History Literature / Replay

* SerialKiller: [[spoiler: One replayer is certainly making the most of his repeats.]]

* ItsASmallWorldAfterAll: Averted. There are relatively few replayers, and they only notice each other when one of them affects the timeline once - producing the movie ''Starsea''.

* AlternateHistory: Given the length of time this character loops, each "replay" is one of these by differing degrees. Some of the replays effect wider history as opposed to no more than the replayers' personal histories. Others change things on a global scale.

Not really about the trope ReplayValue, but the characters in the book discover life does have ''some'' ReplayValue.

* TheJailBaitWait: The first time Jeff and Pam replay together, Pam is in her mid-teens. [[spoiler: Pam skews late, and Jeff causes some uncomfortable moments with Pam's family before Pam arrives for her replay. Once she replays they spend time together on their "dates to the movies", by going to a hotel instead since they both can recite the plot of any movie playing from memory.]]

* FreeLoveFuture: Jeff's girlfriend in 1963 wants to help him get off but remain a TechnicalVirgin. She is horribly offended when he suggests having sex and asks to be driven home. Jeff muses to himself that things are a little more loose in the "future" time of the 1980s.
** Yet during a different replay when [[TheHedonist he has a lot of sex and experiments with drugs]] he muses to himself that the future of the 1980s has AIDS.

* DifferentWorldDifferentMovies: ''Starsea'' in the third replay.

* FreeLoveFuture: Jeff's girlfriend in 1963 wants to help him get off but remain a TechnicalVirgin. She is horribly offended when he suggests having sex and asks to be driven home. Jeff muses to himself that things are a little more loose in the "future" time of the 1980's.
** Yet during a different replay when [[TheHedonist he has a lot of sex and experiments with drugs]] he muses to himself that the future of the 1980's has AIDS.

* ShownTheirWork: Grimwood did a good job of researching the time period, from seeing which races and stocks would give the highest returns, to seeing when certain technology was available but hadn't taken off yet (ie, there were commercially available but ''expensive'' word processors and videotape machines available in the 1970's - long before both became popular in the 1980's )
** However, one major example of ArtisticLicenseHistory occurs in the third replay: Jeff attends a nightclub performance given by Sidney Bechet in Paris in 1963 or 1964. In reality, Bechet died in 1959.

* TakeThat: A mild one, where Jeff first meets Pamela and asks her about her filmmaking plans after ''Starsea''. At one point he suggests that if she produces ''Film/RaidersOfTheLostArk'', she should "talk to [[Creator/StevenSpielberg Spielberg]] about [[Film/IndianaJonesAndTheTempleOfDoom the first sequel]]".

* TheUnreveal: it turns out that when the replays finally end, [[spoiler: nothing happens and your life continues as normal in the original timeline.]]
* TimeTravelForFunAndProfit: And how. Jeff is lucky to start his first replay in May of 1963, right before two ''very'' high-stakes gambles - A [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chateaugay_%28horse%29 not-expected to win Kentucky Derby Horse]], and the [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1963_World_Series Dodgers sweeping the Yankees in the World Series]]. [[spoiler: That is, until his replays start happening after those events happen.]]

** In the first replay, Jeff writes a threatening letter to JFK in Lee Harvey Oswald's name the week before the assassination and Oswald is arrested by the FBI. JFK is instead assassinated by Nelson Bennett.

* ReallySevenHundredYearsOld: [[spoiler: By the end of the book, Jeff is 202 years old in a 43 year old body.]]
** [[spoiler: Similarly, Pamela is 174 years old in a 39-year-old body.]]

* WhoShotJFK: Jeff tries to stop Lee Harvey Oswald a week beforehand, but realizes there must be a larger conspiracy because the assassination still happens, just with a different shooter.
** The different shooter is Nelson Bennett, a Communist with links to the Soviet embassy in Mexico. Like Oswald, he was shot and killed by Jack Ruby in the basement of Dallas Police Headquarters on November 24, 1963.

** Jeff and Pamela decided to go public about their experiences during the fifth replay (in 1969). Initially, they were able to bring about positive changes by preventing man-made disasters and reducing the death tolls of natural disasters. When a secretive government agency forced them to reveal the shape of things to come, history began to change significantly. [[spoiler: In November 1969, Colonel Gaddafi was assassinated and a terrorist organisation calling itself the November Squad, led by Gaddafi's younger brother, began a campaign of attacks against the US and American troops in the Middle East. Ronald Reagan defeated Jimmy Carter in the 1976 election. After the outbreak of the Iranian Revolution in 1979, President Reagan sent troops to Iran in an attempt to keep the Shah in power, resulting in heavy casualties on both sides. Shortly afterwards, the November Squad bombed Madison Square Garden. The death toll was estimated at 682. The invasion of Iran inflamed tensions between the US and the Soviet Union and border skirmishes between the superpowers became common. In 1985, the November Squad was responsible for the destruction of the Golden Gate Bridge and a massacre at the United Nations Building in New York City. These attacks led to the declaration of martial law in the United States. The 1988 presidential election was postponed indefinitely due to the recently introduced restrictions on mass public gatherings with the US government essentially being run by the directors of the CIA, FBI and NSA as a troika. As such, the United States was well on its way to becoming a fascist state. By this time that the replay ends on October 18, 1988, the US and the Soviet Union had managed to avoid nuclear war but Jeff believed that it may only be a matter of time.]]

* AlternateHistory: Given the length of time this character loops, each "replay" is one of these by differing degrees. Some of the replays effect wider history as opposed to no more than the replayers' personal histories.

* AlternateHistory: Given the length of time this character loops, each "replay" is one of these by differing degrees.

* DifferentWorldDifferentMovies: ''Starsea'' in the third replay. The film was directed by Creator/StevenSpielberg with special effects by Creator/GeorgeLucas.