History: Literature / TheChronoliths

''The Chronoliths'' is a Sci-Fi novel by American-Canadian author RobertCharlesWilson. It revolves around the sudden appearance of destructive and indestructible monuments around the world, with inscriptions that talk about military victories of someone named Kuin... dated ''twenty years in the future''.

The main characters are Scott Warden, a programmer whose life is ripped apart by events of the Chronolith appearances, Sulamith "Sue" Chopra, a scientist devoted to study them, Morris Torrance and Hitch Paley, a former criminal and a former FBI agent who aid her, Janice and Kaitlin, respectively ex-wife and daughter of Scott, Adam Mills, the main antagonist, and his mother Ashlee.

!This work provides examples of:

* AllThereInTheManual: Averted. Most cultural references are made as addressing someone who already knows them.
* AntagonisticOffspring: Ashlee's son Adam, a psychopathic devotee of Kuin who has his mother tortured for information and his stepsister gangraped.
* AntiHero: Hitch, definitely. He's somewhere between a Type IV and a Type V. Scott may well be a Type I. Even Sue, with her delusions, has aspects of this.
* AppliedPhlebotinum: All the Tau-technology used to create the Chronoliths.
* TheAtoner: Scott spents several chapters doing this.
* BadassBiker: Adam Mills and his gang of Kuin loyalists.
* BadassBookworm: Ray, Sue, and Scott. 
* BigBad: Adam.
** BiggerBad: The never seen Kuin.
* BlackShirt: Adam Mills, Whitman Delahunt, and the rest of the Kuinists.
* BlondGuysAreEvil: Adam.
* BookDumb: Adam was a failure in school, but as Ashlee points out, it takes a lot of brains to survive on the streets for as long as he has. Hitch is also an example.
* BreakTheCutie: If something can go wrong and hurt Kaitlin, it will.
** But at the end it all gets better, of course.
* ColdBloodedTorture: Inflicted by Adam on Hitch, Ashlee, and Kait.
* {{Cult}}: There really is no better way to describe the Kuinists. They're a religious cult who believe that Kuin will reward them upon his actual appearance.
* DarkMessiah: Kuin grows into this, with an entire quasireligious cult based around his prophesied appearance.
* DrunkWithPower: Sue has her moments. Also Kuin [[spoiler:if he ever existed]] and Adam.
* EarnYourHappyEnding: At least for the characters who end up alive at the end of the novel.
* TheFatalist: Sue.
* TheGhost: Pop diva Lux Ebone.
* HeWhoMustNotBeSeen: Played straight with Kuin. [[spoiler:And to the very ultimate extreme]]
* TheHeavy: Adam, who moves the storyline, is the only disciple of Kuin to actually have a face [[spoiler:and may in fact be Kuin himself.]]
* IncompatibleOrientation: Supergenius Ray has a crush on the lesbian (and aromantic) Sue, largely because she is one of the few people who can understand his theories.
* IvyLeagueForEveryOne: Scott and Janice met while attending to Cornell. Ray comes from MIT.
* LackOfEmpathy: Adam is without a concience.
* LoveMartyr: Ray to Sue (for the entire book), Ashlee to Adam (until the end).
* MadeOfIron: Adam manages to survive [[spoiler:the arrival of two Chronoliths and the destruction of one]] without protection.
** Scotty and Sue did that and also [[spoiler:were at the arrival of the Chronolith in Jerusalem]], but most of the time they were inside bunkers.
* MamaBear: Ashlee and Janice.
* MeaningfulName: [[spoiler: Adam ''Quinn'' Mills]]
** Well, maybe.
* OlderHeroVsYoungerVillain: Scott, Sue, Hitch, Ray, Moris, and Ashlee are all middle-aged. Adam is barely into his twenties.
* PapaWolf: Scotty.
* RapeAsDrama: Happens to Kait. Twice.
* ReligionOfEvil: The ever-growing cult of Kuin.
* SetRightWhatOnceWentWrong: Sue does this about [[spoiler: the creation of Wyoming's chronolith]]
* TheSociopath: Adam.
* SortingAlgorithmOfEvil: The Chronoliths get bigger and bigger as the story advances.
* StableTimeLoop: Although, according to Sue, it only seems to be this, but if you watch it in nine-dimension geometry everything is okay.
* TakeOverTheWorld: What Kuin will eventually do. Supposedly.
* TeensAreMonsters: Adam has been engaging in sociopathic, self-destructive behaviour since before he was 17.
* TheCallKnowsWhereYouLive: Even before you move there.
* YouAlreadyChangedThePast: Perhaps. See StableTimeLoop.
* YouCantFightFate: Played straight with the events marked in Chronoliths, and more ambiguously with the lives of the characters.
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