Time Scout

At some time in the recent past, there was The Accident. It caused massive destruction along all the world's coastlines, killing millions. Now it's a World Half Empty, as The Mafia's connections with construction means that they've gotten incredibly rich and powerful during reconstruction of the world's coastal cities. Also, there's the time strings. Shortly after The Accident, mysterious portals began to open, allowing people to step into the past. Only the Time Scouts are crazy enough to step through an unexplored gate, into an unknown and dangerous history. Also, you can't exist in two times at once, adding the risk of Shadowing yourself and dying instantly...

Known as gates and strings, the time portals are now part of a tourism industry. Some gates are owned by private companies, some by the government. There are a number of laws related to the use of the gates and profits thereby.

Set Twenty Minutes Into the Future, the Time Scout books by Robert Asprin and Linda Evans follow the lives of the residents of Time Terminal 86, Shangri La Station, La La Land. Much of it involves time travel.

There are four books in the series:
 * Time Scout (1995): Margo Smith is desperate to become the first female time scout. She's on a deadline, and she's not taking no for an answer.
 * Wagers Of Sin (1995): Skeeter Jackson is a thief, a con man, and all around scoundrel. He's got a dark and troubled past, a dark and troubled future, and he's just made a very deadly wager.
 * Ripping Time (2000): Jenna Cadrick is on the run from a murderous organization. She has no friends and no experience, but she's fighting for her life and running through time. Shangri La's about to get hit, hard, by enemies it didn't know it had.
 * The House That Jack Built (2000): The first direct sequel, Jenna's still on the run and Shangri La's mired in chaos. And then Jack the Ripper starts killing downtimer whores in Victorian London.

Tropes appearing in this series:
""If a mere chit can be taken for a goddess, then I shall certainly rule as a god!""
 * A God Am I: Jack the Ripper

"Malcolm: Malcolm was reminded of some lines from his favorite poet. [William Butler Yeats]
 * Ianira Cassondra is called the Living Goddess. Her psychic powers and strength of character have sparked revived worship of Artemis uptime.
 * Skeeter spent some time being worshiped as a living god, too.
 * Abusive Parents: Margo. Skeeter. Jenna.
 * Alas, Poor Villain: Poor Lupus Mortiferus. Granted, he wanted to murder the crap out of Skeeter, but he ended up stranded in ancient Meso America. In-universe, Skeeter pities him.
 * The Alcoholic: Margo's father.
 * Amoral Attorney: The excuse for why they're not allowed on Shangri La.
 * Anachronism Stew: Avoided for travel into the past. You don't want to be noticed by the natives. But the time terminal is called La La Land for a reason. It's not unusual to see a Roman slave casually chatting with an 1885 Denver cowboy in a medieval Japanese restaurant. That is to say, uptimer travelling to ancient Rome talking to another traveling to 19th century Denver in a cafe that mostly caters to tourists heading to medieval Japan.
 * Ancient Greece: The destination of the Philosopher's Gate and the home of Ianira Cassondra.
 * Ancient Rome: The destination of the Porta Romae and the home of Marcus, Ianira's husband the father of her children.
 * Apocalypse How: Class 0. The Accident devastates coastal communities, but mostly leaves society and technology intact.
 * Arabian Nights Days: The newest gate leads to ancient Arabia and is named Arabian Nights. This is the theme for the commercial area being built around it.
 * The Archer: Khynan prefers a Welsh longbow, being a Welsh longbowman. Skeeter prefers the Mongolian recurve of his youth.
 * Artistic License Astronomy: Reading stars like a clock is portrayed as much more difficult and complex than it actually is.
 * Artistic License History: Occasionally. Particularly glaring is the presence of Aleister Crowley in Victorian London as a Satanist. He was alive, yes, but he was only nine years old.
 * Artistic License Martial Arts: Author Appeal distorts the depiction of martial arts.
 * Author Appeal: Generally, the critique of the Bad Present. The present has gone Lawful Stupid with regard to gun control, political correctness, and requiring things like a class in etiquette instead of a much desired math class. The residents of La La Land all prefer simple, practical approaches like carrying weapons when you're in a dangerous place, being forthright about the flaws of both past and present, and thinking etiquette is stupid and useless.
 * Ax Crazy: Jack the Ripper. Twice.
 * Bad Guys Play Pool: Kit Carson's been trying for years to beat Goldie Moran.
 * Bad Present: The Accident ruined the world and made the past available. The present suffers in comparison. Also a bit of Author Appeal there.
 * Badass: So many flavors. It's a World of Badass.
 * Each character is multiple kinds of Badass.
 * Margo Smith: Little Miss Badass, Action Girl, Boobs of Steel, Action Girlfriend, Distressed Damsel, Took a Level In Badass, Dare to Be Badass
 * Kit Carson: Badass Grandpa, Badass In A Rumpled Suit, Badass Mustache, Retired Badass, Old Master
 * Malcolm Moore: Badass in A Nice Suit, Badass in Charge, Badass in Distress
 * Anne Vin Mulhaney: Action Mom, Pregnant Badass
 * Sven Bailey: Memetic Badass, Knife Nut
 * Skeeter Jackson: Almighty Janitor, Action Survivor, Little Mister Badass, Badass Unintentional , Ambadassador , Determinator , Badass Boast , Badass War Song
 * Jack the Ripper:, Cultured Badass, Crouching Moron, Hidden Badass, Like A Badass Out Of Temporal Water , Submissive Badass
 * Pint-Sized Powerhouse: Anne, Margo, and Sven are all short and deadly.
 * Badass Teacher: Kit and Malcolm are general mentors in scouting for Margo. Anne's career is teaching guns, and she and Kit vie for the position of second deadliest person of Shangri La. Sven, the number one, spends his days teaching almost any martial art (principally Aikido) and how to use any blade.
 * Badass Bookworm: All the scouts and guides have the equivalent of multiple degrees in history, language, mathematics, and ass-kicking. Kit Carson is the Ur Example in-universe.
 * Badass Crew
 * Badass Family: Meet Kit Carson, his granddaughter Margo Smith, and her fiance Malcolm Moore.
 * Badass Native: The general consensus on downtimers. Specifically, Jack the Ripper. Also, Skeeter's adopted Mongolian family.
 * Battle Couple: Margo and Malcolm
 * Big Badass Bird of Prey: A pternodon sternbergi that came through an unstable gate from the late cretaceous. Also a number of smaller proto-birds.
 * The Captain: Kit's more or less in charge of the time scouts and guides when things go to hell.
 * World of Badass
 * Beethoven Was an Alien Spy: One of the popular theories about the identity of Jack the Ripper in the lead-up to that summer in Victorian London is that he iswas a rogue uptimer.
 * The Bermuda Triangle: An unstable nexus gate is a semi-permanent, semi-unstable gate that leads to a place with a whole host of semi-permanent, semi-unstable gates... The one in Shangri La opened up under a coffee kiosk and dropped it into... the Bermuda Triangle (semifacetiously, maybe not). It's definitely water, and definitely dangerous. Those who leaped to the kiosker's rescue went through half a dozen unstable gates trying to get back.
 * Big Damn Heroes: Quite a few.
 * In Time Scout, Kit and Malcolm come to 16th century Darkest Africa to rescue Margo and Kynan from Portuguese soldiers.
 * Subverted in Wagers of Sin when Skeeter crashes the Porta Romae just in time to rescue Marcus after a mad dash across La La Land. Also present is Lupus Mortiferus, who brutally clubs Skeeter down.
 * Played straight a few weeks later when Skeeter finally rescues Marcus and takes him home.
 * In Ripping Time, Armstrong shows up just in time to save Jenna from Jack the Ripper.
 * In The House That Jack Built, Kit and Skeeter catch up to Paula Booker and some guides being pinned down by native bandits outside Denver.
 * Also in The House That Jack Built, Skeeter tracks down his new adopted family after many weeks of searching so that he can help rescue them from The Syndicate.
 * Blade On a Stick: Skeeter's final weapon in the arena.
 * Blind Jump: Unless you're really lucky, you can't know when/where a gate opens to.
 * Blood Sport: Ancient Rome is a tourist destination. So is Ancient Mongolia. And Late Modern Denver, and Medieval Japan. A lot of these places have dangerous games. Like boxing.
 * Born in The Wrong Century: The time scouts/guides who love the past don't necessarily hate the present. However, they really do love the past.
 * Brainwashed: Poor Prince Eddy.
 * Brainwashed and Crazy: Poor James.
 * Bulletproof Vest: Skeeter, Armstrong, and Jenna all wear them at various times, sometimes even when it's dangerously anachronistic.
 * Career Killer: In the last two books, hordes of these chase the heroes through time.
 * Casual Time Travel: It's somewhat expensive, like two weeks in Italy, but it's certainly no more exotic than that.
 * Changed My Jumper: Averted. Time travellers are encouraged to buy appropriate costumes. Doing so properly can be very expensive, not necessarily because of rare materials, but because most sewing was done by hand in the past, and machines can't simulate the necessary imperfections.
 * The Chase: Several. Usually involving Skeeter.
 * Chronic Backstabbing Disorder: Chuck Farley. Goldie tries to scam him; he lets her start, then robs her blind. Skeeter tries to scam him; he lets him start, then robs him blind. Marcus tries to repay his purchase price; he kidnaps him downtime, resells him into slavery, and robs him blind. As soon as he's arrested, he betrays his employer.
 * Class Trip: Margo gets two. Each one goes wrong.
 * Compelling Voice: One of the magic powers of Jack the Ripper, and his primary tool on the path to power.
 * Con Man: How Skeeter used to make a living. How Goldie always will. They're both outclassed by Chuck Farley.
 * Card Sharp: Skeeter knows about this, though he doesn't get the chance to demonstrate in story.
 * Hustler: Skeeter's a master of the Short Con. He's lied about being a time scout, a time guide, a luggage handler, a bookie, and a Snake Oil Salesman. All in a single book. Goldie loves these, too. So does Chuck.
 * Snake Oil Salesman: Skeeter starts one of these schemes but gets interrupted. People like this abound on TT 86, much to the annoyance of Ianira Cassondra, who makes real potions.
 * Con Men Hate Guns: Skeeter would prefer to use a Mongolian recurve bow, but he'll make do.
 * Fixing the Game: Skeeter doesn't hesitate to cheat when he has to. In a quiet moment of awesome, he describes how a game was rigged three different ways in The House That Jack Built. He then establishes himself at a card game with an amusing anecdote about a mechanic.
 * Condemned Contestant: How Skeeter ends up in the arena.
 * Contrived Coincidence: Paradox doesn't happen because.
 * Convenient Escape Boat: During one escape, Skeeter ends up in the Tiber. Fortunately a boat happens to be right at hand. Also, a Convenient Escape Horse, in that as soon as he gets out of the water he happens upon a champion racing horse.
 * Cool Horse: How Skeeter escapes from Lupus the first time. How he wins in the arena.
 * An unstable gate opens up on the Battle of Orléans, accidentally dumping Margo in it. She comes back through and is followed by a Welsh bowman and a French knight. The Welshman keeps trying to kill Margo (he thinks she's Joan of Ark). The horse rears and drops the knight, who immediately bolts back through the gate. A stupid 86er figures a trained war horse has to be worth a bundle and nearly dies for his trouble.
 * Corrupt Politician: Senator Caddrick.
 * Costume Porn: You really don't want to stand out when you go downtime, and clothes really do make the man. Connie Logan's "Clothes And Stuff" is the place to buy your outfits. They're always top of the line, and usually very expensive. They often look very good.
 * Damsel in Distress: Margo in the first book, Birgitta in the third, Ianira in the third and fourth.
 * Dark Messiah: Jack the Ripper. And Aleister Crowley.
 * Darkest Africa: When Margo goes rogue, she takes a trip to 17th century Africa. It doesn't end well.
 * Dead Guy Junior: Kit's ex named his daughter Kitty.
 * Dead Little Sister: Several Margo lost a twin infant in The Accident. Malcolm lost a younger brother.
 * Deadly Training Area: How the past is viewed. You go into the past without the proper training and you can wind up dead fast.
 * Decade Dissonance: In Victorian London, neighborhoods of opulent wealth butt up against neighborhoods of desperate poverty. The Ripper Terror exposes the desperation of the worst neighborhoods of London's East End, and leads to reforms that ease the horrible conditions therein.
 * Decoy Protagonist: Margo is the central character of Time Scout. Then Skeeter steps in for Wagers of Sin and walks away with much of the rest of the series.
 * Defeating the Undefeatable: Lupus Mortiferus has one hundreds of times in single combat. Skeeter steals a fortune from him. Who does Skeeter end up facing in the arena? How does it end?
 * Depraved Bisexual: Jack the Ripper
 * Detective Mole: Sid.
 * Determinator: Lupus Mortiferus is determined to get his money and his revenge.
 * Did You Just Kill Jack The Ripper?
 * Did Jack The Ripper Just Kidnap You?
 * Disappeared Dad: Margo thinks Kit walked out on her grandmother to seek out a life of adventure as the first of the time scouts. Turns out she left him. It still hurts.
 * Disposable Sex Worker: Multiple different cases.
 * Margo's mother in Death By Origin Story, was a Single Mom Stripper, only she was still married to and living with her drunk, abusive husband.
 * Half of Jack the Ripper's motivation for killing whores.
 * Subverted in that the other half didn't give a damn, but the whores happened to be in possession of PlotCoupons Jack needed to get back.
 * Also, whereas most dead hookers are women, the Ripper's first victim is a gay male prostitute.
 * Distracted By the Sexy: Malcolm often has trouble focusing around Margo. She also tends to cause minor pedestrian traffic jams.
 * Dowsing Device: There are detectors that can sense the presence of a gate. They can tell when it's unstable, too.
 * Drop the Hammer: Khynan Rhys Gower prefers a maul for close quarters combat.
 * Drowning My Sorrows: Margo eventually muses that his may be part of her father's problem; she has a Dead Little Brother.
 * Earth Is the Center of The Universe: Time portals only ever open on the surface of the earth. The only barrier appears to be time, not space.
 * Elaborate Underground Base: Shangri La.
 * Elvis Impersonator: During a discussion of the Church of Elvis, Malcolm does a fairly good rendition of "Heartbreak Hotel", finishing it with "thankyouverymuch".
 * Elvis Lives: The Church of Elvis insists that Elvis is alive and worships him as a messiah.
 * Emergency Impersonation: Skeeter takes Armstrong's place.
 * Enigmatic Minion: Chuck Farley
 * Enlightenment Superpowers: Hinted to be the source of Ianira's Psychic Powers, explicitly stated to be the source of Jack the Ripper's.
 * Epileptic Trees: Some of the theories about Bloody Jack are really far out there.
 * Escape From the Crazy Place: The only goal of when he gets trapped on Shangri La in the last book.
 * Everything Is an iPod In The Future: Averted. The computers that scouts carry look like battered tins. Their satchels are just basic, tough leather satchels.
 * Evil Luddite: Anyone who doesn't like time gates or modern guns is presented as vile.
 * Evil Weapon: Modern villains have modern, ie evil, guns. The heroes all use period weapons. This is especially Anvilicious when the villains take modern weapons downtime and the heroes use period pieces uptime.
 * Excellent Adventure: In order to psych Margo up and get her interested in her difficult historical research, she's given a few tours downtime. First to Victorian England, then to Ancient Rome. She makes some serious mistakes each time, but also experiences some of the joys of learning.
 * Face Heel Turn: Skeeter.
 * Failsafe Failure: The many systems Time Tours and BATF have in place are ... completely useless. And then some.
 * Failure Is the Only Option: Things are looking very good for Skeeter at the end of Wagers Of Sin. At the start of Ripping Time, he's working several menial jobs. Given his past, there really wasn't any way he could just become a hero.
 * Fan of the Past: History tourism is a thing. Time guides are basically incredibly competent tour guides who also have Ph.D.s. Time scouts are all Indiana Jones.
 * Fantastic Racism: Persons with indeterminate genitalia or intermediate gender face discrimination. The response of some to "intersexuals" is well over the top.
 * Fantasy Axis of Evil: The Ansar Majlis are downtimer jihadists recruited by uptime fundamentalists.
 * The Fashionista: Margo dresses well. Timeless class. And when she first encounters Connie Logan's shop, she practically orgasms.
 * Fiery Redhead: Margo is hotblooded.
 * Fingore: Good going, bad guy, you just dipped your hands in molten bronze.
 * Fish Out of Temporal Water: Uptimers often make fatal mistakes downtime. Downtimers trapped uptime are the most pitiful refugees ever; many go mad.
 * The Fundamentalist: The Ansar Majlis and their uptime recruiters.
 * Future Slang: Mostly averted, but at one point Margo comes to Shangri La from a semester at college with a little uptime slang that hasn't filtered through Primary. Also, the series has its own jargon regarding the time portals and time travel.
 * Also inverted with the downtime destinations. The language barrier doesn't exist in London or Denver, right? Wrong; after more than a century, the language and slang are wildly different.
 * Gender Flip: One of the theories floating around is that the Ripper Watch Team might be looking for Jill the Ripper.
 * Get Back to The Future: Uptimers occasionally get into scrapes downtime and have to work hard to get back to the future. This usually involves escaping from angry downtimers and their prisons, and getting past the hidden security that's been set up around the gate. Oh, and the gates go at intervals, so you have to get there at the right time.
 * Giving Radio to The Romans: Sort of. One downtimer gets his hands on uptimer materials and eventually discovers his way through the gates to La La Land.
 * Gladiator Games: Ancient Rome is a tourist destination. Tourists go and watch sometimes. Scouts and guides and tourists sometimes get unlucky and end up playing along.
 * Good Feels Good: Skeeter's new job is much more satisfying than his old job.
 * Guile Hero: Time scouts are Badass, but they prefer to be invisible. Skeeter takes clever Up to Eleven.
 * The Gunslinger: Every time scout more or less by definition. Kit, Malcolm, Margo, and Ann all demonstrate this.
 * Handguns: It's considered poor practice for a time scout not to be proficient with handguns.
 * Heel Face Turn: Skeeter.
 * Hell-Bent for Leather: When Margo shows up the first time, it's in a tight, leather miniskirt. It causes quite a bit of damage.
 * Hermaphrodite: Dr. John Lachley was born with ambiguous genitalia. A little of each. Combined with a terrible childhood in the Crapsack World of London's East End, and you've got one hell of a Freudian Excuse.
 * Hero Stole My Horse
 * Heroes Want Redheads: Malcolm falls for Margo. Hard.
 * Heroic BSOD: Malcolm takes Margo to Brighton during her special trip to London. Normally, he doesn't take clients to the beach in February, and when they do go to the beach he usually avoids Brighton. That's because he's from Brighton and his younger brother drowned during The Accident. He has a breakdown and Margo has to keep him in one piece.
 * Hidden Elf Village: Shangri La is a complex warren of tunnels inside a Himalayan mountain in 1912.
 * Hitler's Time Travel Exemption Act: Expanded to any downtimer who is "important to history".
 * Horse Jump: In the final book, Skeeter's horse jumps over a crashed wagon, but doesn't land well. In Wagers of Sin, Skeeter jumps a horse over a small shrine, exciting the arena's crowd. Then he takes it Up to Eleven by standing on the horse's back and using a spear to pole vault over the wall, a moment of ...
 * Horseback Heroism: Skeeter learned this in Mongolia. It comes to his aid many times. "If it's a horse, I can ride it." In the arena, he uses it to win a fight, escape the arena, and rescue Marcus.
 * I Am a Humanitarian: Why Jack cuts out a victim's kidney or uterus.
 * I Need a Freaking Drink: All. The. Time. Some of the characters appear to be borderline alcoholics. Had a hard day? Have a drink. Had a long day? Have a drink. Got bad news? Have a drink. Talking to someone you don't like? Have a drink. Celebrating? Have a drink. Having a drink? Have a drink.
 * I Was Beaten By a Girl: Their first two bouts go to Malcolm. The last two go to Margo. That he, an experienced guide twice her age got manhandled convinces him he hasn't been spending enough time at the gym. That she, too, is spending time there is just a bonus.
 * Identical Stranger: Skeeter and Armstrong look very similar. It's the coloring and the bone structrue.
 * Idle Rich: Prince Albert Victor, AKA "Eddie". This is also Malcolm's cover when he goes to Victorian London; he's a landholder in the British Caribbean. It explains his long absences, his idiot friends from America, and the occasional wobble in his accent.
 * Improvised Weapon: A time scout prefers to be armed, but he'll use what he can get his hands on. Skeeter and the downtimers aren't afraid to improvise, either, though they have their preferred weapons when they can get their hands on them.
 * In the Past Everyone Will Be Famous: While investigating Jack the Ripper, the Ripper Watch Team runs into William Butler Yeats at a social club. Cue massive fangasm by the time guide in charge.
 * It Will Never Catch On: One unpleasant downtimer goes on a misogynist rant when he encounters a female uptime reporter. He particularly laments that women are taking mens' jobs, usurping respectable professions like the secretary, polluting the office with their wanton ways.
 * Jack the Ripper
 * Jerk With a Heart of Gold: Skeeter's a thief and a Con Man who ruined people's vacations, even lives. Of course, he had a little bit of an excuse, but, in the end, he was just drifting. He stole, he gambled, he drank, and he gave most of his money to charity. Wait, charity?
 * Karma Houdini: Jack half gets away with it.
 * Kill It With Fire: During the final chase, the bad guy deters pursuit by throwing a burning rag on a barrel of black powder in a shed filled with explosives.
 * Knife Nut: Jack the Ripper. Twice. Also, all of the cultists who worship Lord Jack.
 * Living Legend: Kit Carson is one of the first ever time scouts. Margo Smith is his granddaughter and the first ever female scout. Ianira Cassondra has sparked a revival of the worship of Artemis and is an object of worship in herself.
 * Magic A Is Magic A: There are a few rules to time travel that aren't broken.
 * No paradox. Don't bother trying.
 * If you exist twice in the same time, you'll die. It's called shadowing yourself. You can't cross your own shadow and live.
 * Magic Antidote: Lots of Snake Oil Salesmen sell these on Shangri La. Skeeter starts such a scam but gets interrupted. Ianira may just make the real thing. Skeeter's scheme was based on a Sacred Pool believed to have such properties near Marcus's childhood home.
 * Magic Plastic Surgery: Skeeter goes under the knife to look like another person. Attempted justification: Identical Stranger. Skeeter very strongly resembles him.
 * But played straight earlier. Dr. Booker is her own model and has dozens of pictures of herself looking wildly different.
 * Mama Bear: Ianira. In Wagers of Sin, the fact that Skeeter was trying to rescue the father of her children gave her words extra weight, for both uptimers and downtimers.
 * Master of Disguise: Chuck Farley.
 * Medieval Morons: Downtimers are initially presented as superstitious fools, mostly incapable of handling life uptime. Their presentation gets better as the books go on.
 * The Mole: The Syndicate is very good at insinuating their agents.
 * They have downtimer terrorists working construction on the new Arabian Nights Days gate, perfectly placed to start riots and murder their enemies.
 * They put CareerKillers on baggage crews to hunt down and murder people running from those same Career Killers.
 * They get a Smug Snake Career Killer head of evil security placed on the search and rescue mission going after those same people.
 * Money to Throw Away: Skeeter and Marcus need a distraction. It works.
 * Morality Pet: Marcus, for Skeeter, before his Heel Face Turn. Afterward, he's devoted to the downtimers in general, but Marcus and his family are special.
 * More Deadly Than the Male: Malcolm is occasionally impressed by Margo's ferocity.

But when hunter meets with husband

each confirms the other's tale

the female of the species

is more deadly than the male."

"Ianira: It is all right to weep out the pain, Skeeter. A man can go only so long alone, untouched, unloved. You miss your fierce Khan, I know that, but you cannot go back, Skeeter."
 * Mounted Combat: Like his Mongolian family, Skeeter can ride a horse in battle. One time, it was a trained warhorse.
 * Ms. Fanservice: Margo loves tight clothes and has Boobs of Steel.
 * My Secret Pregnancy: Kit never suspected he had a granddaughter. Because he never knew his Sarah was pregnant. He had to ask his granddaughter whether he'd had a daughter or a son.
 * Jenna has an extra reason to hide hers: she's disguised as a man with surgically implanted facial hair.
 * Necessary Fail: Why paradox is averted.
 * Next Sunday AD: The series is set here or Twenty Minutes Into the Future. It's implied to be the latter, but there are no practical differences apart from the time travel. Most of the action happens on the time terminal or in the distant past anyway.
 * No Biological Sex: Armstrong is a character with an ambiguous sexual identity. He could be a feminine man. She could be a masculine woman. She never identifies as either and he can pass for either. His hair is cut short, she wears wigs, and long-necked clothing eliminates the possibility of seeing an adam's apple.
 * No Equal Opportunity Time Travel: Women cannot be scouts. Period. Until Margo insists. They can be guides. Guiding and scouting are wildly different professions. The race issue is never brought up.
 * No Womans Land: The past is treated this way. Qurac is explicitly called as much. The downtimer muslim cult is presented as rabidly misogynistic, especially hating the revived worship of Artemis because it has a female deity.
 * Noodle Incident: The Accident is never described in detail. All we know is that it caused global tsunamis and significant damage to all coastal communities and, somehow, started the time portals. And it happened in the winter.
 * Only One Me Allowed Right Now: If you try, you die.
 * Organized Crime: Following The Accident, organized crime is rampant and becomes important in the later books.
 * London Gangster: One of the few of these tropes that occurs downtime rather than up. Not very organized, but vicious and criminal.
 * The Mafia: They own the eastern seaboard and are implied to be a significant part of The Syndicate.
 * Mafia Princess: Jenna Caddrick. She knows her father's a bastard, but she didn't know he was a monster.
 * The Mafiya: Also powerful, and implied to be another part of The Syndicate.
 * The Syndicate: A multinational organization with Caddrick as their pet senator.
 * Yakuza: The final leg of The Syndicate tripod. Caddrick has significant business interests in Japanese construction. Japan was hit very hard by the tsunamis that followed The Accident. They also love to visit Kit Carson's Neo Edo hotel, and to go downtime to medieval Japan.
 * Our Time Travel Is Different: A variant of wormhole time travel. Each gate is a string connecting two points in time.
 * Out With a Bang: Someone conjectures that sex with Margo would kill you. His interlocutor implies it would be worth it.
 * Outgrown Such Silly Superstitions: Averted. Islamic terrorism is a huge problem (they're even recruiting downtimer jihadists), and the presence of an ancient priestess with mystical powers on Shangri La has caused a massive surge in the worship of Artemis. Oh, and Islam has a particular problem with the female deity of this new worship.
 * Papa Wolf: Marcus will go through hell for his little girls. So will Armstrong.
 * As soon as he finds out Margo's his granddaughter, Kit becomes very protective of her. Skeeter, having tried to scam Margo before anyone knew, walks very, very shy around both ever after.
 * Perma Stubble: Kit always sports a little mustache, but when things go to hell during Ripper Season, he ends up with manly stubble.
 * Pet the Dog: Skeeter's introduced as a minor villain in the first book. The second doesn't give you much reason to think otherwise, until you learn about his back story. Just before that happens, he keeps a promise and gives a small fortune to a friend.
 * Photographic Memory: Brian Henrickson remembers everything he's ever read. He's the Time Terminal's librarian.
 * Plot Relevant Age Up: run to Denver, then to London. They show up in London a few hours before they leave for Denver, three years older. Tragic, as it means
 * Politically Correct History: Mostly averted. The effort is to be accurate to the time periods, for good and for ill.
 * Popular History: Again, mostly averted. The authors go to some effort to make sure they avoid the worst stereotypes and be historically accurate. How well they succeed depends on your own knowledge.
 * Portal to The Past: The portals are exactly and explicitly linked. The station schedule for each gate lists three times for each, station time, present time, and past time. Except Primary, which links only the station and the present.
 * Powerup Mount: Skeeter is doing fairly well, holding his own in the arena. Then a horse ambles by and Skeeter becomes like unto a god.
 * Professional Gambler: One of Skeeter's vices.
 * Prongs of Poseidon: Skeeter's given a trident in Wagers of Sin.
 * Psychic Powers: Ianira has several, as does Jack the Ripper.
 * Clairvoyance: Ianira can almost see the face of Marcus's kidnapper/former master. He's a Master of Disguise so capable it even befuddles her psyche.
 * Precognition: Ianira gets visions of the future, usually bad. "It is from uptime the danger comes."
 * Fainting Seer: Sometimes she falls into involuntary prophetic trances that leave her weak, even unconscious.
 * Postcognition: She can also see things that have already happened.
 * The Empath: She and Margo have an instant connection thanks to their similar histories and magic powers. Ianira's eyes will pierce your soul, and Margo has a literal heart-stopping smile.
 * Further, when Skeeter wakes up in pain, she comforts him. He begins weeping because only one person has ever been that kind to him. She immediately knows why.


 * Pyrrhic Victory: Congratulations, Skeeter! You just stood up to a bully! A bully with massive wealth, criminal connections, government power, and a vindictive nature. And you've a checkered past he won't have any trouble using against you.
 * Qurac: The downtimer jihadists and their uptime recruiters are presented as Muslim extremists and rabid misogynists.
 * Really Seventeen Years Old: When Margo first shows up she claims to be eighteen. Halfway through the first book she celebrates her seventeenth birthday.
 * Rearing Horse: The horse in the arena protests Skeeter jumping on; he brings it under control.
 * Recruiting the Criminal: Kit doesn't quite say "Set a thief to catch a thief", but he comes pretty darn close.
 * Red Headed Heroine: Margo.
 * Religion of Evil: That practiced by Jack the Ripper. And Aleister Crowley.
 * Retroactive Precognition: Pretty much what scouts and guides really want to take advantage of. They want to see and observe important historical events first hand. In the series, the only time it's deliberately taken advantage of is by the Ripper Watch Team, finally learning who Jack the Ripper was.
 * Revolvers Are Just Better: Given that most gates lead to times before automatic and semiautomatic weapons, this just plain sense. Why carry anything but a revolver when nothing but revolvers exist?
 * Sadistic Choice: Here's your choice, assassin, you can stay here in downtime London where they'll lop your damaged hands off, or you can come home with us and receive the best of modern care and tell us all about your criminal bosses.
 * Screw the Money, I Have Rules: Malcolm refuses to work for Time Tours, believing they're ruining time tourism. He prefers to genteelly starve with his principles as an independent guide.
 * Sealed Badass in A Can: Partly how Jack the Ripper operates.
 * Seven Wonders of the World: Ianira Cassondra trained as a priestess at the Temple of Artemis at Ephesus, where her mother's sister was high priestess.
 * Sex Tourism: Some people go downtime to have sex with downtimer whores. This is viewed very negatively and explicitly referred to as rape. They're called "zipper jockeys".
 * Sharp Dressed Man: Turns out Malcolm's quietly a clothes horse. His favorite persona for Victorian London is as an eccentric globe-trotting gentleman and he has to keep up with changing styles. Contrast Ancient Rome, where he's usually a collared slave.
 * Shotguns Are Just Better: Suberted. It's acknowledged that they have good stopping power at close range, but aren't any good beyond that, unless you're hunting birds. Skeeter's given a shotgun not because it's better, but because he's worse.
 * Shut UP, Hannibal: Kit shuts up Caddrick then goes back to bed.
 * Sighted Guns Are Low Tech: Averted. Guns are among the things treated realistically. Old guns are treated as more difficult than modern guns, as among modern advancements are those that make them easier to use. But even dangerous modern guns (mostly just described as being "modern" and "evil looking") still have sights.
 * The Slow Path: Shows up in the final book. It's a very risky maneuver; gates aren't permanent. No matter how stable, any gate risks going unstable and disappearing.
 * Someone to Remember Him By: Carl's got a baby on the way.
 * Space Brasilia: Averted. The architecture is outlandlishly diverse, with everything tending to look like the art and architecture of the nearest tourist gate.
 * Squee: When Kit and Malcolm take Margo shopping in preparation for her trip to London. She goes catnip crazy for the fancy clothes.
 * While investigating Jack the Ripper's occult connections, the Ripper Watch Team runs into Malcolm's favorite poet, William Butler Yeats. He can barely restrain from soiling himself.
 * Stage Name: It's doubtful that his parents named him Lupus Mortiferus. The book translates it as "The Death Wolf". It's closer to "The Wolf KILLING", which is also appropriate.
 * Stylistic Suck: Most things in the past were hand made, and most people paid attention to things like clothes and weapons. Therefor, a scout's, guide's, or tourist's gear has to mimic the imperfections of hand made equipment.
 * Suffer the Slings: Corydon, the Greek Hoplite, favors a sling, to great effect.
 * Swapped Roles: Skeeter poses as Armstrong to lure out a bad guy. That's because Armstrong isn't expendable; Skeeter is.
 * Tap On the Head: Skeeter gets knocked out from behind and spends several days recovering.
 * A Taste of the Lash: Skeeter's training in the Roman arena.
 * Temporal Mutability: There are several varieties of Enforced Immutability.
 * You can't cause paradox. Anything that really matters can't be changed. There's no human enforcement, Contrived Coincidence just prevents it.
 * Things that can be changed are governed by uptime laws, mostly having to do with preventing profiteering and the theft of past treasures. This is governed by the Bureau of Access Time Functions (BATF).
 * Temporal Paradox: Averted. It doesn't happen. Explanation is never provided.
 * Timeline Altering MacGuffin: Sort of. It's possible to go back in time and gamble on past sporting events. But it's illegal.
 * Time Police: The BATF. Generally, they just keep people from profiteering from time travel and prevent excessive looting of historical treasures.
 * Time Travel: A limited form. Each gate opens for a limited interval at one location, and connects to a specific time and place. The two ends are linked, advancing forward in time at the same rate. If it opens on November 4th, 1913 in Rome and connects to September 13th, 1209 in London, and reopens on November 10th, 1913 in Rome, it will connect to September 19th, 1209 in London.
 * Time Travellers Are Spies: Or at least dangerously noticeable. And getting noticed can be fatal.
 * The Time Travellers Dilemma: Not everyone in the past can be killed. Even if they can, it doesn't mean you have the right to kill them. Even in self defense. You are a foreigner and a trespasser and have the responsibility to be as invisible as possible.
 * Time Travel Escape: A group of activists request that this be attempted for Jack the Ripper's victims. They argue that random downtimer whores can't possibly be important enough to be paradox-proof. The main characters roll their eyes at this; it's not the people, it's the history that matters. In other words, averted.
 * Time Travel Tense Trouble: Generally avoided. Talking about past events uses the past tense. When it's a past event that's in the future on the other side of the portal, it uses the future tense. Sense the portals all use San Dimas Time, it works.
 * Time Travel for Fun And Profit: Oh my yes.
 * Time tourism is big business. In fact, several gates are owned, top to bottom, by private companies.
 * The Compound Interest Time Travel Gambit is never tried. Probably too obvious; the banks and police are alert to it and would avoid it.
 * Other methods are generally illegal. Basically, people from the future have a ridiculously unfair advantage and we have an obligation to not take advantage of that. Also, taking treasures and art relics from the past is seen as a sort of rape. Even though some things are protected by paradox... for some reason. The Time Police exist to prevent these more complex methods.
 * Timey-Wimey Ball: Generally averted. The time portals are generally straight forward and don't let things get complicated, they just give access to a very few specific and largely unconnected times and locations, but when people start hopping around to multiple locations, and when it's possible to move from Denver 1885 to London 1888...
 * Title Drop: Rather gratuitously in the epilogue of the last book. Time Scout is dropped every time someone talks about scouting. Wagers of Sin only makes it to the cover. Ripping Time is an actual period of time in universe and is mentioned several times.
 * Training From Hell: How Margo views her relatively benign training as a scout. However, when she goes rogue and travels into the past on her own, she gets a very rough lesson in scouting. Also, Skeeter's childhood.
 * Trapped in The Past: This can happen. Time strings (the two gates and their opening schedule) have varying degrees of stability. If a gate goes unstable and disappears... In fact, one protagonist fell through a random, unstable gate as a child, but got lucky and was rescued when a stable gate was scouted nearby five years later.
 * Twenty Minutes Into the Future: The technology is more or less the same as today. The only part of this that makes it Speculative Fiction is the time travel gates, which are poorly understood accidents.
 * The Unfrozen Caveman Lawyer: La La Land has a small population of stranded downtimers. Some have a great deal of trouble coping, some going insane, some walking through random, unstable gates. Others learn to cope fairly well. The downtimers organize their own small community to help them all to cope.
 * One downtimer even deliberately sought out the station and coped a little too well.
 * Victorian London: Many downtime plots take place there. Then. Whatever.
 * Victory Is Boring: Skeeter's life post Heel Face Turn is rather disappointing. It comes to a head: You just beat up a knife-wielding thug and handed him to the cops! You just carried the woman he was beating to the hospital, receiving warm congratulations! You just handed a truant kid over to the cops and felt a connection with a formerly antagonistic cop! You just got to stand up to a bigot! You ... just got fired. Now what?
 * Weapon of Choice: Each character tends to have one or more preferred weapons.
 * Aversion: Sven loves all weapons.
 * Anne has a pair of delightful little Royal Irish Constabulary Webleys.
 * Skeeter pines for the recurve bows of his youth, but he'll use a gun. In the Arena, he tricks them into giving him a lariat and a trident, those being what he was trained with and what was closest to the spears of his youth respectively.
 * Jack the Ripper prefers an Arabian jambiya for the ceremonial taking of heads.
 * Kynan Rhys Gower prefers his longbow or a war maul. But when their superiority is demonstrated in the face of an angry Cape buffalo, he asks, "You show gun?"
 * "Well Done, Son" Guy: Margo wants to be a time scout to rub it in her dying father's face.
 * Skeeter also fits this trope. When he says "My father made me the man I am today." he means it as the absolute truth. He just don't know which father. One he hates, the other he loves and fears.
 * What Year Is This?: It's difficult to know what the date is on the other side of a gate. It's possible to see through it, but unless you're lucky, there won't be any human architecture or artifacts to identify it (the most common method for determining dates of a photograph). So a scout has to use other methods once he's on the other side. Since the result of imprecise dating can be fatal, they need to be precise. It involves taking a star fix and doing some math.
 * Who Was Jack The Ripper? A significant part of the last two books is the investigation into the Ripper murders.
 * The Wild West: The Denver tour gate. 1885.
 * Ye Goode Olde Days: Averted. In fact, the suggestions given in the first paragraph of that trope are taken up by people in the book! They get multiple shots, they take many, many preparations against death and disease, they understand that they may have to be quarantined when they return, and men intending to go brothel-hopping downtime even get surgically restored foreskins.
 * You Can't Fight Fate: You can act in the past, picking things up, talking to people, even killing people. However, if someone is crucial to some later act, he cannot be killed. YOU can, though, so you should be careful not to anger the wrong person. Paradox will be averted through a convenient coincidence.