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* RedFlagRecreationMaterial: Hugo Lamb, having already established himself as a charming con artist and thief, reads ''Literature/TheArtOfWarSunTzu'' while on holiday in Switzerland. Not long afterwards, he screws over his friends, abandons his family, eschews a chance for redemption with Holly Sykes, and plunges to new lows by [[spoiler: accepting an offer of recruitment from the [[ImmortalityImmorality the Anchorites]].]]
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* {{Bathos}}: Crispin Hershey's chapter is a good deal more comedic than most of the narrative, thanks in part to Crispin's habit of totaling his life through his own ego, but it still has extremely serious moments, most prominently [[spoiler: Richard Cheeseman's unjust imprisonment.]] Towards the end of the chapter, Crispin has a flashback to a hilariously disastrous childhood birthday in which several children were hospitalized and a drunken magician with a potty mouth accidentally killed the hamster he was trying to pull out of his hat... but the incident ends with Crispin's parents getting divorced over his father's repeated negligence and betrayal, leaving the young Crispin valiantly trying not to cry.
* BackToTheWomb: Most of the immortals have the power to psychically "[[BodySurf ingress]]" into the bodies of others, usually for the sake of controlling their actions or learning their secrets. However, during her first meeting with Marinus, [[TimeAbyss Esther Little]] briefly uses this ability to settle a paternity suit by transmitting her mind into the body of an unborn child so she can perform a psychoteric DNA scan.
* BackToTheWomb: Most of the immortals have the power to psychically "[[BodySurf ingress]]" into the bodies of others, usually for the sake of controlling their actions or learning their secrets. However, during her first meeting with Marinus, [[TimeAbyss Esther Little]] briefly uses this ability to settle a paternity suit by transmitting her mind into the body of an unborn child so she can perform a psychoteric DNA scan.
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* BackToTheWomb: Most of the immortals have the power to psychically "[[BodySurf ingress]]" into the bodies of others, usually for the sake of controlling their actions or learning their secrets. However, during her first meeting with Marinus, [[TimeAbyss Esther Little]] briefly uses this ability to settle a paternity suit by transmitting her mind into the body of an unborn child so she can perform a psychoteric DNA scan.
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* BackToTheWomb: Most of the immortals have the power to psychically "[[BodySurf ingress]]" into the bodies of others, usually for the sake of controlling their actions or learning their secrets. However, during her first meeting with Marinus, [[TimeAbyss Esther Little]] briefly uses this ability to settle a paternity suit by transmitting her mind into the body of an unborn child so she can perform a psychoteric DNA scan.
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* BodySurf: How the Horologists maintain immortality. Some can control it; others are involuntarily dropped into a new body (recently vacated by its soul) every time they use up their old one. They can also move their souls into other people's bodies temporarily.
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* BodySurf: How the Horologists maintain immortality. Some can control it; others are involuntarily dropped into a new body (recently vacated by its soul) every time they use up their old one. They can also move "ingress" their souls into other people's bodies temporarily.
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* HisOwnWorstEnemy: Crispin Hershey is easy the biggest source of his own problems. On top of being a neurotic egotist who's totaled his marriage, he's also very prone to shooting his mouth off, resulting in numerous missed opportunities, embarrassments, failures, and damaged friendships. In general, he doesn't really think before he acts, hence the main drama of his chapter - and why he ends up losing what little remains of his career and ending up a struggling lecturer at a college. And at the very end of the chapter, [[spoiler: his thoughtless disposal of Soleil Moore's work ends up getting him shot dead.]]
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** Ed suspects Dwight Silverwind of pedophilia after the latter tries to tell her fortune. [[spoiler: Turns out he only sought out Aoife because he's an Horologist.]]
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** Ed suspects Dwight Silverwind of pedophilia after the latter tries to tell her fortune. [[spoiler: Turns out he only sought out Aoife because he's an a Horologist.]]
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* PlotIncitingInfidelity: At the beginning of the book, teenage Holly Sykes catches her boyfriend in bed with her best friend. In response, she leaves town to wander aimlessly in the countryside. In her wanderings, she is exposed to a major conflict between the Horlogists and Anchorites and inadvertently makes a choice that proves crucial to the outcome of the conflict. She also meets several characters (Gwen, Ed Brubeck) that become life-long friends and recurring characters throughout the rest of the book.
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* PlotIncitingInfidelity: At the beginning of the book, teenage Holly Sykes catches her boyfriend in bed with her best friend. In response, she leaves town to wander aimlessly in the countryside. In her wanderings, she is exposed to a major conflict between the Horlogists Horologists and Anchorites and inadvertently makes a choice that proves crucial to the outcome of the conflict. She also meets several characters (Gwen, Ed Brubeck) that become life-long friends and recurring characters throughout the rest of the book.book.
* PoliticallyIncorrectHero: Crispin Hershey gets more than a little homophobic in his silent raging against Richard Cheeseman, most prominently calling him a "fairy". Rather than making him look like a villain, it's meant to make him look petty and small-minded. [[spoiler: Tellingly, he drops the homophobic insults the moment his "prank" gets Richard imprisoned.]]
* PoliticallyIncorrectHero: Crispin Hershey gets more than a little homophobic in his silent raging against Richard Cheeseman, most prominently calling him a "fairy". Rather than making him look like a villain, it's meant to make him look petty and small-minded. [[spoiler: Tellingly, he drops the homophobic insults the moment his "prank" gets Richard imprisoned.]]
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* NoCelebritiesWereHarmed: Critics have pointed out that Hershey bears a resemblance to Creator/Martin Amis. Both are literary stylists who loathe clichés, have tumultuous relationships with their famous fathers (although Hershey's father was a film director rather than the novelist Sir Kingsley Amis), literary agents with animal-themed nicknames (Hershey has Hal "the Hyena", Amis had Andrew "the Jackal" Wylie) and suffered a loss in critical esteem after a scathing review from a younger Cambridge-educated writer he knew personally (Amis's ''Yellow Dog'' got [[http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/personal-view/3594613/Someone-needs-to-have-a-word-with-Amis.html infamously savaged in print by Tibor Fischer]]). Even the titles are similar; Amis made his name with ''Dead Babies'', whereas Hershey had ''Desiccated Embryos''.
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* NoCelebritiesWereHarmed: Critics have pointed out that Hershey bears a resemblance to Creator/Martin Amis.Creator/MartinAmis. Both are literary stylists who loathe clichés, have tumultuous relationships with their famous fathers (although Hershey's father was a film director rather than the novelist Sir Kingsley Amis), literary agents with animal-themed nicknames (Hershey has Hal "the Hyena", Amis had Andrew "the Jackal" Wylie) and suffered a loss in critical esteem after a scathing review from a younger Cambridge-educated writer he knew personally (Amis's ''Yellow Dog'' got [[http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/personal-view/3594613/Someone-needs-to-have-a-word-with-Amis.html infamously savaged in print by Tibor Fischer]]). Even the titles are similar; Amis made his name with ''Dead Babies'', whereas Hershey had ''Desiccated Embryos''.
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** Hershey bears a resemblance to Martin Amis:
*** Both are literary stylists who loathe clichés and write dark satires about 'contemporary Londoners whose upper-middle-class lives have their organs ripped out by controversy or scandal' that gain notoriety - Amis made his name with ''Dead Babies'', whereas Hershey had ''Desiccated Embryos''.
*** Both have a tumultuous relationship with their famous fathers (although Hershey's father was a film director rather than the novelist Sir Kingsley Amis).
*** Both have literary agents with an eye for good business deals. Compare Hal "the Hyena" to Andrew "the Jackal" Wylie.
*** Both suffered a loss in critical esteem after a scathing review from a younger Cambridge-educated writer he knew personally - Amis's ''Yellow Dog'' got [[http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/personal-view/3594613/Someone-needs-to-have-a-word-with-Amis.html infamously savaged in print by Tibor Fischer]].
*** Mitchell, curiously, denies this, claiming Hershey really ''is'' a more monstrous version of himself.
*** Both are literary stylists who loathe clichés and write dark satires about 'contemporary Londoners whose upper-middle-class lives have their organs ripped out by controversy or scandal' that gain notoriety - Amis made his name with ''Dead Babies'', whereas Hershey had ''Desiccated Embryos''.
*** Both have a tumultuous relationship with their famous fathers (although Hershey's father was a film director rather than the novelist Sir Kingsley Amis).
*** Both have literary agents with an eye for good business deals. Compare Hal "the Hyena" to Andrew "the Jackal" Wylie.
*** Both suffered a loss in critical esteem after a scathing review from a younger Cambridge-educated writer he knew personally - Amis's ''Yellow Dog'' got [[http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/personal-view/3594613/Someone-needs-to-have-a-word-with-Amis.html infamously savaged in print by Tibor Fischer]].
*** Mitchell, curiously, denies this, claiming Hershey really ''is'' a more monstrous version of himself.
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***
*** Both have a
*** Both have
*** Both
*** Mitchell, curiously, denies this, claiming
** Damon MacNish sounds like an amalgamation of
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* LeaningOnTheFourthWall: Wouldn't be a David Mitchell piece without it. As mentioned below, ''Echo Must Die'' is similar to ''The Bone Clocks'', with both featuring realistic drama juxtaposed with a fantasy setting.
** The chapter Hershey reads at literary festivals features a scene in a Cambridge pub that's written in rhyme, describing an earlier scene from Hugo's section of the book.
** Hershey's desperate pitch for a new book describes a businessman having a breakdown in an East Asian hotel encountering a psychic woman who hears voices, describing a couple of chapters in Mitchell's earlier ''Literature/{{Ghostwritten}}''.
** The chapter Hershey reads at literary festivals features a scene in a Cambridge pub that's written in rhyme, describing an earlier scene from Hugo's section of the book.
** Hershey's desperate pitch for a new book describes a businessman having a breakdown in an East Asian hotel encountering a psychic woman who hears voices, describing a couple of chapters in Mitchell's earlier ''Literature/{{Ghostwritten}}''.
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** Hershey more closely resembles Martin Amis:
*** Both are literary stylists who write dark satires about 'contemporary Londoners whose upper-middle-class lives have their organs ripped out by controversy or scandal' that gain notoriety - Amis made his name with ''Dead Babies'', whereas Hershey had ''Desiccated Embryos''.
*** Both are literary stylists who write dark satires about 'contemporary Londoners whose upper-middle-class lives have their organs ripped out by controversy or scandal' that gain notoriety - Amis made his name with ''Dead Babies'', whereas Hershey had ''Desiccated Embryos''.
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** Hershey more closely resembles bears a resemblance to Martin Amis:
*** Both are literary stylists who loathe clichés and write dark satires about 'contemporary Londoners whose upper-middle-class lives have their organs ripped out by controversy or scandal' that gain notoriety - Amis made his name with ''Dead Babies'', whereas Hershey had ''Desiccated Embryos''.
*** Both are literary stylists who loathe clichés and write dark satires about 'contemporary Londoners whose upper-middle-class lives have their organs ripped out by controversy or scandal' that gain notoriety - Amis made his name with ''Dead Babies'', whereas Hershey had ''Desiccated Embryos''.
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"Bone Clocks" was a term used for normal, mortal people. Dieing in the Dusk is stated to constitue a Final Death, but it's not stated to obliterate souls.
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* CapitalLettersAreMagic: Horology is filled with mystical terminology, much of which consists of normal words that are capitalized to indicate their special meaning. Examples include The Script and the Dusk (the soul-obliterating material in between lives).
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* CapitalLettersAreMagic: Horology is filled with mystical terminology, much of which consists of normal words that are capitalized to indicate their special meaning. Examples include The Script and the Dusk (the soul-obliterating lethal material in between lives).
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* FantasticSlurs: Doubles as a TitleDrop; the Anchorites refer to Horologists as "bone clocks."
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* FantasticSlurs: Doubles as a TitleDrop; the Anchorites refer to Horologists Temporals as "bone clocks."
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* KilledOffForReal: Normally, when Horologists die, they are simply born again. But as the Chapel of the Blind Cathar exists between life and death, [[spoiler: all the Horologists who died in the battle there were obliterated by the Dusk and killed off forever.]]
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* KilledOffForReal: Normally, when Horologists die, they are simply born again. But as the Chapel of the Blind Cathar exists between life and death, [[spoiler: all the Horologists who died in the battle there were obliterated by the Dusk and killed off forever.]]
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Up To Eleven is a defunct trope
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* CrashingDreams: The narrator of each section is shaken out of a reverie at some point. UpToEleven for Hugo, who breaks into an uncharacteristic panic after waking up out of Ferringer's [[InstantSedation Hiatus]].
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* CrashingDreams: The narrator of each section is shaken out of a reverie at some point. UpToEleven Up to eleven for Hugo, who breaks into an uncharacteristic panic after waking up out of Ferringer's [[InstantSedation Hiatus]].
