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• Ad of Win: In the January 1943 issue of Astounding Science Fiction, Nothing but Gingerbread Left was followed by a note that:
  Until somebody figures out that rhyme—
  10% For War Bonds Every Pay Day
  is the next-best rhythm.
• After the End: The Black Sun Rises is set in the dark age following a nuclear war.
• The Alcoholic: Gallegher has a severe and probably hereditary drinking problem, which the stories play for comedy.
• Alternative Number System: In The Iron Standard, the six-fingered Venusians use base-12.
• Brown Note: Nothing But Gingerbread Left
• Conspiracy Theorist: Satirized in Don't Look Now
• Creator Couple: With his wife, C. L. Moore.
• Death by Irony: Vanning in Time Locker
• Drunken Master: Gallegher's genius is activated only when drunk
• Everything's Better with Penguins: MacDuff in The Voice of the Lobster
• I Need a Freaking Drink: Galloway/Gallegher in Time Locker, when he realizes that Vanning had reached into the future and crushed himself.
• Laser-Guided Karma: The Furies are programmed to enforce this in Two-Handed Engine.
• Meet Cute: Real Life example. Kuttner liked the writing of fellow science-fiction writer C. L. Moore, so a mutual acquaintance, HP Lovecraft, gave him Moore's address. Lovecraft failed to mention that 'C. L.' stood for 'Catherine Lucille', so Kuttner addressed his fan letter to 'Mr. C. L. Moore'. Even so, Kuttner and Moore fell in love and eventually married.
• Obstructive Bureaucrat: The Iron Standard
• Off with His Head!: Done posthumously by the headhunters in Home Is the Hunter.
• Second Law My Ass: Joe exemplifies robotic disobedience, despite claiming to accept his subservience at the end of "The Proud Robot."
• Society Marches On: The distant future that Gallegher inhabits is distinctly similar to 1940s urban America.
• Those Wacky Nazis: Get knocked for a loop by Nothing But Gingerbread Left
• Was Once a Man: Gnomes in A Gnome There Was
• Well-Intentioned Extremist: The neo-Viking leader in The Black Sun Rises started out this way.
• Zeerust: Inevitable