History Literature / TheRedNightTrilogy

* ArtisticLicenseHistory: Many, but the most glaring is that ''Cities of the Red Night'' has Noah Blake as the son of an English gunsmith in early 1700s Chicago. At that time, there were only American Indian villages in the area that is now Chicago. The French didn't colonize it in any significant numbers until the mid to late 18th century, and it didn't become an English-speaking city until the 1790s.

* ArtisticLicenseHistory: Many, but the most glaring is that ''Cities of the Red Night'' has Noah Blake as the son of an English gunsmith in early 1700s Chicago. At that time, there were only American Indian villages in the area that is now Chicago. The French didn't colonize it in any significant numbers until the mid to late 18th century, and it wasn't an English-speaking city until well after the Louisiana Purchase of 1803.

* ArtisticLicenseHistory: Many, but the most glaring is that Noah Blake is the son of an English gunsmith in Chicago in the early 1700s. At that time, there were only American Indian villages in the area that is now Chicago. The French didn't colonize it until the mid to late 18th century, and it wasn't an English-speaking city until well after the Louisiana Purchase of 1803.

* RefugeInTheWest: Within the novels' mythology, Paradise is known as the Western Lands, [[TitleDrop which is actually the name of the trilogy's last book]].

* CoolGuns: Burroughs was a lifelong gun enthusiast, so references to different designs of firearms and their effective use appear throughout the trilogy, particularly TheWildWest scenes in ''The Place of Dead Roads''.

* AuthorAvatar: Kim Carsons in ''The Place of Dead Roads'' and ''The Western Lands'', and Audrey Carsons and Noah Blake in ''Cities of the Red Night'' are stand-ins for Burroughs in his youth. The Old Writer/William Seward Hall in ''The Western Lands'' and ''The Place of Dead Roads'' are fictionalized versions of Burroughs at the time he wrote the books.

* DeathBySex: The virus in ''Cities of the Red Night'' induces not only rashes and lesions, but spontaneous orgasms before the patient's death. There are also numerous scenes of men ejaculating after having their necks broken in a hangman's noose.

Things only get weirder from there. As is typical of Burroughs, the trilogy is a fiendish and surreal mash-up of genres and set-ups. Much like in a dream, events, objects and characters seem to suddenly shift and change, and the casual reader will get very lost, very quickly if they're not paying close attention to what's being said. The Detective and Pirate yarns unravel into a tangle of boy's adventure fantasy, black magic, old western shoot outs, UrbanFantasy, Myth/{{Egyptian|Mythology}}, Myth/{{Aztec|Mythology}} and Myth/MayanMythology, high school plays, color comics, memoir, nostalgia, 1920's B-movies, dreams, war stories, AlternateHistory, stand-up routines, homosexual erotica, and hanging. [[AuthorAppeal Lots and lots and lots of hanging.]] Long scenes of savage and bizarre sex that wouldn't look out of place in the darkest depths of the Internet might make this a BileFascination for some and divisive to others. Regardless, the series is an epic adventure, and a fascinating one at that. Dazzling and truly original, it's an experience you will not soon forget.

* BigCreepyCrawlies: Centipedes and other venomous arthropods appear throughout the novels as objects of fear and revulsion, including an entire chapter in ''The Western Lands''

Things only get weirder from there. As is typical of Burroughs, the trilogy is a fiendish and surreal mash-up of genres and set-ups. Much like in a dream, events, objects and characters seem to suddenly shift and change, and the casual reader will get very lost, very quickly if they're not paying close attention to what's being said. The Detective and Pirate yarns unravel into a tangle of boy's adventure fantasy, black magic, old western shoot outs, UrbanFantasy, Myth/{{Egyptian|Mythology}}, Myth/{{Aztec|Mythology}} and Myth/MayanMythology, high school plays, color comics, memoir, nostalgia, 1920's B-movies, dreams, war stories, AlternateHistory, stand-up routines, homosexual erotica, and hanging. [[AuthorAppeal Lots and lots and lots of hanging.]] Long scenes of savage and bizarre sex that wouldn't look out of place in the darkest depths of the Internet might make this a BileFascination for some and divisive to others. Regardless, the series is an epic adventure, and a fascinating one at that.Dazzling and truly original, it's an experience you will not soon forget.

* AuthorAppeal: Most of Burroughs' obsessions figure prominently in all of his novels, so there's no surprise at the numerous hangings and erotic asphyxiations, homosexual sodomy scenes, and of course the centipede imagery.

* ManlyGay: The lead characters in the trilogy are homosexual men in the roles of traditionally masculine archetypes: pirates, WildWest gunslingers, highwaymen, and private investigators. These {{AuthorAvatar}}s see women and effeminate gay men as corrupters of pure masculinity.