History GeniusBonus / Literature

* Two alien races in {{Literature/The Osmerian Conflict}} the titular Osmerians and the Silicians are primarily made of Osmium and Silicon respectively. Their physical appearance and chemical make up reflect this and are used as defining traits.

* Gilgamesh's punishment of Nolan for stealing from him (cursing him to [[DisproportionateRetribution shed his skin like a snake]]) works much better if you know that ''Literature/TheDivineComedy'' has thieves tortured by snakes and serpentine transformations in {{Hell}}.

* In ''Daughters of Darkness'', it's not difficult for some readers to figure out that Jeremy Lovett is [[spoiler:a werewolf]] if they're familiar with his surname's meaning: [[spoiler:[[WerewolfThemeNaming 'wolf cub']]]].

** All of his pseudonyms. Emmesey Squire probably knows quite a lot about Einstein. Dr. C. Nial [=DeMencha=] is mentioned to be a psychologist. Sir E. Brum is named after part of the brain. Wiki/TheOtherWiki lists them all in his article/profile.

* The intersitial material in ''Series/{{Blackadder}}: The Whole Damn Dynasty'' includes a supposed page of Samuel Johnson's dictionary, full of absurd definitions such as "lea: the part of a sauce that is not the perrins". The definition for "me" is "a harmless lexographical fellow", the obvious joke being that Johnson is defining ''himself'' rather than the word "me". But the exact phrasing references a joke Johnson really did put in his dictionary, with his definition of "lexographer" as "a harmless drudge".

* ''Literature/NightfallSeries'': In Franka’s backstory, when Prince Vladimir walks through the yard in the Tower of London to meet with the Duchess, a flock of ravens rises up and flies away. The legends say that the ravens at the Tower would only leave it once the Kingdom has fallen, which is exactly what is happening.

* In ''Literature/JulianComstock'', while Adam is assisting a doctor with amputations during the Goose Bay campaign, a soldier who is posing as a priest uses parts of a Creator/WaltWhitman poem as an impromptu prayer for the wounded. During the American Civil War, Whitman volunteered as an army nurse and did much to publicize the experiences of medical personnel and wounded.

* Creator/GeorgeRRMartin's series ''Literature/ASongOfIceAndFire'' contains plenty of events/people drawn from European History. Many readers tend to think the world is spectacularly cruel, until you realize that many of them actually happened. Among others, there's War of the Roses, the Rape of Lucretia (if you squint), etc..

* In ''{{Literature/Valhalla}}'', a character named Valfar gives Violet a tour of the ravine and its power plant, which can only be described briefly as a cavalcade of quantum physics jokes, puns and concepts.

* The third ''Literature/MyBrotherIsASuperhero'' book establishes that Mrs. Parker loves ''Literature/PeterPan'' and read it to Luke and Zack as kids (meaning that [[EvilTwin Stellar]] knows it, too). Stellar's last words to Zack are also a ''Peter Pan'' quote, in a chapter titled "The Boy Who Never Grew Up." One of Creator/J.M. Barrie's inspirations was that [[spoiler:his older brother died at age fourteen, just like Stellar's version of Zack, and the comfort his mother took in knowing that he would "never grow up" and lose his innocence]].

* The third ''Literature/MyBrotherIsASuperhero'' book establishes that Mrs. Parker loves ''Literature/PeterPan'' and read it to Luke and Zack as kids. One of the last chapters is also called "The Boy Who Never Grew Up," and has [[EvilTwin Stellar]] make another ''Peter Pan'' reference to Zack. One of Creator/JMBarrie's inspirations was that [[spoiler:his older brother died at age fourteen, just like Stellar's version of Zack, and the comfort his mother took in knowing that he would "never grow up" and lose his innocence]].

** Attempted, but failed, in ''Literature/FoolMoon''. When talking about a type of super-werewolf called the loup-garou, Bob mentions that the last one was seen in Gevaudan and killed a lot of people very quickly. It's meant to be a reference to [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beast_of_Gévaudan the Beast of Gévaudan]], but ''every single detail involved'' is wrong, from the number of attacks to the number of deaths to the resilience of the Beast to the time the attacks took place to the duration of the attacks to etc. It's a borderline CriticalResearchFailure.

* Most of the humour/ meaning in ''Literature/PareidoliaAndTheGildedScar'' in conveyed through references to college/uni level chemistry and physics.