History Literature / TheSteerswoman

* AwesomenessByAnalysis: Rowan, as a steerswoman, is good at putting facts together to discover patterns and meanings, whether from received knowledge or the information from her senses. This is the main reason steerswomen in training flunk out; being a steerswoman isn't about memorizing facts by rote, but being able to put them to use.

* DramaticIrony: Being in a StandardFantasySetting, things that will be obvious to the reader are treated as mysteries by the protagonists. For example, a boy finds a certain black powder with the ability to break rocks when fire is applied, and assumes it's magical. [[spoiler:As the series progresses, it becomes increasingly obvious that the wizard's "magics" are basic technological advancements like lightbulbs and wires, but it takes the protagonists a while to catch up to it.]]
* {{Egopolis}}: The port town of Donner was originally called something else before being renamed in honour of a wizard who settled in the town after saving it from rampaging dragons. (Neither he, nor his successors down to the present day, was ever a dictator, officially, though when there's a wizard living nearby you tend to do what he tells you.) [[spoiler:What Rowan learns about dragons in ''The Language of Power'' strongly suggests that Donner caused the dragon rampage in the first place, to gain the townspeople's gratitude.]]

* GuileHero: Although trained in combat (and pretty good at it), Rowan's greatest strength is her intelligence and insight, and it is these she uses to uncover mysteries and outmaneuver enemies. As complementary abilities, her Steerswoman's training has also furnished her with a trained photographic memory, excellent record-keeping skills, and well-developed people reading abilities.
* HadToBeSharp: The source of Bel's fighting skills, along with everyone else in the Outskirts. Living on a virtually barren grasslands with scarce natural resources, everyone's gotten very used to fighting both the land and each other to survive.

* KlingonScientistsGetNoRespect: Zig-zagged by the Outskirters. They divide themselves into warriors, who do the fighting, and mertutials who do everything else: cooking, herding, mending, weaving, and so on. The first band of Outskirters Bel and Rowan meet on their way to the Outskirts indeed treat their mertutials like dirt... but this infuriates Bel, who for this and other reasons decries them as not true Outskirters. Among real Outskirters, mertutials are respected the same as warriors, and are often warriors themselves who have retired due to age or injury. In fact, Outskirter clans can only be led by mertutials, as warriors aren't taught things like how to keep track of supplies.

* OurDemonsAreDifferent: Demons are mysterious monsters known to live in the Outskirts. Nobody knows what they look like because everyone who's ever gotten that close has died. What ''is'' known is that they make a constant whistling noise, home in on other sounds, and spray acid potent enough to melt flesh from bone. Hearing one coming makes the ProudWarriorRace Outskirters get down and stay as still and silent as possible. [[spoiler:They're four-armed, four-legged Starfish Aliens who see by sonar and speak by excreting three-dimensional pictograms. They're sentient. And this is their planet.]]
* OurDragonsAreDifferent: At first glance they're standard fantasy dragons: flying, scaly quadrupeds that breathe fire. However, they seem smaller than most fantasy dragons, can only see motion (stand still and they won't see you), and are very resilient -- Rowan has to put her whole weight on a cat-sized dragonet's skull to crush it, and when she strikes one's eye with her sword, the eye is described as ''shattering''. [[spoiler:They're robots built by a wizard for a long-running MonsterProtectionRacket.]]

* StarfishAliens: Demons resemble these, being four-armed and four-legged. [[spoiler:Because that's what they actually are.]]

* OurGoblinsAreDifferent: [[spoiler:They're non-sapient insectoid alien wildlife.]]

* ThatSoundsFamiliar: "Seyoh", the Outskirter word for the leader of a tribe, is almost certainly derived from [[spoiler:CO, or commanding officer, as implied most strongly by the Outskirters' use of military time and their use of clock position to tell location even though that sort of clock doesn't exist anywhere in the world. Likewise, the Krue, the culture that wizards come from, can only be descended from the ''crew'' of whatever ship brought humans to this planet.]]

** The Outskirters are nomads, traveling from place to place with their herds. In ''The Outskirters' Secret'', one of them recounts a legend about the first Outskirters that explains why they never settle down in one place.

* OurDemonsAreDifferent: [[spoiler:They're four-armed, four-legged Starfish Aliens who see by sonar and speak by excreting three-dimensional pictograms. And this is their planet.]]

* OurDragonsAreDifferent: [[spoiler:They're robots built by a wizard for a long-running MonsterProtectionRacket.]]

* That'll SoundsFamiliar: "Seyoh", the Outskirter word for the leader of a tribe, is almost certainly derived from [[spoiler:CO, or commanding officer, as implied most strongly by the Outskirters' use of military time and their use of clock position to tell location even though that sort of clock doesn't exist anywhere in the world. Likewise, the Krue, the culture that wizards come from, can only be descended from the ''crew'' of whatever ship brought humans to this planet.]]