History Literature / BlackTideRising

# ''United We Stand'' (forthcoming anthology, March 2024 release date)

* RedemptionEqualsDeath: [[spoiler: Jason Young is a former police officer who joins the Gleaners due to having passed the DespairEventHorizon and convincing himself that their brutality is necessary for humanity to survive. But during their attempt to seize the Watts Bar damn, he realizes that they're fighting people who are actually capable of rebuilding pre-plague civilization, so opens fire on his allies in order to aid the defenders, until he's gunned down himself.]]

** When the Gleaners' attack on the Watts Bar damn turns into a CurbStompBattle in the defenders' favor, most of the surviving Gleaners flee rather than risk getting killed.

* EnemyMine: In ''The Valley of Shadows'', Tom negotiates a truce and alliance between the banks, the NYPD, the city government, and various organized crime factions to stay out of each other's way during their respective efforts to harvest zombies for vaccine materials, thereby avoiding infighting that would just destabilize the city even further. Unfortunately, the whole situation ends up falling apart when [[spoiler: one of the crime groups turns the police on one of the others with a FalseFlagOperation]], kickstarting open warfare between them just as society starts to collapse altogether.

* FalseFlagOperation: Near the climax of ''The Valley of Shadows'', [[spoiler: the Queens-based Jamaican crime boss Overture arranges for a zombie outbreak in the facility housing the remaining NYPD members' families, and plants evidence pointing towards his rival, Jersey-based mob boss Marticardi, as being responsible, which turns the police force on him]].

* BuryYourGays: A gay cop is introduced, given some backstory and then killed. His husband later seemed to have been paired with his husband's straight partner sent to protect him [[WhatHappenedToTheMouse but apparently dies later]], between books as [[spoiler:the straight police officer reappears, alone, working for one of the villainous groups in "River of Night"]]. %%Move to OutOfTheClosetAndIntoTheLineOfFire when that launches.

* CorporateWarfare: The Bank of the Americas where Tom's brother works employ and organize various gangs and mercenaries to capture or kill zombies to harvest their bodily fluids for the (technically illegal) vaccine as things take a downward spiral.

* FalseFlagOperation: Near the climax of ''The Valley of Shadows'', [[spoiler: the Queens-based Jamaican crime boss Overture arranges for a zombie outbreak in the facility housing the remaining NYPD members' families, and plants evidence pointing towards his rival, Jersey-based mob boss Marticardi]].

* FakeStatic: In ''Islands of Rage and Hope'', when the civilian head of a Dutch-controlled Caribbean island is mentioned by Captain Smith to be screaming about Dutch Marines taken on a mission [[spoiler:to save Prince Harry from London]] by US Marine Corps Colonel Hamilton, Hamilton starts faking transmission problems to not have to deal with it. Smith knows the static is fake, but it serves as sufficient excuse to not further bother Hamilton with the issue.

* HumanTraffickers: In the backstory of the Tom Smith books Ricky was a victim of sex traffickers who (prior to the apocalypse) gave her to a mafia member to try and curry favor. [[EvenEvilHasStandards he was not amused, and had them killed.]]

* JustBeforeTheEnd: The first half of the first book shows the early days of the ZombieApocalypse, as society slowly starts to decline due to the government infrastructure struggling to handle the crisis, before it finally hits a tipping point and everything collapses into chaos.

** Later in the third book, an entire chapter is devoted to an island resort where several celebrities are encountered, such as "Jerome Arthurson" of the BBC hit show [[Series/TopGear Top Speed]], and "Brandon Jeeter", who is described as a "[[Music/JustinBieber vocalist and every teen girl's heartthrob]]". Some of the celebrities that turn in that chapter are "Snoopi", [[Series/JerseyShore who is mentioned several times as being a reality show starlet from New Jersey]] and "Rebekah Villon", the female lead of the teen phenomenon ''[[Literature/{{Twilight}} Midnight]]''.

** Steve calls his plan to create zombie-killing devices [[spoiler: using radiation-emitting devices]] Project Subedey.
** The mission to being clearing Washington DC is called Operation George.

** ''Strands of Sorrow'' brings us the Vice President of the US, who's clearly the universe's equivalent of UsefulNotes/SarahPalin, albeit transplanted from Alaska to Texas.

-->'''Dad''': We are 'not' going to a concert, in the dark, in zombie infested New York, and that's final!\\

* OperationBlank: The clearance of the hospital at Guantanamo Bay for the sake of gathering vaccine-making materials is dubbed Operation Echo Bird.

** The main couple of up on the roof and some of their friends are in their seventies and eighties and help come up with a good plan of survival for themselves, their families and others they gradually take in.

* DirtyCommunists: What remains of the Russian government has resurrected the Soviet Union.

** On the state and city level, it quickly becomes public knowledge that the only source of vaccine is the spinal fluid of zombies, so anyone caught with effective vaccine(with identifiable human protein in it) is arrested for first-degree premeditated murder, while someone selling sugar water gets off with a fine. Also note that the arresting officers ''then use the seized vaccine themselves.'' As a result, less than one in ten thousand people are vaccinated, and over 99% of the human race is infected by the virus and turned into zombies.

* SanitySlippage: Faith goes a little into this after they board a yacht that was taken over by the mercenaries hired to protect it and sees the carnage that followed, [[spoiler:killing and rape everyone there.]] It becomes more serious when they're clearing a [[spoiler:cruise]] ship later. Oddly it's not fighting zombies that does it but what she finds after the zombies are cleared out, [[spoiler:the horror shows in the cabins, even the ones where they find survivors.]] She turns Trixie, a teddy bear they found on one ship into a CompanionCube as a coping mechanism.

** Steve himself does this after getting Tom's warning at the beginning of the series, walking out of the classroom he's teaching and gathering his family.
** In the short story "Up on the Roof" after witnessing their chopper reporter [[DeadlineNews get infected and shot.]] One of the news anchors abruptly gets up and says he's leaving. Ironically, while he's never heard from again, his co-anchor and cameraman (both of whom stay at their posts until the power runs out) are later shown finding refuge in the main characters group.