History Literature / Ambergris

* MemoryJar: The Memory Bulbs allow the Gray Caps to access the memories of recently deceased individuals. You simply sprinkle some spores on the corpse, wait for awhile for the fungoid bulb grow from their head and then [[{{Squick}} eat it]]. The experience is extremely confusing, at least for humans, trying to perceive range of events in a non-linear fashion, like picking them up randomly from the air. Since the memories always belong to a dead person, experiencing the memory of their deaths can be traumatic, as well. But worst of all, sometimes the process simply goes wrong when a human ingests the bulb; one detective's body breaks down into a mass of spores after going through the process one too many times.

* AFeteWorseThanDeath: The Festival of the Freshwater Squid. It's an orgy of violence of murder and death resemblant of ''Film/ThePurge'' movies.

* StarfishAliens: The giant freshwater squid probably aren't from outer space, but otherwise they fit perfectly in the description. They're strongly implied to be sentient, communicate with bioluminiscence and when people gather together to hunt them once a year, they in turn gather together to hunt people.

* TheChessmaster: [[spoiler: Ethan Bliss]] has been manipulating events in Ambergris at least as far back as the Wars of the Houses. He claims on behalf of the Kalif, but is strongly implied to represent a BiggerBad.

* AmbiguouslyHuman: After Ethan Bliss has been rescued after a crucifixion, Finch encounters him the next day and sees his hands are completely healed - this is something that'd be impossible even for fungal medicine. Bliss also has access to artifacts that are made by neither human or Gray Caps and near the end of the books, Bliss shifted into an inhuman thing when he became enraged at Finch before regaining control of himself.

* KnowledgeBroker: Finch's friend Rebecca Ruthven collects books in Ambergris for preservation. She also helps people get information as a supposedly neutral party in return for help in saving books and preventing her home from flooding.

* RayGun: Among the flood of Rebels emerging from the portal, quite a number of them were carrying guns that shot a violet beam of light that devastated whatever it touched.

* EyeScream: By way of headbutt, Finch manages to fight back against Thomas who has him tied up to a chair. He headbutts the Partial in the chin and knocks him over. This stuns Thomas long enough for Finch to drop himself on top, Finch unleashes a NoHoldsBarredBeatdown of only [[ThatsUsingYourHead headbutts to the eye]], this eventually shatters Thomas's eye socket. With the Partial out of the fight, Finch grabs a knife with his teeth and slits Thomas's throat.

* OminousFloatingCastle: During one of his walks, Finch looks up to watch the Gray Caps' floating fortresses traverse the sky and releasing all kinds of organisms. These floating fortresses are a testament to the power that the Gray Cap brought out during the Rising.

* DeathByChildbirth: Finch was told that's what happened to his mother and it was his father and occasionally paternal grandparents that raised him. The truth is his mother is a Kalifate girl and when Ambergris invaded, their soldiers raped and murdered her while he was just a baby.

* PovertyFood: During the War of the Houses, food became scarce. It was also discovered in that period, that door knobs in Ambergris were made using sawdust and oxblood. So almost all of the population has had at least one meal of door knob.

* BuccaneerBroadcaster: The Lady in Blue first started broadcasting in radio about corruption from the leaders of Ambergris and the dangers of Gray Caps even before the Rising. She then became the voice of resistance during the 6 year war.

* SecretKeeper: Bliss knows Finch's past. In fact, he knows more about Finch than the detective knows himself - Bliss was an old contact for Finch's father and actual mother, including how she really died.
* SecretWeapon: Both the Gray Caps and the Rebels have one. The Gray Caps are building two massive towers that none of the work crews knew what they were for. Besides being able to project a massive energy blast capable of wiping out a neighborhood, when completed these towers would be a beacon for more Gray Caps to portal in from. The Rebels had a device alien to humans and Gray Caps, this device would allow the Rebels to hijack the portal and bring in their own scattered armies.

* VichyEarth: The basic idea applies, even if the Gray Caps aren't extraterrestrial and it's only a city rather than the entire planet.

* ForbiddenZone: The HFZ (Hoegbotton Frankwraithe Zone) is an area of jungle where the remaining 20,000 Rebels with their munitions and tanks retreated to. The Gray Caps then hammered the area with more of their bioweapons and are content with letting possible survivors deal with dangers in the infested jungle. Since then no one goes to the HFZ.

* TheChessmaster: [[spoiler: Bliss]] has been manipulating events in Ambergris at least as far back as the Wars of the Houses. He claims on behalf of the Kalif, but is strongly implied to represent a BiggerBad.
* CoolGun: Finch's fungus gun is useless against Gray Caps, so he gets himself a blackmarket weapon. It's a twin-barrelled automatic pistol that fires explosive bullets, making it almost the minimum level of firepower when going up against the Gray Caps.

* DieselPunk: Petrol-fuelled motor vehicles used to be common until they were banned and there are some pieces of technology that we don't have such as the tank with a turret underneath or the twin-barrelled pistol with explosive ammo. However, radio is a new technology and they have only limited use of electricity (as noted in the short story "The Strange Case of X") so they still use lamps fueled with squid oil. It's rather fitting that the final story of Ambergris is a FilmNoir detective story with fungus cyborgs.

* BuccaneerBroadcaster: The Lady in Blue first started broadcasting in radio about the dangers of Gray Caps before the Rising. She then became the voice of resistance during the 6 year war.

* IdiotBall: The detectives note amongst themselves, that it was a moment of foolishness why Wyte was infested. He investigated a call and it turns out to be a corpse that had a giant fungus implant its tendrils into it. The right thing was to leave an write a report. Instead Wyte went closer to investigate and that's when the corpse's head exploded, spraying him in the face with a cloud of spores. Not even the antidotes given to detectives could neutralize that much infestation.

* TheQuisling: The Partials volunteered willingly to get altered and serve the Gray Cap loyally. Also to an extent, Finch and his colleagues who used to be Rebels but now are working for the Gray Cap occupiers.

* VichyEarth: The basic idea applies, even if the Gray Caps aren't extraterrestrial.

* Cyclops: Partials have one eye altered to act as a camera while the other atrophies to uselessness. The altered eye also produces adrenaline and other euphoric substances that make Partials happy to be altered.

* CoolTank: Mentioned in passing but towards the late stages of the war, tanks have been developed with an extra turret mounted on the underbelly. The under-cannon's purpose is to blast Gray Caps that were beginning to emerge from the soil. By the time they're in service it's too little, too late.
* CorporateSamurai: Before being a detective, Finch used to be a soldier for Hoegbotton & Sons during the War of the Houses. Even with the old order upended, he still has connections and sympathies for the corporation.
* DieselPunk: Petrol-fuelled motor vehicles used to be common until they were banned and there are some pieces of technology that we don't have such as the tank with a turret underneath or the twin-barrelled pistol with explosive ammo. However, they have only limited use of electricity (as noted in the short story "The Strange Case of X") and still use lamps fueled with squid oil. It's rather fitting that the final story of Ambergris is a FilmNoir detective story with fungus cyborgs.

* ThirdEye: Partials have a large third eye which acts as a camera. The third eye also produces adrenaline and other euphoric substances that make Partials happy to be altered.

* BigBrotherIsWatching: There are Spore Cameras floating throughout the city and they're under constant monitoring from the Gray Caps. People are still involved with crime as they think the Gray Caps can't possibly see everything happening at once.

* DieselPunk: Petrol-fuelled motor vehicles are common and there are some pieces of technology that we don't have such as the tank with a turret underneath or the twin-barrelled pistol with explosive ammo. However, they have only limited use of electricity (as noted in the short story "The Strange Case of X") and still use lamps fueled with squid oil. It's rather fitting that the final story of Ambergris is a FilmNoir detective story with fungus cyborgs.

* MemoryJar: The Memory Bulbs allow the Graycaps to access the memories of recently deceased individuals. You simply sprinkle some spores on the corpse, wait for awhile for the fungoid bulb grow from their head and then [[{{Squick}} eat it]]. The experience is extremely confusing, at least for humans, trying to perceive range of events in a non-linear fashion, like picking them up randomly from the air. Since the memories always belong to a dead person, experiencing the memory of their deaths can be traumatic, as well. But worst of all, sometimes the process simply goes wrong when a human ingests the bulb; one detective's body breaks down into a mass of spores after going through the process one too many times.

* SurveillanceState: There are Spore Cameras floating throughout the city and they're under constant monitoring from the Gray Caps. People are still involved with crime as they think the Gray Caps can't possibly see everything happening at once.

* TheQuisling: The Partials volunteered willingly to get altered and serve the Gray Cap loyally. Also to an extent, Finch and his colleagues who used to be Rebels but now are working for the Gray Cap occupiers.

* PanopticonOfSurveillance: There are Spore Cameras floating throughout the city and they're under constant monitoring from the Gray Caps. People are still involved with crime as they think the Gray Caps can't possibly see everything happening at once.
* UnexpectedGenreChange: The first two books are Lovecraftian horror. ''Finch'' is a more of a noirish detective novel with cyberpunk overtones.
%%* TheQuisling: The Partials, and to an extent, Finch and his colleagues.

* GreyGoo: In the time of Hoegbotton and the last years of the Cappancy, much of the Ambergris's efforts had been to fight a losing war against the fungus that slowly taking over the city-state.

* {{Biotech}}: House Frankwrithe & Lewden somehow has an arms deal with the Gray Caps and they bring out fungal mortars and fungus guns that both use [[PoisonedWeapons body-melting toxins in their ammo]]. Additionally Duncan has discovered that the Gray Caps have a powerful machine that is powered with bodies.

* CivilWar: It's in this story, that the audience first hears of the War of Houses. This is a civil war that resulted from CorporateWarfare between the followers of the House of Hoegbotton which has ascended astronomically from its humble beginnings and House of Frankwrithe & Lewden which is an old house that's a major power in the publishing industry.

* TraumaCongaLine: After the heights of being the matron for "the New Art", Janice goes through some real bad years as her gallery flops and she's reduced to poverty, her brother gets increasingly freakier, civil war breaks out and she gets caught up in an violent assault by a Gray Cap attack creature. That day also had her friend killed and her [[AnArmAndALeg foot blown off]] by a spore mine.

* SeriousBusiness: In "The Transformation of Martin Lake", with the Age of Cappancy over the informal leadership of Ambergris fell to genius composer Voss Bender. After Voss Bender's disappearance and presumed death, the "Green" and "Red" factions formed. The first was musical fans of his operas and felt he could do no wrong, while the latter hated his despot tendencies on stage. These two factions turned quickly to violence and outright gangland warfare, with ordinary citizens needing to show allegiance colours to safely go through Green/Red territories.

* DieselPunk: Petrol-fuelled motor vehicles are common and there are some pieces of technology that we don't have such as the tank with a turret underneath or the twin-barrelled pistol with explosive ammo. However, they don't have electricity (as noted in the short story "The Strange Case of X") and still use lamps fueled with squid oil. It's rather fitting that the final story of Ambergris is a FilmNoir detective story with fungus cyborgs.

* CityOfAdventure: Ambergris is a city-state of artisans, ex-pirate whaler nobility, madmen, traitorous scum and the [[MushroomMan Gray Caps]].

* TechnologyMarchesOn: Janice notes that in this time period, besides having more motorized vehicles, Ambergris gets some new technology. Through relations with the new Khalif, Ambergris got guns and telegraphs.