History Literature / Patternist

* PrefersRawMeat: Those infected with the Clayark disease come to prefer raw, unseasoned food -- preferably meat, although they enjoy vegetables as well.

* BizarreAlienBiology: The "Clayarks" were orginally humans infected by an alien virus. Infected humans just turn pale and thin, but their ''children''...

* CanonDiscontinuity: The novel ''Survivor'' is an OldShame for the author and was withdrawn. Since the action of that story takes place entirely on another planet, its connection to the overall series is weak, and the canonicity of the few series elements it contained remains unclear. Within the book, though, it clearly takes place after the outbreak of the clayark virus, and mentions both that and 'Forsyth', the main Patternist stronghold.

* TechnicallyLivingZombie: The Clayarks more or less. The topic is one of some debate, as some aspect of the alien virus prevents most Patternists from reading or controlling the Clayark's minds (although they can still fry their brains). Evidence suggests that the Clayarks ''do'' retain some remnant of human sentience, although their predatory impulses and instinctive need to spread their disease make chatting them up unrealistic.

* ZombieApocalypse: Basically what happened to civilization on Earth when the "Clayark" virus spread. The Patternists were able to carve out reasonably secure fiefdoms due to being able to kill the "Clayarks" with their psychic powers. But even they must constantly be on guard against attacks.

* IncestIsRelative:
** Powerful characters like Doro and later patternmasters have no incest taboo and will happily match relatives together for breeding, even brothers and sisters, if it looks likely to produce good results. Doro himself has no problem siring children in one body and then, a couple decades down the line, getting those same children pregnant in a different body.
** The Clayark disease also doesn't care about familial relationships. It just wants carriers to have babies--if you're infected, and your similarly infected relative is of the appropriate anatomy to get you pregnant, the disease ''will'' make you lust after each other. This badly traumatizes several infectees in ''Clay's Ark''. (How this affects born Clayarks, or whether they even care, is not mentioned.)
* KlingonPromotion: Psychics in Patternmaster are potentially immortal, so transfers of power tend to happen by Klingon promotion.

* {{Shapeshifting}}: Anyanwu's hat trick, written as the culmination of her cellular manipulation abilities. She can make subtle changes like increasing her strength and agility, change her sex, even turn into a different animal completely.

* MasterOfYourDomain: Emma Anyanwu has this down to the cellular level which lets her [[{{Immortality}} be whatever age she wants]] at any given time, exhibit SuperStrength and [[ShapeShifting transform into any creature]] of the same mass as herself.

* BiTheWay:
** Amber, a healer in Patternmaster, is in love with a man. She's loved women before. When asked, she {{Discusse|dTrope}}s the NoBisexuals trope and is annoyed how people keep expecting her to pick a side.
** Ayanwu generally seems to prefer men and taking male lovers and husbands, but she also takes wives from time to time.

* {{Biomanipulation}}: Anyanwu is a healer but, as she gained experience, she learned to heal others and transform into various animal forms.

* {{Biomancy}}: Anyanwu is a healer but, as she gained experience, she learned to heal others and transform into various animal forms.

* EvenEvilHasLovedOnes: Doro is deeply self-centered and regards people only insofar as they are of value to him. Some of them have a higher value than others, and a rare few with just the right personalities he actually truly cares for, considering them real friends and listening to their advice, even when he doesn't like it. After quite a lot of time Ayanwu winds up in this category.
* EvilCannotComprehendGood: When Ayanwu has her own plantation, populated by a found family of freed people who are for whatever reason considered strange or outcast, Doro can only assume she's started her own version of one of his seed villages and is doing as he does. He is unable to understand that she values all of them highly.

* DrivenToSuicide: Ayanwu comes close at the end of ''Wild Seed'', seeing it as the only way she could truly escape Doro. Doro, who has finally come to care for her and fully realized that Ayanwu is the only other immortal in the world, the only person he's ever loved who could be permanent, begs her to stop, even crying that he wishes he could join her in death.

* AfterTheEnd: ''Mind of My Mind'' heralded the end of the world as we know it, FromBadToWorse in ''Clay's Ark'', and ''Patternmaster'' took place in a future so alien it might as well be a different planet.

* BiTheWay: Amber, a healer in Patternmaster, is in love with a man. She's loved women before. Ayanwu generally seems to prefer men and taking male lovers and husbands, but she also takes wives from time to time.

* BlessedWithSuck: Telepath-type psychics rarely learn to completely control their power, constantly being bombarded by other people's thoughts, emotions, and even dreams. They tend to slowly turn anti-social and unstable, even unable to raise their own children. By the time of ''Patternmaster'', '''all''' psychics give up their children to boarding schools, where they're raised by special psychics who can handle them. The children usually never meet their own parents.

* DeathActivatedSuperpower: How Doro became what he was. His probable power was going to be some kind of {{Telepathy}}, but he died from the physical strain when it manifested. This warped his talent into the ability to BodySurf instead. He has been jumping from body to body for thousands of years, and he always jumps to the nearest person should his current body be injured or die. He can also

* EldritchAbomination:
** Doro. He's an ancient psychic predator that eats people's minds and steals their bodies. He can sense other psychics, and it's his life's work to track them down for his selective breeding program. He sees people only in terms of their value as breeding stock, people who can tend the breeding stock, and those who can run his interest for him while he's away. The only morality he follows is "Obey me," and he won't think twice about devouring anyone, ANYONE who crosses him or tries to escape him.
** His "true" daughter Mary stops just short, preferring to draw other psychics into a "pattern" so she can feed off them evenly instead of killing anyone...whether they like it or not. She can also siphon other psychics' mental energy to use as her own, [[spoiler: which allows her to fend off and absorb Doro. Her progeny become the titular Patternists.]]
* FeudalFuture: An interesting variation has been reached by the timeframe of ''Patternmaster''. It is true feudalism in the sense that powerful Patternists form households in which they rule over a territory populated by ordinary humans and weaker Patternists, which they protect against the mutant "Clayark's". Sometimes particularly powerful Patternists will even dominate others who have their own households. Above everyone is the Patternmaster, who controls the Pattern and by extension all of the Patternists. Society has regressed to a comparatively primitive level because most Patternists do not bother to pursue extensive education in anything other than psychic powers and their human slaves are [[CreativeSterility not encouraged to be very innovative]]. Patternists find it difficult to believe that humanity was once a great deal more technologically advanced.

** Doro does this by ''devouring the host's mind'', and abandons the old body to die. Mary's the only one who's ever been able to stop him, and Doro can't even stop himself from switching bodies if he's badly injured or frightened. People who have known him long enough can identify him in any body by sight.

* HealingFactor: Anyanwu has a conscious version of this power, so if she's unconscious she doesn't heal.
* {{Humanshifting}}: Anyanwu, healer-type psychics are implied to be capable of this, though it's much more difficult for them.

-->"Anyanwu! Does that white skin cover your eyes too?"

* SuperBreedingProgram: Doro's grand project to try to produce beings like himself.

* BiTheWay: Amber, a healer in Patternmaster, is in love with a man. She's loved women before.

* BodySurf: Doro's power to jump between bodies is completely instinctive, and also undirected. He always jumps into the nearest human being, even if he cannot see them. Despite the fact that he is essentially devouring the souls of the people he jumps into, he really does not care about this and will, for example, jump into somebody else to get across a river simply because it is convenient. The bodies he steals start to deteriorate soon after he enters them and he cannot use any psychic powers the victim may have possessed.

* DeathActivatedSuperpower: How Doro became what he was. His probable power was going to be some kind of {{Telepathy}}, but he died from the physical strain when it manifested. This warped his talent into the ability to BodySurf instead. He has been jumping from body to body for thousands of years, and he always jumps to the nearest person should his current body be injured or die.

** Doro. He's an ancient psychic predator that eats people's minds and steals their bodies. He can sense other psychics, and it's his life's work to track them down for his selective breeding program. The only morality he follows is "Obey me," and he won't think twice about devouring anyone, ANYONE who crosses him or tries to escape him.

** Doro does this by ''devouring the host's mind'', and abandons the old body to die. Mary's the only one who's ever been able to stop him, and Doro can't even stop himself from switching bodies if he's badly injured or frightened. People who have known him long enough can identify him in any body.

* HealingFactor: Anyanwu has this power.

** Powerful characters like Doro and later patternmasters have no incest taboo and will happily match relatives together for breeding if it looks likely to produce good results. Doro himself has no problem siring children in one body and then, a couple decades down the line, getting those same children pregnant in a different body.

* PowerPerversionPotential: At one point Doro remarks that he's never felt Anyanwu's flesh while it's morphing before. Anyanwu answers that he already has ... in bed.
* PsychicPowers: Doro's breeding program produces people with a wide range of different powers. He is looking to produce something similar to himself. What he gets is not what he wants.

* SelfMadeOrphan: [[spoiler: Doro. His parents were the first people he ever absorbed, out of simple fear and confusion.]]

* IncestIsRelative: Powerful characters like Doro and later patternmasters have no incest taboo and will happily match relatives together for breeding if it looks likely to produce good results. Doro himself has no problem siring children in one body and then, a couple decades down the line, getting those same children pregnant in a different body.

** ShapeshifterBaggage: Averted. It is explained that Anyanwu, and later healer-type psychics, can grow, regenerate, and absorb cells at will.
** {{Humanshifting}}: Anyanwu, healer-type psychics are implied to be capable of this, though it's much more difficult for them.

* TheVirus: The alien disease brought back to Earth on the spaceship Clay's Ark. The victims and their descendents become the bestial [[WasOnceAMan "Clayarks"]].

* WhatTheHellHero: "Anyanwu! Does that white skin cover your eyes too?"

The series originally consisted of five books, but the third (''Survivor'', published 1978) was disliked by the author and not reprinted. The remaining four have been republished in the ''Seed to Harvest'' (2007) omnibus, containing the books ''Wild Seed'' (1980), ''Mind of My Mind'' (1977), ''Clay's Ark'' (1984), and ''Patternmaster'' (1076), in series-chronological order rather than publishing order.

* IncestIsRelative: Powerful characters like Doro and later patternmasters have no incest taboo and will happily match relatives together for breeding if it looks likely to produce good results.