History Creator / HBeamPiper

* WhatTheHellHero: Lucas Trask gives himself one of these moments in ''Space Viking''. Trask also gets one from a comrade after gunning down a local who was grieving for a dead spouse. His response was that he was putting the man out of his misery, and included the words: "How many more happinesses do you think we've smashed here today? And we don't even have Dunnan's excuse of madness." He also says that he wished that Dunnan had done that for him, "so that none of this would have happened." (see CrusadingWidower above.)

* CrusadingWidower: Lucas Trask in ''Space Viking''. He slides right into WhatTheHellHero by [[spoiler: ''nuking cities and looting them'' to pay for all that crusading.]] Bonus points? He delivers the "what the hell" speech to ''himself''.

%% * AwesomeMcCoolname

* BottomlessMagazines: Piper provided the page quote once; nevertheless, generally an aversion in his work.

* TheMasquerade: One of the primary tropes of the Paratime stories: you can go visit other universes, but you're not supposed to let the locals catch on that you're ''from'' another universe... It might cut into the 'profit' end.

* DeathFromAbove: [[spoiler:[[NukeEm Dire Dawn]]]] in ''Uller Uprising''.

Henry Beam Piper (March 23, 1904 – circa  November 6, 1964) was an American SF writer, best known for the series ''Literature/{{Paratime}}'' (which is about exploiting TheMultiverse for fun and profit); the Terrohuman Future History, or TFH, which is about the human race spreading throughout the stars, and the cultural rising and falling that happens as a result; and ''Literature/LittleFuzzy'', an arc within the TFH series about the discovery of intelligent life on a settled planet. A two-level real-life case of an EmbarrassingFirstName -- Piper told people he went by the initial because he didn't like the name Horace; his actual first name was Henry. [[DrivenToSuicide He shot himself in 1964 because of financial problems.]] A check was literally in the mail.

* ''Literature/CrisisIn2140'' (co-authored with Creator/JohnJMcGuire)
* "Literature/CrossroadsOfDestiny"

* ''Literature/FirstCycle'' (co-authored with Creator/MichaelKurland)
* ''Literature/FourDayPlanet''
* ''Literature/FuzziesAndOtherPeople''

* ''Literature/JunkyardPlanet''

* ''Literature/LordKalvanOfOtherwhen''
* "{{Literature/Naudsonce}}"
* ''Literature/TheOtherHumanRace''

* ''Literature/APlanetForTexans'' (co-authored with Creator/JohnJMcGuire)
* "Literature/ASlaveIsASlave"
* ''Literature/SpaceViking''

* ''Literature/TimeCrime'' (co-authored with Creator/JohnFCarr)
* ''Literature/UllerUprising''

%% * EverybodySmokes

* SocietyMarchesOn: "Omnilingual" was written on the 1950s and set in the 1990s. In it we have a multinational mission to Mars, with a gender-equal crew, and the female protagonist makes an important discovery. All these people have a cocktail hour after work finishes for the day.

%% * FeudalFuture

** In "The Keeper", Earth is a backwater world of the Fifth Empire (Piper's other stories only cover his future history up to the glory days of the ''First'' Empire); most people, including most of its inhabitants, are unaware that it is the planet where humanity originated.

* ''Literature/UllrUprising''

%% * {{Hermaphrodite}}

* ''Literature/ChildeCycle''

* BottomlessMagazines Piper provided the page quote once; nevertheless, generally an aversion in his work.

** The short story "Naudsonce" named a exploratory starship ''Hubert Penrose'' after an important character in "Omnilingual."

* WriterOnBoard: Piper believed in reincarnation and wrote a Paratime story about a world where it was proven to the hilt. Even with this, it was still [[TropesAreNotBad a pretty good story]]. Perhaps more importantly, in that story? The problem's ''because'' reincarnation is proven to the hilt -- and they've started to get ''too'' good for {{The Masquerade}}'s sake at retrieving memories of past lives...

** His first published story, "Literature/TimeAndTimeAgain" (1947), launched an AlternateUniverse when the dying main character Allan Hartley's consciousness was [[PeggySue flung thirty years back in time to 1945 ti his then-thirteen-year-old body]] -- and decided to change history to prevent WorldWarIII in which he'd been killed. His plans involved having his father, Blake Hartley, become President in 1960; two later stories, "The Mercenaries" set in 1965 and "Day of the Moron" set in 1968, mention President Hartley, so the plan was successful to that extent at least...

** "Literature/HeWalkedAroundTheHorses", a sort of proto-Paratime, had [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benjamin_Bathurst_%28diplomat%29 a mysteriously vanished diplomat from our Earth]] stumble into a parallel universe where the American and French Revolutions failed. Although this story isn't explicitly labelled a Paratime story, the first specifically Paratime story makes an apparent reference to the incident as having been accidentally caused by a Paratime policeman. At least the dates and a one-sentence description of the events match up.
*** The disappearance of Benjamin Bathurst in OTL is TruthInTelevision, and one of the Great Historical Mysteries, frequently bracketed with Judge Crater. This is because most accounts are confused about how quickly he disappeared; in fact, between the time he was last seen and when he was noted missing was plenty of time for him to be robbed and murdered, particularly since he was in a crime-ridden area. Piper's own story turns on its being a much shorter time than reality.

** His first published story, "Literature/TimeAndTimeAgain" (1947), launched an alternate universe when the dying main character's consciousness was [[PeggySue flung thirty years back in time to his then-thirteen-year-old body]] -- and decided to change history to prevent the WorldWarThree in which he'd been killed. His plans involved having his father, Blake Hartley, become President in 1960; two later stories, "The Mercenaries" set in 1965 and "Day of the Moron" set in 1968, mention President Hartley, so the plan was successful to that extent at least...
** "Literature/HeWalkedAroundTheHorses", a sort of proto-Paratime, had [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benjamin_Bathurst_%28diplomat%29 a mysteriously vanished diplomat from our Earth]] stumble into a parallel universe where the American and French Revolutions failed.
*** Although the one about the diplomat isn't explicitly labelled a Paratime story, the first specifically Paratime story makes an apparent reference to the incident as having been accidentally caused by a Paratime policeman. At least the dates and a one-sentence description of the events match up.

* ''Literature/PrinceRoger''

* ContinuityNod: Carlos von Schlichten and Paula Quinton have a romance in ''Uller Uprising''; the short story "Oomphel in the Sky" has a reference to a Paula von Schlichten Fellowship, which is in sociography, Paula Quinton's field.

* EarthThatUsedToBeBetter: In ''Space Viking", the main character worries about his home planet's civilization declining, and a historian agrees: "That's what happened to the Terran Federation, by the way. The good men all left to colonize, and the stuffed shirts and yes-men and herd-followers and safety-firsters stayed on Terra and tried to govern the Galaxy."

* FantasticSlurs: Ullerans are known as "geeks". Partially through onomatopoeia from some local languages, partially because some Ulleran cultures kill small, iguana-like food animals by biting off their heads.

* HumanAliens: The Freyans, spelled out in the novella "When In the Course..." They're human enough to interbreed with Terrans, despite the Terran doctor [[{{Lampshaded}} insisting it's impossible]]. Piper apparently had some explanation in mind, most likely some variant of TransplantedHumans, but it was never revealed. The story was [[RetCon Retconned]] out of Future History, and substantially rewritten to become ''Lord Kalvan of Otherwhen'' in the Paratime milieu.
*** Although Paula Quinton from ''Uller Uprising'' states that she's part Freyan, so the concept wasn't completely eliminated.

* LikeADuckTakesToWater: ''Lord Kalvan of Otherwhen.'' He quickly goes from State Trooper to Great King.

* TomatoSurprise: "The Return".

* WhatTheHellHero: Lucas Trask gives himself one of these moments in ''Space Viking''.
** Trask also gets one from a comrade after gunning down a local who was grieving for a dead spouse. His response was that he was putting the man out of his misery, and included the words: "How many more happinesses do you think we've smashed here today? And we don't even have Dunnan's excuse of madness."
** He also says that he wished that Dunnan had done that for him, "so that none of this would have happened." (see CrusadingWidower above.)
* WriterOnBoard: Piper believed in reincarnation and wrote a Paratime story about a world where it was proven to the hilt. Even with this, it was still [[TropesAreNotBad a pretty good story]].
** Perhaps more importantly, in that story? The problem's ''because'' reincarnation is proven to the hilt -- and they've started to get ''too'' good for {{The Masquerade}}'s sake at retrieving memories of past lives...

** His first published story, "Time and Time Again" (1947), launched an alternate universe when the dying main character's consciousness was [[PeggySue flung thirty years back in time to his then-thirteen-year-old body]] -- and decided to change history to prevent the WorldWarThree in which he'd been killed. His plans involved having his father, Blake Hartley, become President in 1960; two later stories, set in '65 and '68, mention President Hartley, so the plan was successful to that extent at least...
** Another story, a sort of proto-Paratime, had [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benjamin_Bathurst_%28diplomat%29 a mysteriously vanished diplomat from our Earth]] stumble into a parallel universe where the American and French Revolutions failed.

* ''Literature/HeWalkedAroundTheHorses''

* ''{{Literature/Embedded}}''

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