History Literature / Light

* AcePilot / BadassDriver – [[spoiler: Like sister, like brother: both ]]Seria Mau and Ed.
* AgeAppropriateAngst – Seria Mau, in losing her mother and being sexually abused by her father.
* AlienSky – Redline
* AnimalMotifs – Cats: white for Seria Mau, black for Ed.
* ArcWords – “Sparks in everything”, “Wherever you look, you find” / “There’s always more after that”, and [[spoiler: the Shrander’s anagram alternate names.]]
* ArtificialHuman – The shadow operators create one when they make a cultivar for Seria Mau to use, though it doesn’t do anything.
* BlackBox – [[spoiler: The Dr. Haends box seems to be useless and simply a MacGuffin to fight over, but it turns out it’s part of the Shrander, and becomes the tool for Seria Mau’s transformation.]]
* BlessedWithSuck – Seria Mau wanted to be a spaceship, and escape being human. Now, her body is crippled and unable to feel, locked in a tank – but she does indeed integrate as much as is humanly possible with a ship.
* BodyHorror – Seria Mau (and other K-pilots) can’t move, has numerous broken-and-healed-wrong bones, is blind physically but can see via the ship’s cameras, is wired with [=IVs=], is suspended in a tank full of liquid like warm saliva, is wrinkled and shrunken, and still has human needs like being touched, but can’t ever touch anyone again.
* BrainUploading – Pairs with ArtificialHuman somewhat, yielding the cultivars. Annie Glyph chooses this route after she helps Ed get rid of Bella Cray, turning herself from the heavily-muscled rickshaw girl into the petite blonde Mona. (Though, one never gets a description of how one makes a cultivar, so it could equally be a form of plastic surgery instead.)
* BrilliantButLazy – Ed, at first, though eventually he gets better.
* CatsAreMean – subverted; cats are the mascots of the ''Light'' ‘verse and generally portrayed in a neutral-to-good light.
* [[ChekhovsSkill Chekhov's Skill]] – Ed used to fly dipships, and "flew all of them, except for one." Guess what he flies at the end?
* ChildrenAreInnocent – subverted; All K-pilots are excellent at their jobs, which are all military-based and involve killing, and the indoctrination process that makes them K-pilots leaves them broken and perennially thirteen, without the ability to grow up.
* CommLinks – A variation occurs with fetches, which can be equated with hologram-telephones.
* DeathIsCheap, when you’re Uncle Zip. Or a cultivar.
* DefrostingIceQueen / Kuudere – An Alternate Character Interpretation of Seria Mau, or possibly Madame Shen.
* DidWeJustHaveTeaWithCthulhu? / DeusExMachina – The three heroes’ separate meetings with the Shrander.
* [[DontYouDarePityMe Don't You Dare Pity Me]] – Oh, Seria Mau, so much.
* DrivenToVillainy – What Kearney thinks has happened to him, due to the Shrander and its influence.
* [[spoiler: EarnYourHappyEnding. For everyone except Kearney]]
* EldritchAbomination– What Kearney thinks the Shrander is.
* FantasticDrug – Twink tanks.
* FasterThanLightTravel
* FreudianExcuse – [[spoiler: "Ooh, I’ve been abused by my father, let’s run away and join the military!" "Ooh, my sister left and broke my home even more, let’s run away and become a rebel!"]]
* HiddenDepths – On the surface, Ed seems like a stoner only interested in sex and tweaking, but it turns it out he was an ace pilot before he got sucked into the drugs. Also, one could read Seria Mau this way, as she seems either petty or sociopathic or both at first, but you realize that even if she can’t shake these qualities, she does have a good reason.
* HyperspaceIsAScaryPlace – The Kefahuchi Tract, where the K-tech comes from.
* IDidWhatIHadToDo – Kearney thinks this is why he killed all those women, but the Shrander tears it down by saying it never kept her away in the first place. So it ends up that Kearney was simply deluding himself.
* ImmortalityBeginsAtTwenty – subverted; Immortality means being a forever-broken and crippled thirteen-year-old in a fishtank.
* InadvertentEntranceCue – The Shrander is coming for you, Kearney.
* InertialDampening
* JadeColoredGlasses – Happens early on to Seria Mau.
* {{Jerkass}} – Uncle Zip, the instigator of the whole event. Also, an Alternate Character Interpretation of Seria Mau, if you don’t appreciate the Freudian Excuse.
* KidsAreCruel / TeensAreMonsters – Most K-pilots, even the "good" ones, because they never really grew up.
* TheKillerBecomesTheKilled – [[spoiler: Kearney finally meets his end when the Shrander abducts him.]]
* LittleMissBadass – Seria Mau may be petty and lonely and bitter, but she does have some serious armaments. And an airlock.
* LostTechnology – K-tech.
* LongLostSibling – [[spoiler: Ed and Seria Mau.]]
* MacGuffin – The Dr. Haends package.
* MadMathematician – Kearney, of course.
* MurdererPOV – Kearney’s path.
* MyBelovedSmother – A variation occurs, as it is actually [[spoiler: Ed and Seria Mau’s]] father, not mother.
* NakedOnArrival – Ed, ejected from the twink tank.
* NegativeSpaceWedgie - The Kefahuchi Tract itself. Might also count as an EldritchLocation.

* NoBloodForPhlebotinum – ''Everyone'' is fighting each other over the last of the K-tech / new planet-full of it.
* NotWhatISignedOnFor – Seria Mau, in becoming a K-pilot. Ed, in predicting the future through an empty fish tank.
* NothingIsScarier – Kearney’s descriptions of the Shrander stalking him, and the shadows he sees (but never a full, coherent form).
* OneWordTitle: Likely due to FasterThanLight travel.
* PetTheDog – Serial killer Kearney gets one when he realizes that Anna has always been there for him and that he might really love her. Also, when he actually does try to have proper intercourse with her (which is not as weird as it sounds).
* PoweredByAForsakenChild – What all the K-ships are, but especially Seria Mau.
* PresentDay – Kearney’s path.
* SendInTheClones - Uncle Zip's purpose in life is this. Sort of.
* SpaceOpera – Subverted, in that there isn’t an epically-big love story, are few space battles, let alone epic ones, and the technology drastically changes how humanity operates. In other words, adheres strongly to the cynical side of the SlidingScaleOfIdealismVsCynicism.
* SpaceshipGirl – Seria Mau
* ThereAreNoCoincidences – Notice how [[spoiler: the Shrander, Sandra Shen, and Dr. Haends]] all have the same letters in their names? Not a coincidence. Subverted in that you think Kearney’s dice will be important, but the Shrander just comments that it happened to keep them and they weren’t a particularly powerful item, just pieces from an ancient game.
* ThroughTheEyesOfMadness – An interpretation of Kearney’s path... if you didn’t have the other two to tie it up.
* UnrealisticBlackHole – Averted--[[spoiler: The K Culture hid a cache of their technology in a location nearly impossible to reach, except via a wormhole they built for that purpose. The wormhole is anchored very near the Radio RX-1 black hole, and is powered by it, but the wormhole is at least survivable (only barely, and only under optimal circumstances) whereas the black hole would simply crush you into nothing]]
* UnwantedSpouse – Anna Kearney, until about halfway through the book.
* VillainProtagonist – Kearney and, arguably, Seria Mau.
* WeWillUseManualLabourInTheFuture - The Rickshaw girls.
* WhatYouAreInTheDark
* [[YouCantGoHomeAgain You Can't Go Home Again]] – K-pilots can never be human again, and instead they live in limbo between being human and being a machine, without much good of either. Subverted in a way when [[spoiler: the Shrander gives Seria Mau the ability to shapeshift into anything she wants.]]

* CloningBlues – [[spoiler: Billy Anker, a clone of Uncle Zip.]]

* BadDreams – All the POV characters, at least: Kearney, Seria Mau, and Ed. Special mention to Ed, though, since his get paired up with childhood memories and prophesies of war.

* UnrealisticBlackHole – [[spoiler: By entering Radio RX-1, Ed finds the hidden cache of K-tech.]] Except, of course, that many theories of black holes state that entering one would lead nowhere (just compress you to death) and that one would die before even reaching the “hole”.

''Light'' is a science fiction novel by M. John Harrison, first published in 2002.