History Literature / ThePeople

* TakeOurWordForIt: In "No Different Flesh", Mark is working on an important book about a cutting-edge field of science. Meris, the viewpoint character, says she's never been able to make head nor tail of it no matter how many times Mark explains, so the story contains no details nor even a general idea of what area of science it's in, even during a scene where some of the People are helping him compile it and discussing the contents with him. (They also find errors in the book and don't tell him, out of a kind of AlienNonInterferenceClause.

Henderson once explained that the People began as "a weird group [of] refugees from a Transylvania-type country" who had used magic to cross the Atlantic Ocean." But when she found these people too "unpleasant" to write about, she made them benign aliens from another planet. Henderson said, "I think one of the appeals of the People is that they are a possible forgotten side of the coin that seems always to flip to evil, violence, and cruelty."

The People stories originally ran in ''The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction''. Two collections of People stories were released by Henderson: ''Pilgrimage: The Story of The People'' (Doubleday, 1961; Avon paperback, 1967), and ''The People: No Different Flesh'' (Doubleday, 1967; Avon paperback, 1968) which contained all the stories that she had written up to that point. A final volume, ''Ingathering'' (NESFA, 1995), which contained all of the People stories was published after Henderson's death.

* NoSympathy and QuitYourWhining: In the connecting narrative in ''Pilgrimage'', the sorter Karen treats the severely depressed, suicidal earthwoman Lea this way, verbally [[GetAHoldOfYourselfMan slapping her around]], wondering aloud if she is "worth saving." Miriam, who is not a sorter, chides her for being so rough on Lea. Hearing stories of the People, their sufferings and sacrifices and ultimate redemption as they find others like themselves, somehow cures Lea of her agnosticism, which is implied to have caused her mental state.

--> Some day I'll probably be old and fat and ugly, but God help me from being old and fat and ugly and a ''thief!''

* BrickJoke: In "Troubling of the Water", the first words Timmy speaks in English after arriving on Earth are "I'm thirsty. I want a drink please." He says the same thing at the end of the story after recovering consciousness from [[spoiler:using his Gifts to dig out a new artesian well to save his host family's drought-stricken farm]].

* CapitalLettersAreMagic: The People came to this planet from the Home in the Crossing, and their social unit is the Group, led by the Old Ones. There are occasional words of their language scattered through the stories (for instance, when discussing plants or animals that existed on the Home which have no Earth equivalents), but those key concepts are only ever given their translated names.
* CrystalDragonJesus: The religion of the People bears many similarities to Christianity. They say "the Presence, the Name and the Power", and they make "The Sign". In "Tell Me A Story," set a few months after the crash, a young People woman who can barely speak English enthuses that the earth people have a book that is a lot like their own sacred writings, and even has "Our Brother" in it. She then launches into Psalm 139, "Though I take the wings of the morning..." indicating they've got a similar scripture. The People don't exactly ''worship'' "The Presence": it simply exist as a force in all their lives that they deeply revere and which unites them all. They also identify certain Bible verses as similar or even identical to their own teachings. It's implied that the People are a race of humans who never experienced the Biblical Fall and that ''all'' humans once were (or could be) like them.

* EscapePod: The survivors of the crash were the ones who made it into the pods.

** Believing his wife is the last of the People, Bruce Merrill in "Gilead" is [[DoNotDoThisCoolThing adamantly opposed to his children experimenting]] or even asking questions about their innate abilities, [[StreisandEffect hoping they will lose interest]]. He even gets angry with his son for Remembering a bit of poetry from his long-dead grandmother. He's actually less unsympathetic than he appears, but is afraid they'd do too much around other people if they knew. This doesn't make things any easier on Bethie.

* FosteringForProfit: In "Captivity", Francher is put in a foster home after his mother dies, but [=Mrs. McVey=], the woman who's supposed to be looking after him, spends a minimum on housing and feeding him, and keeps the rest of the fostering allowance for herself. It's noted that his status as an outsider in the community isn't helped by the fact that he goes to school in ratty old clothes because she won't buy new clothes for him. One of the teachers persuades [=Mrs. McVey=] to at least buy him a suitable outfit for a school outing to see an orchestra, which leads to dramatic consequences when it's discovered that she paid for the outfit by stealing Francher's own money (which he'd been saving up for a musical instrument) because she'd already spent the month's clothing allowance on clothes for herself.

* GeneticMemory: The People have access to the knowledge and memories of dead ancestors, called Remembering. To Assemble is to organize and narrate those memories as a story. The mechanism isn't entirely genetic, but is mediated in some way by the telepathic connection that all the People share.

* TakeOurWordForIt: In "No Different Flesh", Mark is working on an important book about a cutting-edge field of science. Meris, the viewpoint character, says she's never been able to make head nor tail of it no matter how many times Mark explains, so the story contains no details nor even a general idea of what area of science it's in, even during a scene where some of the People are helping him compile it and discussing the contents with him.

* TongueTied: In "Wilderness", Severeid Swanson accidentally stumbles on the People's secret, and they place a compulsion on him to prevent him talking about it to anyone but them. Later, he describes what he saw to someone else, inadvertently revealing that that person must be People, too.

* LaserGuidedAmnesia: Some of the People are able to edit memories, which most often comes up when an Outsider has discovered their secret. Given their principles, it's not something they'll do unilaterally just to protect themselves, but rather something they'll offer the Outsider if the Outsider thinks that they'll have trouble keeping the secret or that knowing the People exist will make them more unhappy than having a gap in their memory. There's one instance where they ''do'' block an Outsider's ability to speak about them. Later, he describes what he saw to someone else, inadvertently revealing that that person must be People, too.

* TakeOurWordForIt: In "No Different Flesh", Mark is working on an important book about a cutting-edge field of science. Meris, the viewpoint character, says she's never been able to make head nor tail of it no matter how many times Mark explains, so the story contains no details nor even a general idea of what area of science it's in, even during a scene where some of the people are helping him compile it and discussing the contents with him.