| abstract | - Simon R. Green's Secret Histories is about Shaman Bond, aka Edwin "Eddie" Drood, black sheep of an ancient, superpowerful family (the Droods) that protects humanity from its nightmares. The books are a take-off the James Bond books by Ian Fleming with a supernatural element to them.
* The Man with the Golden Torc (2007)
* Daemons are Forever (2008)
* The Spy who Haunted Me (2009)
* From Hell with love (2010)
* For Heaven's Eyes Only (2011)
* Live and Let Drood (2012) Not related The Secret History
* Action Girl: Molly Metcalf, Janissary Jane.
* Angels, Devils, and Squid
* Always Chaotic Evil: The hungry gods/ the loathly ones.
* Artifact of Doom: The Apocalypse Door. The Droods also have a bunch of them. They keep the Armageddon Codex such as:
* Oath breaker -- A long stick of ironwood with pre-human symbols. It undoes all agreements, all bonds... right down to the atomic level.
* Torc Cutter -- Exactly What It Says on the Tin
* Sunwrack -- For putting out the stars one at a time.
* Juggernaut Jumpsuit -- Possibly makes the wearer invincible
* The Time Hammer -- For changing the past through brute force.
* Winter's Sorrow -- Size of a paperwight. Break it and you unleash the the Fimbulwinter: an eternal winter that covers the world.
* Dissector -- the ultimate scalple created by Baron Von Frankenstein. It can cut through any thing, neat as you like.
* Dominator -- A laurel wreath made from silver. The user's thoughts and wishes becomes other peoples thoughts and wishes.
* The Merlin Glass -- can be used to teleport and contact any Drood from the past and future.
* The Heart itself
* But that's not really an artifact...
* Armor Is Useless: Averted except in three instances in the first book, when the strange matter arrow pierced the golden armor, when Eddie figures out how to merge it with the armor of his opponent near the end, and when dealing with Torc Cutter. Other than those times, the golden torc is indestructible as long as it is on.
* Badass Boast: Despite being in the wrong series, Walker gets one in The Spy Who Haunted Me:
* Walker: "I could handle Good Time Georgie if I was unconscious." He smiled easily into Georgie's reddening face, completely unmoved by the man's size or presence or anger. "Are you sure you want to do this? Are you really sure I don't have my Voice anymore? Would I be here in Strangefellows, without my Voice to protect me? Perhaps you've forgotten all the terrible things I've done to you down the years. Or made you do to yourself. You're just a cheap thug, Georgie, whereas I... am Walker. Now go away and stop bothering me. Or I will tell you to do something deeply amusing and so extreme that people will still be laughing about it thirty years from now."
* Badass Normal: The Indigo spirit.
* All the Drood field agents when they're not in their armor.
* Batman Cold Open
* Battle Couple: Eddie and Molly.
* Beethoven Was an Alien Spy: Early on, Eddie mentions that many of the conspiracy theories in pop culture are true. Mr. Stab began his career and immortality as Jack the Ripper. A family really does (or did) control the world.
* Big Screwed-Up Family: The Droods, and how!
* Bottomless Magazines: The Colt Repeater with infinite ammo and flawless auto-aim.
* Canon Welding / Massive Multiplayer Crossover:
* In Daemons Are Forever the Droods are revealed to be the ancestors of Giles Deathstalker.
* Janissary Jane (in both Man with the Golden Torc and Daemons are Forever) also appears in the Nightside series.
* Walker from Nightside is a character in The Spy who Haunted Me and then reappears after his death to question the now dead Eddie for his new bosses in For Heaven's Eyes Only.
* In From Hell With Love Methuselah was in the Nightside during the events of Agents of Light and Darkness and steals an angel's hand, then makes it into a hand of glory.
* Merlin Satanspawn gave the family the glass which bears his name in payment of a favor.
* Cast From Lifespan: The price for the pacts Molly Metcalf made with the various powers.
* Chekhov's Gun: The James Bond like devices Eddie gets. Subverted in The Spy who Haunted Me (2009) since Eddie never uses the items his uncle gives him to his uncle's extreme frustration. However in From Hell With Love (2010) he uses the items he didn't use in the last book.
* The arrow that makes it through the golden torc comes back in full force by the end of the first book.
* Chekhov's Gunman / The Man Behind the Man / What Happened to the Mouse?: Philip MacAlpine in The Spy Who Haunted Me he was thrashed by Eddie and Molly he was demoted to MI-13. He then used his contacts to find members of the old satanic conspiracy. Then made himself the leader of the new satanic conspiracy.
* The Clan: the Drood family obviously. Also The Immortals
* Complete Monster: Mr. Stab.
* Truman of Manifest Destiny
* The Heart
* Conspiracy Kitchen Sink
* Cool Car: The Hirondel is packed with gadgets: EM Ps, flamethrowers and much much more.
* The Cowl: The Indigo Spirit is basically a Captain Ersatz for Batman -- except that he has no problem killing people.
* Dating Catwoman: Eddie and Molly Metcalf, to the family. Also, Roger and Harry, taken to Squicky levels when one considers the incest.
* Dead to Begin With: Eddie in For Heaven's Eyes Only , he's stuck in limbo in a copy of the Drood hall
* Deus Ex Machina
* It's one of those series where you need to be one to survive.
* Diabolus Ex Machina: done at the end of From Hell With Love An Immortal disguised as Isabella stabs Eddie, then bites his poison tooth and dies while Eddie is slowly dying.
* Druid: the origin of the Drood family name.
* Did You Just Punch Out Cthulhu?: This is done twice. In first book the Heart was destroyed. In the second, the Loathly Ones/Hungry Gods are destroyed.
* Even Evil Has Standards:
* The Fair Folk:
* Fantasy Kitchen Sink: psychics, aliens, spies, elves, gargoyles, werewolves, ghosts, zombies, angels, demons, Frankenstein's creations, witches, interdimensional mercenaries, Lovecraftian monstrosities, satanists, superscience of various stripes and a few superheroes to boot.
* Fate Drives Us Together: Subverted an Hell to get an agent cozy with the Droods. However, Roger actually does fall in love with Harry.]]
* Fighting a Shadow: In Daemons Are Forever.
* First-Person Smartass
* Flying Brick: When the torcs are on, the Droods become a variant of this with Not Quite Flight.
* Go Mad From the Revelation: In The Spy who Haunted Me.
* Government Agency of Fiction: MI13
* Incest Is Relative: Harry and Roger are half brothers by the Gray Fox.
* Light Is Not Good: the golden armor is powered by the dead soul of each Drood's twin, sacrificed shortly after birth.
* Jack the Ripper: Mr. Stab performed several gruesome human sacrifices in Victorian Whitechapel in order to obtain immortality. It worked, but this form of immortality had consequences for which he was not prepared.
* Loads and Loads of Characters
* Magical Database: a particularly literal case, the Karma Catechist is a living database of every spell, ritual and magical concept conceivable in his universe.
* Magitek: All over the place. The Drood armor, the Flying Saucerers and the Chelsea Lovers.
* Names to Run Away From Really Fast: Mr. Stab. In-universe example is anybody named "Drood." The mere mention in the first book is enough to empty a bar.
* Subverted by Shaman Bond, the use-name/code name of our narrator and protagonist. He intentionally keeps that persona very friendly and low-key, so that no one would associate him with the Droods.
* Nebulous Evil Organisation: The Immortals are this to the Droods. The "Teen-age" leader "Methuselah" got to the Heart before the Droods did. The Heart gave himself, some family, and friends immortality and shapeshifting.
* Powered Armor: The Droods have their golden armor that comes out of the torcs.
* Powered by a Forsaken Child: How did the Droods get there golden armor? Droods give birth to twin babies but one is sacrificed to the Heart to make a torc.
* Religion of Evil: The Satanic Conspiracy.
* Rule of Cool
* Run the Gauntlet: The first book, wherein Eddie Drood has to survive attacks by (in order) Men in Black in Black Helicopters, car-eating entropic Ghost Cars, Elves riding Dragons, Demonic Ghost Cars and, finally, a fleet of human-built Magitek Flying Saucerers (not a misspelling.)
* Sealed Evil in a Can: Grendel Rex
* Shout-Out: And how! Even the name Eddie Drood is a shout out to the last novel of Charles Dickens.
* In Spy, we get reference to the Wizard of Northampton, who has been writing comic books for twenty years or so. Which has done odd things to his perceptions of gods and monsters, if Walker is to be believed.
* For Heaven's Eyes Only references "Description Theory" of Planetary fame.
* The same book also mentions SAS combat sorcerers a couple of times.
* Stupid Jetpack Hitler: Vril Power Inc. As well as Schloss Shreck.
* Teleporters and Transporters: just about every variety there is. See Fantasy Kitchen Sink.
* The End of the World as We Know It:
* The Mole: played literally.
* The Power of Love: In Daemons are Forever Roger uses it to stand up to the Soul Gun.
* He also uses again in For Heaven's Eyes Only to banish a major demon of Hell.
* Too Dumb to Live: Penny. Despite being repeatedly warned by everyone, including the man himself, not to get close to Mr. Stab, she insists he's a good person at heart. Right up until he murders her.
* Trilogy Creep
* Unlimited Wardrobe: Molly has a literal magical version by reusing the same fabric and transforming it with magic.
* Very Punchable Man: Philip MacAlpine.
* The World Is Always Doomed: Only to be expected, given the Droods' role as big-league defenders of humanity.
* Lampshaded in Daemons: "So," I said. "I am left with just a few days to stop the bad guys from destroying the world and save the family from itself. If I hadn't already done this once before, I might be seriously worried."
* Who Wants to Live Forever?: Happens to Methuselah. He wants to leave earth because he's done and seen everything. He also wants break into heaven to enjoy its splendor.
* Woobie, Destroyer of Worlds: Doctor Delirium, a villain who threatens to unleash diseases unless he is paid ransom in rare postage stamps -- once a collector, always a collector. He sends his goons to steal the Apocalypse Door in order to make the world take him seriously.
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