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1[[quoteright:141:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/udV2W_6899.jpg]]
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3Robert David Reed (born October 9, 1956) is a UsefulNotes/HugoAward-winning (and frequently Hugo Award-nominated) American ScienceFiction author from Nebraska. He has written over 200 (mostly unconnected) short stories, though he does write stories in his ''Literature/GreatShip'' universe. Many of his works feature forms of {{Immortality}} and TheSingularity, and often deal with how it affects culture.
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5The ''Literature/GreatShip'' universe takes place in the far future, where a human probe discovers an abandoned ship, larger than Jupiter, streaking in towards the Milky Way. The ship is claimed by humanity, and boosted into orbit moving through the Milky Way, where it functions like a large, mobile pleasure world. The wealthiest, nearly-immortal beings in the galaxy boost towards the ship on thin torchships, and buy berths using bits of technology and information.
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7Some of Reed's older, out-of-print short stories can be [[http://www.robertreedwriter.com/faq.html#onlinestories read for free on his website]].
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9Not to be confused with [[Creator/RobertReedActor the man]] named [[Series/TheBradyBunch Brady]].
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11-----
12!!!The ''Literature/GreatShip'' universe:
13** ''Marrow'' (2000) [[note]] The novel is an expanded version of the novella ''Marrow''[[/note]]
14** ''The Well of Stars'' (2004)
15** ''The Memory of Sky'' (2014)
16** Dozens of short stories such as ''The Remoras'' and ''Aeon's Child''. Most are collected in the e-book ''The Greatship''
17
18!!!Independent novels :
19* ''Literature/TheLeeshore'' (1987)
20* ''Literature/TheHormoneJungle'' (1988)
21* ''Literature/BlackMilk'' (1989)
22* ''Literature/DownTheBrightWay'' (1991)
23* ''Literature/TheRemarkables'' (1992)
24* ''Literature/BeyondTheVeilOfStars'' (1994)
25* ''Literature/AnExaltationOfLarks'' (1995)
26* ''Beneath the Gated Sky'' (Sequel to ''Beyond the Veil of Stars'', 1997)
27* ''Literature/SisterAlice'' (2003)
28* ''The Flavors of My Genius'' (Limited edition chapbook, 2006)
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30
31!!!Short story collections :
32* ''The Dragons of Springplace'' (1999)
33* ''The Cuckoo's Boys'' (2005)
34* ''Eater-Of-Bone'' (2012)
35
36-----
37!!Reed's stand-alone novels feature the following tropes:
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39* AIIsACrapshoot: One of the more advanced Earths in ''Down the Bright Way'' was attacked by corrupted Von Neumann mining ships. The normally pacifistic Wanderers had no inhibitions about destroying the corrupt machines.
40* AllPlanetsAreEarthLike: In ''The Remarkables'', every planet of sufficient mass is terraformed to be idyllic and park-like.
41* AlternateUniverse: In ''Down the Bright Way'', the universes extend in two directions out from each other -- "left" and "right". Each universe is slightly different from the next, or radically different due to divergence.
42* BecomingTheMask: Kyle in ''Down the Bright Way'' impersonates Wanderers, and considers his "new" life to be far better than before he started acting like a Wanderer.
43* BenevolentAlienInvasion: The Wanderers in ''Down the Bright Way'' try to stabilize the politics of the Earths that they visit, re-introduce extinct species, and slowly introduce new sciences.
44* BlackAndGrayMorality: The Alteretics in ''The Leeshore'' conscript civilians and captured soldiers into being fanatical, cannibal soldiers via EmotionControl and MindRape. TheAlliance similarly uses EmotionControl, though in a much more benign way, to subtly reinforce certain emotions and mindsets in their soldiers -- though this often makes them very bloodthirsty.
45* BodySurf: Moliak in ''Down the Bright Way'' kidnaps Wanderers, and overwrite their hard-memories with his own.
46* BrainUploading: ''Down the Bright Way'' has hard-memory, which are ceramic solid state hard drives implanted into the skull. When a Wanderer is near death, their memories are automatically backed up into the hard memory, which is more durable than their fleshy body is. The Founder's Archives are composed of millions of uploaded Founders, who use elaborate simulations to keep themselves entertained.
47* CasualInterstellarTravel: Jy in ''Down the Bright Way'' mentions how it would be easier to colonize the galaxy with Founder technology than it would be to colonize the different Earths of the Bright, due to the energy cost of interdimensional travel.
48* DeathWorld: Many Earths in ''Down the Bright Way'' have gone through intense nuclear wars, killing off the locals or everything living on the planet -- leaving only their machines alive, to keep fighting and producing more weapons.
49* DeusEstMachina: An artificial god is built in ''The Leeshore'' using what is essentially computronium. The [[GodOfEvil god is not nice]], though [[spoiler:it is later revealed that the god isn't evil -- it is simply being manipulated by the controlling priests]].
50* TheEmpath: Ranier in ''The Remarkables'' is sensitive to pain from other creatures with central nervous systems, due to self-replicating implants he received.
51* EmotionControl: The "wires" in ''The Leeshore'', which are used by [[TheAlliance both]] [[ReligionOfEvil sides]] of the [[BlackAndGrayMorality conflict]]. The good guys use it to subtly reinforce certain emotions in their soldiers and ensure loyalty -- such as making them more courageous. The enemy use the device to essentially MindRape or "conscript" captured civilians soldiers into worshiping their [[DeusEstMachina artificial god]] and the priests; filling the conscript with joy whenever they please the controlling priest, or filling them with blinding rage when they think of their former allies.
52* TheFogOfAges: The original Traveler, Jy, in ''Down The Bright Way'' is over a million years old, and must make constant decisions on what memories to keep or discard.
53* GroundhogDayLoop: In ''An Exaltation of Larks'', travelers from the the heat-death of the universe have been slowly working their way back to the Big Bang. They go back in time about 15 months, uplift everything that would have died within the next 15 months, and wait until the heat death of the universe, then go backwards an additional 15 months from their previous jump.
54* HandBlast: An ability available to the fighting-gloves worn by Moliak and Cotton in ''Down the Bright Way''.
55* HumansAreTheRealMonsters: The [=UnFound=] in ''Down the Bright Way'', a highly advanced tribal society that knows nothing besides total war -- ''everything'' not part of the tribe is an enemy and must be killed.
56* HumanSubspecies: Evolution diverged around the time of the great apes in ''Down the Bright Way'', so there are at least a million subspecies of humanity. Most are largely similar to regular humans, but some (like the Founders) resemble apes in appearance more than humans.
57* HyperactiveMetabolism: The residents of the Termite Mound in ''Down the Bright Way'' have a caste system, and each caste has genetic tailored metabolisms. Those born in the upper caste lives at extreme speed, constantly eating, and die of old age in their 20s, whereas the poor castes move glacially slow.
58* ImAHumanitarian: [[spoiler:Cotton]] in ''Down the Bright Way''.
59* LivingGasbag: ''The Leeshore'' has a planet completely surrounded by biological gas bags so densely that sunlight never reaches the surface.
60* LongevityTreatment: Poulsen treatments in ''The Remarkables'' can greatly expand one's lifespan (past the already improved ~150 years), but leaves visible marks -- wrinkled hands and oddly colored skin.
61* PerpetualMotionMachine: In ''An Exaltation Of Larks'', time travelers from the [[TheStarsAreGoingOut heat death of the universe]] have been steadily making their way back to the Big Bang (at 15 month intervals) in order to tweak the laws of physics to make the ''entire universe'' a perpetual motion machine -- rather than slowly succumbing to entropy, the universe will periodically [[ApocalypseHow collapse]] and then expand again.
62* SetRightWhatOnceWentWrong: The travelers in ''An Exaltation Of Larks'' have been steadily working their way back to the Big Bang, to physically alter the start of the universe in order to create a cyclic universe where it will periodically collapse and recreate itself, never [[TheStarsAreGoingOut allowing entropy to reach maximum]].
63* StarfishAlien: The Remarkables in ''The Remarkables''. As larva, they're like squids. As a juvenile, they resemble dumpster-sized sea urchins, covered in poisonous barbs and griping tentacles. As adults, they are rooted into place and resemble an eyed willow tree with a mouth.
64* TheStarsAreGoingOut: ''An Exaltation of Larks'' shows the heat death of the universe, where stars begin to decay and stellar formation stops completely, creating a dark, cold, and empty universe.
65* StarKilling: Used by Moliak to wipe out the [=UnFound=] systems in ''Down The Bright Way'' -- because the [=UnFound=] colonized ''every'' rock, comet, and planet that they can find, turning the star into essentially a giant bomb quickly became the most effective way to neutralize them.
66* {{Terraform}}: Used in the Realm in ''The Remarkables'' to make colonized worlds peaceful, park-like copies of Earth.
67* TimeAbyss: Mr. Turtle in ''An Exaltation of Larks''. He is at least a trillion years old -- a time traveler from the end of the universe.
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69!!Reed's stand-alone short stories feature the following tropes:
70* AliensAreBastards: In ''Five Thrillers'', aliens [[spoiler:wipe out human civilization with a solar flare]] just because they ''can''.
71* AllPlanetsAreEarthLike: ''A Billion Eves'' has the Ripper device, which transports a large area (anywhere from the size of a gas station to the size of a football field) into an adjacent universe. The story takes place in one of potentially thousands of settled Earths.
72* AlternateHistory: ''The Boy'' has the ''[[UsefulNotes/{{Jesus}} daughter]]'' of god, which caused Christianity to become a matriarchal religion rather than patriarchal. When Islam appeared a few centuries later, with a male prophet, UsefulNotes/TheCrusades were launched in the 7th century rather than in the 11th, which effectively wiped out Islam as a major entity. When the story takes place (some time in the 20th or 21st century), society is much like the era immediately following the American desegregation -- men are effectively second class citizens.
73* ApocalypseHow: Earth in ''Waging Good'' was bombed into a dead husk by its rebelling colonies. The ground is described as being lifeless as the lunar regolith.
74* ArmyOfTheAges: In ''The Hoplite'', a "quantum dilator" is used to implant the consciousness of long-dead warriors into newly cloned bodies. The warriors are given a suit of PoweredArmor and [[DoomTroops no oversight when executing missions]]. The protagonist was a hoplite from Alexander the Great's army and works alongside an SS stormtrooper, a Crusader, a Aztec warrior, and a legionnaire. However, a civilian cast doubt on them being actual warriors from the past, claiming the "quantum dilator" [[QuantumMechanicsCanDoAnything is a buzzword]] and that they're just brainwashed.
75* BalkanizeMe: In ''The House Left Empty'', a series of catastrophic EMP blasts and rogue viruses caused most government servers to go corrupt -- including communication satellites. By the time the story takes place, most of the population live in "Self Governed" areas, which are essentially micronations. However, the [[VestigialEmpire government still apparently exists]] in some form, as the protagonist wonders why most people still file reports for the IRS.
76* BrainUploading:
77** In ''Finished'', the brain is uploaded in a destructive process when someone is "finished". The analyzed brain patterns and memories are inserted into a new, artificial body.
78** In ''Winemaster'', a large percentage of the educated population downloaded their personalities into tiny -- and extremely fast -- bodies. They live an hour like a person lives a year, and their brains are so compact that heavy atoms can erase memories, forcing them to enclose their tiny population centers with powerful magnetic shields.
79* DeathWorld: Earth in ''Waging Good'' has an atmosphere pumped full of microscopic war machines which enter the blood stream and [[YourHeadAsplode violently explode in the head]], viruses which infect pregnant women and turn the fetus into a [[FetusTerrible poison factory]] or {{TykeBomb}}, good ol' radiation, and chemical warfare agents.
80* EmergencyPresidentialAddress: ''Five Thrillers'' ends with the President telling whoever is listening to [[spoiler:murder, steal, and loot]] as it's the only way to survive the incoming solar flare.
81* FetusTerrible: In ''Waging Good'', the Earth's atmosphere is [[DeathWorld full of a variety of deadly nanomachines and tailored viruses]] after losing a war with its former colonies on the Moon and beyond. One type of artificial virus targets unborn children, mutating them into [[BodyHorror hellish abominations]] that hide poison factories in their stomachs or bladed monsters which try kill anything they see as soon as they are born. Because of this, Earth has "Jurors", people who test any newborn children as soon as they pop out. If they appear subverted, the Juror crushes their head against the nearest wall or table.
82* GenerationShip:
83** Appears in ''The Children's Crusade'', which is crewed by robots, with [[spoiler:the colonists being essentially cargo]].
84** A Buick functions like a GenerationShip in ''Winemaster'' -- the inhabitants, robots with human minds, live extremely fast, so several dozen generations go by during its drive from the United States to Canada.
85* InterstellarWeapon: ''Five Thrillers'' ends with [[spoiler: aliens firing a bus-sized object at the sun to cause an enormous stellar event to wipe out all life in the solar system]]
86* InYourNatureToDestroyYourselves: Stated by the immortal robotic crew of the GenerationShip in ''Chrysalis'' -- they were programmed to believe that all sentient races eventually destroy themselves in devastating interstellar wars, after fleeing the ruins of the solar system after humanity's final, apocalyptic war.
87* MatterReplicator: In ''The House Left Empty'', most homes after the [[BalkanizeMe collapse of most of the world's governments]] have their own miniature "factories" that contain [[{{Nanomachines}} million of miniature robots]], which can manufacture a wide variety of goods when given a supply of matter. Simple food items, plastics, and metals are all within its reach. The protagonist rides in a copy of a [[CoolCar 2021 Ferrari roadster]] which was built in pieces by a larger replicator. The story also shows the scientific uses of the devices -- before the collapse, railguns fired what were essentially cannonballs packed with more powerful versions of the factory nanobots at distant worlds and asteroids, which would use solar power to break up minerals and use them to build up bases for future explorers.
88* MercyKill: In the short story, ''Decency'', a malfunctioning alien ship crash lands on Earth, leaving the pilot barely alive. A security guard at the compound where the alien is guarded and studied puts a bullet into its brain when he realizes it is suffering.
89* PoweredArmor: Soldiers in ''The Hoplite'' have a suit of power armor with a built-in railgun and a control system to call in artillery strikes and drone attacks.
90* {{Precursors}}: The Makers in ''Down the Bright Way'', who constructed the Bright, which connects all the separate Earths together.
91* QuantumMechanicsCanDoAnything: Played with in ''The Hoplite''. The government uses a "quantum dilator" to snatch the souls of ancient brutal warriors for their cloned DoomTroops used to suppress the colonies. However, a civilian claims that the dilator is either fake, or that it just grabs the first random soul it finds, which is then brainwashed during cloning.
92* ResurrectedForAJob: The soldiers in ''The Hoplite'' were all long-dead, but their bones were dug up, used to clone a new body, and their memories retrieved using a device called the quantum-dilutor. All of the soldiers come from empires known for either their brutality or their cunning -- Nazis, Mongolian warriors, Aztecs, and Romans are prime candidates for resurrection. The soldiers are used to subjugate rebellious regions.
93* SolarSail: A ruined alien solar sail ship crash lands on Earth in ''Decency''.
94* UterineReplicator: ''Winemaster'' has one for the [[BrainUploading robotic humans]]. It builds a child in the standard, tiny robotic body, and configures neural pathways to be like that of a baby.
95* VillainProtagonist: The protagonist in ''The Hoplite'' is a resurrected hoplite from UsefulNotes/AlexanderTheGreat's army. He, and many other long dead warriors (A Mongol, a [[UsefulNotes/TheKnightsTemplar templar]], a SS officer, etc.) have their long-dead memories implanted into cloned bodies. They are then given a suit of power armor and a railgun, and use them to subjugate communities on Earth and raid colonies on Alpha Centauri. The protagonist murders several innocent people and children in revenge for being betrayed.
96* WhoWantsToLiveForever: In the short story, ''Finished'', the state of your mind when you are "finished" (given an artificial body) affects how you live the rest of your life, as the hard-memory in the artificial brain doesn't adapt. If you are finished in a happy mood, you'll typically be very happy. If you are finished while in horrible pain, you'll be in horrible pain as long as you are alive...

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