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Firefall is a science fiction novelette by Marcus Malone. Its takes place on a distant world in a isolated plateau called Mure. Mure is filled with carnivorous plants, where a peaceful tribe lives with nature but are under threat by the periodic harvests. Those who are harvested are taken to the Tower, their fates unknown only known that it is associated with death. The elder wishing to end the harvests makes a deal with another race known as the willots to find a savior that will deliver them from harvest.
This work contains examples of:
- Adipose Rex: The Great One, the ruler of the Tower People.
- A Party - Also Known as an Orgy: Inferred to occur after the Lily People imbue themselves with alcoholic nectar leading to occasional sex between the tribe, allowing them to breed their numbers.
- Bizarre Taste in Food: Kalimund fruit, staple food of the natives, but to a human it tastes like glue.
- Cannibal Clan: The Tower People consume the flesh of the Lily People who are in fact descendants of the lower caste that were cast out of the tower.
- Crash-Course Landing: Jacob makes a makeshift glider to fly from Mure to the surface to alert the authorities on the Tower People. However en-route the wings snag and he crashes but manages to survive.
- Curiosity Killed the Cast: Avet was one of the more curious members of the Lily People, who would often wander the confines of Mure, exploring. His curiosity got the better of him, when he broken the taboo of approaching the Tower, where the Tower People dwelled. He was spotted and the Tower People initiated Firefall, shooting burning debris over Mure to agitated the vines of the forest to cause them to attack the Lily People causing many deaths.
- Enslaved Elves: The willots were the masters of Mure until men from below came and enslaved them, becoming the Tower People.
- Everybody Has Lots of Sex: The Lily People get like this after looks of alcoholic nectar and the next morning forget what happened.
- Exile: Avet after the last firefall which he inadvertently caused.
- Express Delivery: Shaleen’s birthing of her child comes rather quickly after the baby passes through her and the umbilical cord separates on its own.
- False Friend: Jacob was suppose to a volunteer to go to Mure, but his friends accepted the invitation on his behalf and received gold.
- Fan Disservice: The Great One’s female entertainers are women who are overweight, and do unsynchronized dances to a lop-sided rhythm, which they hastily hum. And wore stupid, over-exaggerated, clown-like smiles.
- Fire of Comfort: Originally fire was regarded stripped from the Lily People. And they came to fear it as they associated it with Firefall which caused the deaths of many of their kin. However after Jacob saved the herd, and showed them the benefits of a good campfire, such as providing warmth, they came to accept the use to gather together to tell stories.
- God Guise: Jacob is mistaken to be Hur, the one how will deliver the Lily People from harvest. He plays along with it at first and the Lily People grow more convinced after he assists in a birth of one of their own. After seeing how the Lily People and Terasel was food to the Tower People he accepts the name Hur as his own.
- Going Native: The main character after saving the Lily People decides to stay on Mure.
- Heroic Build: All the Lily People are of good physique, even the women have muscles like Rambo.
- I'm a Humanitarian: Tower People feed on the prime members of the Lily People.
- In Harmony with Nature: The Lily People most of the time managed to live in harmony with the land. Despite the man-eating vines they adapted to remain still like statues when sensing their approach. In addition their bodies make them in great shape to easily dodge them when foraging for food.
- Innocent Fanservice Girl: Terasel and the Lily People regarding themselves as animals have no shame in not wearing clothes.
- Interspecies Adoption: Jacob adopts one of Terasel's children, Hemmit, as his own after he decides to remain on Mure.
- Interspecies Romance: Terasel and Jacob Rowlin.
- Little People: Arions fit that live in the marshes beyond Mure.
- Love at First Sight: Jacob sees Terasel and experiences this.
- Magic From Technology: Jacob as an learned weapons engineer uses his knowledge and common sense to give the Lily People hope and overcome various obstacles which they assume as magic.
- Man-Eating Plant: Mure is full of them.
- Nudism: The Lily People.
- Mysterious Backer: Has the Creatures from the Sister World. They provided Jacob locating a suitable candidate to be what the Lily People and willots needs to save them.
- Nubile Savage: Terasel.
- Outliving One's Offspring: During Firefall manga mothers lose their children to the vines.
- People Farms: The wilds of Mure specifically Lily Lake is basically a pasture for the Lily People.
- Science Hero: Jacob Rowlin was a weapons engineer in Oklahoma.
- Screaming Birth: When Shaleen is about to give birth. A young mother, in a people who don't have an understanding of rearing a child, only option for them is to let it happen. And either a child drops, the mother lives or she dies. Obviously a lot of screaming from Shaleen, but Jacob has some vague understanding of rearing animals and manages to successfully navigate her through it with Terasel acting as midwife.
- Slave Liberation: The willots comitvto a full scale rebellion during the Tower People’s festivities of Firefall.
- Stop or I Will Shoot: Montigue after being shot down by one of Jacob's rockets attempts to assert his authority.
- Species Lost and Found: The willots were believed to have gone extinct by those outside Mure. After Jacob and his arion companion Montigue glided down from the plateau the authorities became aware of the willots survival.
- Sword of Damocles: Firefall is used as a deterrent to keep the herd at Lily Pond in line. Using primitive gunpowder the Tower People shoot small bits of fire at the forest and agitate the man-eating vines forcing them to Lily Pond where they must remain still to avoid detection.
- Tiny Guy, Huge Girl: Jacob an average guy paired with Terasel a muscular woman that makes Rambo look small.
- Who's Your Daddy?: Shaleen was pregnant, presumably after a celebration of welcoming Avet back to the herd when he came out of exile. During said celebrations are usually when women of the herd get pregnant. Given Avet's attachment to the girl, it's inferred that he is the father.