover: The American versions all feature a blond-haired man that can only be assumed is the female lead in a leather corset and short shorts. The character descriptions weren't very detailed so they did have to take some artistic license but the male lead's description came down to "dark haired".

* ASpotOfTea: While the first series mostly revolves around INeedAFreakingDrink, this trope shows up a few times in the second series. Notably, after Lewis [[spoiler: is bored to tears by his new job as Champion, and MP from Virimonde cuts off his planet-sponsored funding because Lewis won't use his influence on Virimonde's behalf, Jesamine takes Lewis to the best tea room on Logres to help get his mind off it.]]
** As Imperial forces wait around Haden to decide what to do about Lewis and Co. in ''Deathstalker Return'', the fanatical Admiral of the fleet is chaffing under her very strict orders. Her Captain asks if he should order them a cup of tea while they wait.
** In ''Deathstalker Coda'', as [[spoiler: Owen travels back in time to the First Empire, he keeps cheekily asking if he and the various important people he meets can sit down, have a cup of tea, and talk about this. (No.)]]

** Giles: TeleportersAndTransporters.

* TeleportersAndTransporters: Giles Deathstalker can teleport. Espers can do this, as well. The Empire was actually developing teleportation technology, but discovered Espers can do it cheaper and more easily, leading the tech to being abandoned. Shub picked it up and improved on it, as Shub does.

In short, the ''Deathstalker'' series is a FantasyKitchenSink SpaceOpera and is [[SerialNovel sliced up into hundred- or two-hundred-page sections]] which could generally stand as stories on their own right. The recipe is simple: one part StarWars, two parts French Revolution, and a dash of AffectionateParody, satire, and Lovecraftian horror, liberally sprinkled with SugarWiki/FunnyMoments. One can expect quite a lot of ShockingMoments when explaining any given segment, particularly as one reads further on. Finally, outside of the series itself, there are a handful of other stories written by Creator/SimonRGreen in the same universe, including the compilation ''Twilight of the Empire''.

In short, the ''Deathstalker'' series is a FantasyKitchenSink SpaceOpera, soft as warm butter on the [[MohsScaleOfScienceFictionHardness Mohs scale]], and is [[SerialNovel sliced up into hundred- or two-hundred-page sections]] which could generally stand as stories on their own right. The recipe is simple: one part StarWars, two parts French Revolution, and a dash of AffectionateParody, satire, and Lovecraftian horror, liberally sprinkled with SugarWiki/FunnyMoments. One can expect quite a lot of ShockingMoments when explaining any given segment, particularly as one reads further on. Finally, outside of the series itself, there are a handful of other stories written by Creator/SimonRGreen in the same universe, including the compilation ''Twilight of the Empire''.