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* ValuesDissonance: "The City Who Fought" opens with Simeon, our protagonist, meeting his new female co-worker and greeting her with "Hubba-hubba! Sexy lady!", then mentally calling her a ''bitch'' for not immediately fawning over him. While there's more going on and he does get better, to a modern reader this is a shocking opening for someone we're supposed to empathise with.
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* NightmareFuel: Shellpeople, hands down. There is a whole industry dedicated solely to turning those born with crippling disabilities infirm into {{Wetware CPU}}s for ships, buildings, databases, etc. etc., and then have the gall to put those same people in debt so they have to spend several years as appliances rather than people in order to gain a modicum of a life, and NO-ONE calls to attention how inhuman this all is.
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* HilariousInHindsight: "Dylanizing". In ''The Ship Who Killed'' we're told that singing in the style of Bob Dylan is ''illegal'' in many places because it's too persuasive - entire planets have ''outlawed {{Protest Song}}s''. Dylan would have been quite topical when the story was written and never had the rather overwhelming effect attributed to him in the story, but his career does extend for longer than ''The Ship Who''.
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* TheyWastedAPerfectlyGoodPlot: ''The City Who Fought'' is the longest of the books in this small series and because the primary character is the titular 'city' it can support a stable cast in a different way than the other books. It suggests some very interesting things, like the role of shellpeople in human society - adoption, and Simeon's role in Channa's life. Unfortunately this is also the book with the Kolnari. They take over the narrative and while textually they're not primarily of African descent they're very heavily coded to the point of having ''raised keloid scars''. They pull ''so'' many tropes from 90s fears of black "superpredators" which themselves pull from racist conceptions of black men as violent, hypersexual monsters attacking white women. And they're AlwaysChaoticEvil and compared to cockroaches. After how thoughtful and speculative the rest of the book is, the Kolnari as a threat are much more dated.
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* TheyWastedAPerfectlyGoodPlot: ''The City Who Fought'' is the longest of the books in this small series and because the primary character is the titular 'city' it can support a stable cast in a different way than the other books. It suggests some very interesting things, like the role of shellpeople in human society - adoption, and Simeon's role in Channa's life. Unfortunately this is also the book with the Kolnari. They take over the narrative and while textually they're not primarily of African descent they're very heavily coded to the point of having ''raised keloid scars''. They pull ''so'' many tropes from 90s fears of black "superpredators" which themselves pull from racist conceptions of black men as violent, hypersexual monsters attacking white women. And they're AlwaysChaoticEvil and compared to cockroaches. After how thoughtful and speculative the rest of the book is, the Kolnari as a threat are much more dated.dated - this is literally a book whose main threat is an army of [[ScaryBlackMan Scary Black Men]] coming to steal things and rape women.
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* TheyWastedAPerfectlyGoodCharacter:
** As in a lot of other Mercedes Lackey books, ''The Ship Who Searched'' has a large cast of people who're sketched out as interesting but only appear briefly. This makes the world seem bigger and richer, but these are also characters who could have come back and explored their potential.
** ''The Ship Avenged'' is about Joat ten years after ''The City Who Fought'' and almost no one else returns, though it could have been nice to see how things had changed in a decade. Seld particularly isn't even mentioned.
* TheyWastedAPerfectlyGoodPlot: ''The City Who Fought'' is the longest of the books in this small series and because the primary character is the titular 'city' it can support a stable cast in a different way than the other books. It suggests some very interesting things, like the role of shellpeople in human society - adoption, and Simeon's role in Channa's life. Unfortunately this is also the book with the Kolnari. They take over the narrative and while textually they're not primarily of African descent they're very heavily coded to the point of having ''raised keloid scars''. They pull ''so'' many tropes from 90s fears of black "superpredators" which themselves pull from racist conceptions of black men as violent, hypersexual monsters attacking white women. And they're AlwaysChaoticEvil and compared to cockroaches. After how thoughtful and speculative the rest of the book is, the Kolnari as a threat are much more dated.
** As in a lot of other Mercedes Lackey books, ''The Ship Who Searched'' has a large cast of people who're sketched out as interesting but only appear briefly. This makes the world seem bigger and richer, but these are also characters who could have come back and explored their potential.
** ''The Ship Avenged'' is about Joat ten years after ''The City Who Fought'' and almost no one else returns, though it could have been nice to see how things had changed in a decade. Seld particularly isn't even mentioned.
* TheyWastedAPerfectlyGoodPlot: ''The City Who Fought'' is the longest of the books in this small series and because the primary character is the titular 'city' it can support a stable cast in a different way than the other books. It suggests some very interesting things, like the role of shellpeople in human society - adoption, and Simeon's role in Channa's life. Unfortunately this is also the book with the Kolnari. They take over the narrative and while textually they're not primarily of African descent they're very heavily coded to the point of having ''raised keloid scars''. They pull ''so'' many tropes from 90s fears of black "superpredators" which themselves pull from racist conceptions of black men as violent, hypersexual monsters attacking white women. And they're AlwaysChaoticEvil and compared to cockroaches. After how thoughtful and speculative the rest of the book is, the Kolnari as a threat are much more dated.
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* FairForItsDay: There's some serious ableism in the way ''The Ship Who Sang'' talks about baby Helva. It's up for interpretation whether becoming a SpaceshipGirl in IndenturedServitude (rather than being [[BuryYourDisabled euthanized]], the ''other'' option presented) is fair for 1961, when that first story was released.
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* FairForItsDay: There's some serious ableism in the way ''The Ship Who Sang'' talks about baby Helva. It's up for interpretation whether a disabled person becoming a SpaceshipGirl WetwareCPU in IndenturedServitude (rather than being [[BuryYourDisabled euthanized]], the ''other'' option presented) in order to become an active protagonist is fair for 1961, when that first story was released.
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** Additionally, after they get her to a hospital her parents' work tells them to choose between their career and their child. They choose their career again, [[ParentalAbandonment signing her legal guardianship off over to one of her doctors and leaving]]. This is not portrayed as them being bad or distant but as a tragic thing they were 'forced' to do - and while unlike that doctor they don't directly appear again later, Tia as an adult [[DelusionsOfParentalLove muses fondly about what good parents they were]].
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** Additionally, after they get her to a hospital her parents' work tells them to choose between their career and their child. They choose their career again, [[ParentalAbandonment signing her legal guardianship off over to one of her doctors and leaving]]. This is not portrayed as them being bad or distant but as a tragic thing they were 'forced' to do - and while unlike that doctor they don't directly appear again later, Tia as an adult [[DelusionsOfParentalLove muses fondly about what good parents they were]].were]].
* WheelchairWoobie: Young Tia after becoming paralyzed [[StepfordSmiler presents herself]] as a CheerfulChild but is extremely disheartened. The SuperWheelchair that she's put in gives her more mobility and independence but also leaves her feeling like [[ManInTheMachine just a head in a machine]] with a DreamCrushingHandicap. She won't let anyone see her unhappiness [[LonelyDollGirl except for her teddy bear]], but the reader gets to watch that - so does the hospital's shellperson, who shows recordings to her doctor, and to various other characters as needed to get Tia into a shell of her own.
* WheelchairWoobie: Young Tia after becoming paralyzed [[StepfordSmiler presents herself]] as a CheerfulChild but is extremely disheartened. The SuperWheelchair that she's put in gives her more mobility and independence but also leaves her feeling like [[ManInTheMachine just a head in a machine]] with a DreamCrushingHandicap. She won't let anyone see her unhappiness [[LonelyDollGirl except for her teddy bear]], but the reader gets to watch that - so does the hospital's shellperson, who shows recordings to her doctor, and to various other characters as needed to get Tia into a shell of her own.
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* FairForItsDay: There's some serious ableism in the way ''The Ship Who Sang'' talks about baby Helva. It's up for interpretation whether becoming a SpaceshipGirl in IndenturedServitude (rather than being [[BuryYourDisabled euthanized]], the ''other'' option presented) is fair for 1961, when that first story was released.
** On another front, Helva's love for two of her male brawns and grief at their deaths is a defining feature of her stories. That brawns who fall in love with Helva present a serious danger of [[CantHaveSexEver breaking open her life support to have sex with her, killing her in the process]] recalls how RapeIsLove in several of Creator/AnneMcCaffrey's other works. But the Helva stories came out in an era where there were few central female characters in science fiction, and Helva is extremely active and involved in her own story, helping and being helped by other women along the way.
** On another front, Helva's love for two of her male brawns and grief at their deaths is a defining feature of her stories. That brawns who fall in love with Helva present a serious danger of [[CantHaveSexEver breaking open her life support to have sex with her, killing her in the process]] recalls how RapeIsLove in several of Creator/AnneMcCaffrey's other works. But the Helva stories came out in an era where there were few central female characters in science fiction, and Helva is extremely active and involved in her own story, helping and being helped by other women along the way.
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* StrawmanHasAPoint: Tia is [[AMinorKidroduction introduced as a child]] living at a dig site with her archaeologist parents, in almost complete isolation that's only rarely relieved when people stop nearby. Her parents lavish love and attention on her when present, but are frequently absent working on the dig, and she knows not to interrupt them and that they usually leave their comms off. So she's [[ParentalAbandonment often alone]], sometimes for weeks on end if they make a discovery. Various strawmen were set up to say that this is a bad arrangement, even for a child who does enjoy solitude and has never made friends her age (because ''she's never been around kids her age'' for long), and to be dismissed as condescending - she even says statistically she spends more time with her parents than most children, and the strawman doesn't bring up the obvious counter that ''most children have other people around at all''. Then Tia gets sick while her parents are cataloging discoveries, and by the time they feel like sparing any attention for her she's in such a bad state that she winds up a good candidate for the shellperson program.
** It's worse than that, they leave her with a medical suite that outright tells her, when she tries to describe her symptoms, that she's makings things up for attention, so she stops consulting it. She knows she can't call or approach her parents when they're working because they *will* get angry at her and cancel "Family Day", something they hold out as a rare treat - an ''entire day'', spent with her. She is seven years old at the time.
** It's worse than that, they leave her with a medical suite that outright tells her, when she tries to describe her symptoms, that she's makings things up for attention, so she stops consulting it. She knows she can't call or approach her parents when they're working because they *will* get angry at her and cancel "Family Day", something they hold out as a rare treat - an ''entire day'', spent with her. She is seven years old at the time.
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* StrawmanHasAPoint: InformedWrongness: Tia is [[AMinorKidroduction introduced as a child]] living at a dig site with her archaeologist parents, in almost complete isolation that's only rarely relieved when people stop nearby. isolation. Her parents lavish love and attention on her when present, but are frequently absent working on the dig, and she knows not to interrupt them and that they usually leave their comms off. So she's [[ParentalAbandonment [[ParentalNeglect often alone]], sometimes for weeks on end if they make a discovery. Various strawmen were set up to say that this is a bad arrangement, even for a child who does enjoy solitude and has never made friends her age (because ''she's never been around kids her age'' for long), and to be dismissed as condescending - she even says statistically she spends more time with her parents than most children, and the strawman doesn't bring up the obvious counter that ''most children have other people around at all''. Then Tia [[ICantFeelMyLegs gets sick sick]] while her parents are cataloging discoveries, and by the time they feel like sparing any attention for her she's in such a bad state that she winds up a good candidate for the shellperson program.
** It's worse than that, they leave her with a medicalsuite AI that outright tells her, when she tries to describe her symptoms, that she's makings things up for attention, attention and it should report possible [[ParentalNeglect neglect of her]] to Child Services, so she stops consulting it. She knows she can't call or approach her parents when they're working because they *will* ''will'' get angry at her and cancel "Family Day", something they hold out as a rare treat - an ''entire day'', spent with her. She is seven years old at the time.
** It's worse than that, they leave her with a medical
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** Additionally, after they get her to a hospital and have had her there for a while her parents' work tells them, essentially, "well if she's not going to get better, you need to get back to work or you're fired" and they choose their career over their child again, signing her legal guardianship off over to one of her doctors. This is not portrayed as them being bad or distant but as a tragic thing they were 'forced' to do - and while unlike that doctor they don't directly appear again later, Tia as an adult muses fondly about what good parents they were.
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** Additionally, after they get her to a hospital and have had her there for a while her parents' work tells them, essentially, "well if she's not going them to get better, you need to get back to work or you're fired" choose between their career and they their child. They choose their career over their child again, [[ParentalAbandonment signing her legal guardianship off over to one of her doctors. doctors and leaving]]. This is not portrayed as them being bad or distant but as a tragic thing they were 'forced' to do - and while unlike that doctor they don't directly appear again later, Tia as an adult [[DelusionsOfParentalLove muses fondly about what good parents they were.were]].
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* StrawmanHasAPoint: Tia is [[AMinorKidroduction introduced as a child]] living at a dig site with her archaeologist parents, in almost complete isolation that's only rarely relieved when people stop nearby. Her parents lavish love and attention on her when present, but are frequently absent working on the dig, and she knows not to interrupt them and that they usually leave their comms off. So she's [[ParentalAbandonment often alone]], sometimes for weeks on end if they make a discovery. Various strawmen were set up to say that this is a bad arrangement, even for a child who does enjoy solitude and has never made friends her age (because ''she's never been around kids her age'' for long), and to be dismissed as condescending. Then Tia gets sick while her parents are cataloging discoveries, and by the time they feel like sparing any attention for her she's in such a bad state that she winds up a good candidate for the shellperson program.
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* StrawmanHasAPoint: Tia is [[AMinorKidroduction introduced as a child]] living at a dig site with her archaeologist parents, in almost complete isolation that's only rarely relieved when people stop nearby. Her parents lavish love and attention on her when present, but are frequently absent working on the dig, and she knows not to interrupt them and that they usually leave their comms off. So she's [[ParentalAbandonment often alone]], sometimes for weeks on end if they make a discovery. Various strawmen were set up to say that this is a bad arrangement, even for a child who does enjoy solitude and has never made friends her age (because ''she's never been around kids her age'' for long), and to be dismissed as condescending. condescending - she even says statistically she spends more time with her parents than most children, and the strawman doesn't bring up the obvious counter that ''most children have other people around at all''. Then Tia gets sick while her parents are cataloging discoveries, and by the time they feel like sparing any attention for her she's in such a bad state that she winds up a good candidate for the shellperson program.program.
** It's worse than that, they leave her with a medical suite that outright tells her, when she tries to describe her symptoms, that she's makings things up for attention, so she stops consulting it. She knows she can't call or approach her parents when they're working because they *will* get angry at her and cancel "Family Day", something they hold out as a rare treat - an ''entire day'', spent with her. She is seven years old at the time.
** Her parents outright boast that they planned so well that they were able to have a child without changing their lifestyle in the slightest. A lifestyle of, again, being out on barren airless planets with no one else for months on end.
** Additionally, after they get her to a hospital and have had her there for a while her parents' work tells them, essentially, "well if she's not going to get better, you need to get back to work or you're fired" and they choose their career over their child again, signing her legal guardianship off over to one of her doctors. This is not portrayed as them being bad or distant but as a tragic thing they were 'forced' to do - and while unlike that doctor they don't directly appear again later, Tia as an adult muses fondly about what good parents they were.
** It's worse than that, they leave her with a medical suite that outright tells her, when she tries to describe her symptoms, that she's makings things up for attention, so she stops consulting it. She knows she can't call or approach her parents when they're working because they *will* get angry at her and cancel "Family Day", something they hold out as a rare treat - an ''entire day'', spent with her. She is seven years old at the time.
** Her parents outright boast that they planned so well that they were able to have a child without changing their lifestyle in the slightest. A lifestyle of, again, being out on barren airless planets with no one else for months on end.
** Additionally, after they get her to a hospital and have had her there for a while her parents' work tells them, essentially, "well if she's not going to get better, you need to get back to work or you're fired" and they choose their career over their child again, signing her legal guardianship off over to one of her doctors. This is not portrayed as them being bad or distant but as a tragic thing they were 'forced' to do - and while unlike that doctor they don't directly appear again later, Tia as an adult muses fondly about what good parents they were.
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* StrawmanHasAPoint: Tia is [[AMinorKidtroduction introduced as a child]] living at a dig site with her archaeologist parents, in almost complete isolation that's only rarely relieved when people stop nearby. Her parents lavish love and attention on her when present, but are frequently absent working on the dig, and she knows not to interrupt them and that they usually leave their comms off. So she's [[ParentalAbandonment often alone]], sometimes for weeks on end if they make a discovery. Various strawmen were set up to say that this is a bad arrangement, even for a child who does enjoy solitude and has never made friends her age (because ''she's never been around kids her age'' for long), and to be dismissed as condescending. Then Tia gets sick while her parents are cataloging discoveries, and by the time they feel like sparing any attention for her she's in such a bad state that she winds up a good candidate for the shellperson program.
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* StrawmanHasAPoint: Tia is [[AMinorKidtroduction [[AMinorKidroduction introduced as a child]] living at a dig site with her archaeologist parents, in almost complete isolation that's only rarely relieved when people stop nearby. Her parents lavish love and attention on her when present, but are frequently absent working on the dig, and she knows not to interrupt them and that they usually leave their comms off. So she's [[ParentalAbandonment often alone]], sometimes for weeks on end if they make a discovery. Various strawmen were set up to say that this is a bad arrangement, even for a child who does enjoy solitude and has never made friends her age (because ''she's never been around kids her age'' for long), and to be dismissed as condescending. Then Tia gets sick while her parents are cataloging discoveries, and by the time they feel like sparing any attention for her she's in such a bad state that she winds up a good candidate for the shellperson program.
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* StrawmanHasAPoint: Tia is [[AMinorKidtroduction introduced as a child]] living at a dig site with her archaeologist parents, in almost complete isolation that's only rarely relieved when people stop nearby. Her parents lavish love and attention on her when present, but are frequently absent working on the dig, and she knows not to interrupt them and that they usually leave their comms off. So she's [[ParentalAbandonment often alone]], sometimes for weeks on end if they make a discovery. Various strawmen were set up to say that this is a bad arrangement, even for a child who does enjoy solitude and has never made friends her age (because ''she's never been around kids her age'' for long), and to be dismissed as condescending. Then Tia gets sick while her parents are cataloging discoveries, and by the time they feel like sparing any attention for her she's in such a bad state that she winds up a good candidate for the shellperson program.
