The ColSec Trilogy
The ColSec Trilogy (Exiles of ColSec, The Caves of Klydor, and ColSec Rebellion) is a young-adult s-f series by Douglas Hill (of Last Legionary fame), first published in the 1980s.
After the End, an authoritarian regime has seized control of what's left of civilization. Criminals and dissenters are shipped offworld by the Colonization Section of the world government. If they can build a colony, the world is ripe for exploitation; if they don't live that long, they're no great loss.
One particular group of deportees crash-lands. The survivors decide that they're going to do things their own way, the world government be damned.
Oh, hell...it's Better Than It Sounds.
Provides examples of:
- Author Tract: Not obnoxiously so, but you can kind of tell that Hill's views were fairly anti-authoritarian.
- Barbarian Hero: Arguably, Cord MaKiy...in a Space Opera setting, no less.
- Big Damn Heroes: Jeko, Rontal, and Stele play this role in Rebellion when they break the others out of the prison transport.
- Crapsack World: The Organization's earth makes the colony worlds—no matter how rough and dangerous—look like the Ghibli Hills by contrast.
- Deadpan Snarker: Rontal.
- Dumb Blonde: Samella Connel inverts this by being The Smart Guy of the group.
- Eerie Pale-Skinned Brunette: Heleth, who's also got facial tattoos.
- The Empath: Samella, again.
- Evil Albino: Lamprey borders on this.
- Five-Man Band: More or less, although most of the central cast overlap archetypes. (Samella, for example, is arguably The Lancer, The Chick, and The Smart Guy.)
- Genki Boy: Jeko.
- Gonk: Lamprey is rather blatantly described as one—pallid, cadaverous-looking, and sharp-toothed.
- Frame-Up: What got Samella exiled.
- Groin Attack: In the third book, Samella first flings dust in a thug's face, then kicks him in the nuts while he's distracted.
- A Handful for An Eye: See above. "Now who needs looking after?"
- Hot-Blooded: Cord (who verges on Berserker status), Heleth (who occasionally hauls off and belts people who needle her), Jeko (whom Rontal calls an "action junkie" at one point).
- Karmic Death: Lamprey meets a quite literal Death of a Thousand Cuts at the hands of Klydor-native humanoids towards the end of Exiles. In Rebellion, Tuller meets a similar fate at the hands of his own gang after selling everyone out.
- No Biochemical Barriers: Not universal, but explicitly stated to be true of Klydor specifically: It's more-or-less safe to forage in the woods, but watch out for predators.
- Only One Name: Tends to be true of people living, shall we say, outside the law (Jeko, Heleth, and Rontal included).
- Ragtag Bunch of Misfits: The central cast.
- Redheaded Hero: Cord.
- Roaring Rampage of Revenge: What got Cord exiled. His adoptive father was turned away from a hospital and left to die; Cord tried to trash the place. (And that was only the first of several.)
- Robinsonade: Of sorts.
- Running Gag: Samella calling Cord a "barbarian."
- Ship Tease: A clearly deliberate one for Cord and Samella, a strongly implied but much more subtle one for Jeko and Heleth.
- Sixth Ranger: Bren Lathan, by the end of Caves.
- The Stool Pigeon: Tuller is a "Betrayer Barry" of the "just a Jerkass" variety. He gets his comeuppance.
- Stout Strength: Cord is a double subversion. He's very strong (bordering on Charles Atlas Superpower territory) and looks pudgy when fully clothed. However, when he loses his shirt during a fight in the first book, it's revealed that while he may be built like a fireplug, he's actually fairly trim.
- Super Senses: Heleth has superhuman night vision (with the drawback of light sensitivity) and incredibly keen hearing. Exactly how she got that way is left ambiguous...but, as she's lived most of her life in a system of tunnels under London, it's speculated that she (and the tunnel-dwellers in general) may be some sort of mutant.
- Team Dad: Arguably, Bren after the end of the second book, although he does his best to treat the five central characters like equals.
- True Companions: The five main characters by the end of Exiles. Bren is arguably a true companion by the end of Caves.
- Tsundere: Heleth is a type A. She's always bickering with Jeko (and, to a lesser degree, almost everyone else), but there's the occasional implication that she doesn't outright hate him.
- Unusual Euphemism: Heleth uses "yeck" as both a euphemism for (probably) "shit" and as an expression of disgust.
- Wrench Wench: Samella, although computer hardware is more her forte.