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alt title(s): Blade Of Tyshalle; Actsof Caine; Heroes Die
The Acts of Caine is a series of fantasy-science fiction (trending toward fantasy) books by Matthew Woodring Stover, who is probably more well known as the author of some pretty damn good
Star Wars novels:
Traitor,
Shatterpoint, and the novelization of
Revenge Of The Sith. Think about that for just one second—
with the restrictions of writing in the
Star Wars Expanded Universe, he produced those three books. And this is what he does when the gloves come off.
There are currently three books:
Heroes Die,
Blade of Tyshalle, and
Caine Black Knife. If
That Other Wiki is to be believed, there are going to be at least five more books in the series.
The series’ setting is an interesting combination of a futuristic earth run by corporate governments with a strict caste system and loads of repression, and a parallel high fantasy world called Overworld that earth humans have learned to travel to and exploit. This exploitation initially takes the form of The Studio, a company that produces a sort of reality entertainment by sending “actors” to Overworld. These actors are trained in either magic or combat, implanted with a kind of video recorder and sent to Overworld to “risk their lives in an interesting way”. On the
Sliding Scale Of Idealism Versus Cynicism the series tends towards cynicism, although it is not without
bouts of idealism. Oh, all of the books contain loads of very well written violence.
The books, shockingly, are centered on the character of Caine and his actor Hari Michaelson.
Heroes Die tells the story of Hari/Caine as he tries to rescue his love interest Shanna/Pallas Ril from
Big Bad Ma'elKoth. As with all the books in the series,
Heroes Die comments on the morality of violent entertainment and explores of a myriad of other moral questions. Has been described in positive reviews as "
Lord Of The Rings meets Day Of The Jackal".
Blade of Tyshalle takes place seven years later, reintroducing Hari and Shanna in their later married, unhappy and semi-retired lives (along with the no longer divine Tan'elKoth). This tedium is of course shattered by plots set into action by the corporate leaders of Earth which Hari's friend, Kris Hansen/Deliann Mithondionne tries to avert. This novel turns the moral philosophizing up to 11 or 12, adds questions of identity, resource usage, destiny (or lack thereof) and humanity’s drive to exploit and use up everything. It also features the end of the world. Well, kinda.
Blade of Tyshalle is definitely a “deeper” book than its predecessor or sequel.
Caine Black Knife follows Caine in both the present (roughly a year after the end of
Blade of Tyshalle) and twenty-five years ago as he interacts with/slaughters the Black Knife clan of Ogrillos, a
Proud Warrior Race. The present arc of the story includes a broader exploration of Orbek Black Knife, a side character introduced in
Blade of Tyshalle. The philosophizing is turned back down to about 8, but questions concerning the legitimacy of guerilla warfare and online
FPSs are still asked. Also has some rather overt references to either the Iraq War or the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, complete with a suicide bombing.
These books provide examples of:
- Absurdly Sharp Blade - Kosall combines this with Vibroweapon.
- Action Girl - Talaan in Heroes Die, Olga in Caine Black Knife.
- A God Am I - Shanna/Pallas Ril and Hannto the Scythe/Ma'elKoth. To be fair, they actually became gods.
- Always Save The Girl: "I'd burn the world to save her".
- Anyone Can Die
- Anti Hero: Caine
- Armor Piercing Question: "What do you want?"
- Ascended Extra: Raithe.
- Ass Pull: the ends of Heroes Die and especially Blade of Tyshalle may seem like this, although they do make narrative sense. However, it's notable in that both are about a model of destiny where expecting events to spin out of your control is not unnatural but normal and to be expected.
- Author Tract: verging on Author Filibuster a few times, but remaining a good read nonetheless. Never goes on for more than a few pages at a time.
- Badass
- Badass Beard: Caine and Ma'elKoth.
- Badass In Distress: Seems to still happen more often to the females.
- Badass Normal: Caine at first.
- Badass Boast: more than a few.
- Better Than It Sounds: From reading this page you may get the idea that Caine is a murderous Jerkass Stu who demands the attention of novels that idolize him and his ideology. You'd be wrong on everything but the murdering part.
- Book Ends: in Blade of Tyshalle.
- Bread And Circuses: the function of the Adventures on Overworld is to turn an entire planet into the arena of a Blood Sport for the entertainment of the masses on Earth.
- Catch Phrase: Berne: "Fuck me like a virgin goat."
- Compensating For Something: Berne with Kosall.
- Complete Monster: Berne, Kollberg, and the Board of Governors (by extension of the Blind God, most of humanity).
- Cosmic Horror: Inverted in the Blind God
, played straight with the "god" of the Black Knives.
- Corrupt Corporate Executive: Marc Vilo
- Crowning Moment Of Awesome: Quite a number; we'll have to move and expand the existing entry.
- Cutting The Knot: Caine's usual way of solving problems.
- Depraved Bisexual: Berne.
- Doorstopper
- Dystopia
- Elite Mooks: The Social Police, the Black Knives, Esoteric Friars, and the Grey Cats. Really most military organizations are fairly badass.
- Faceless Goons: The Social Police.
- Fantastic Racism and Fantastic Slurs: played with in that the Earth fantasy names for the species are considered slurs: elves prefer to be called primals, dwarves to be called stonebenders, orcs to be called ogrilloi, and pixies to be called treetoppers. The ogrilloi have an interesting nickname in their language for humans too.
- For The Evulz: inverted; see entry.
- Freud Was Right: Oh so much.
- Gaias Vengeance: Chambaraya through Pallas.
- Glory Days: Ma/Tan'elKoth, Hari, and Shanna in Blade of Tyshalle, some of the surviving Black Knife Nation in Caine Black Knife.
- Gods Need Prayer Badly
- Handicapped Badass: Caine/Hari before he he figures out how to magick the bypass. Even with that he's got a noticable balance problem, and that magick can be shut down.
- Heartbroken Badass: Initially Caine.
- Heroic BSOD: Caine after Shanna's death.
- Heroic Sacrifice: Talaan in Heroes Die, Deliann in Blade of Tyshalle. Subverted in Caine Black Knife, where Caine acts to make the Adventure look like this but is really just planning to mess up the Black Knives for the hell of it.
- Heroic Sociopath: Ummm...yeah...read the entry on that page.
- High Octane Nightmare Fuel: More with every passing book it seems, and Heroes Die didn't start off pretty.
- Idiot Plot: Lampshaded by Toa-Sytel when he realizes that Caine is an Aktir.
- Justified with Ma'elKoth because he's Ambiguously Gay and may or may not have been madly in love with Caine.
- Although Pallas not realizing that Lamorak turned her in doesn't have much of an excuse. She even considers at one point that that might have been what Caine was going to say, but dismisses it because Good Is Dumb.
- Incredibly Lame Pun: Caine occasionally has these.
- I Have Many Names: there is virtually no god, main character, or figure of power in the novels without at least two names, identities, and/or titles. Orbek and Kollberg are notable by exception.
- Insufferable Genius: T'Passe
- Its Personal: subverted. One of the things that makes Caine/Hari dangerous is his willingness to take every single fight this way.
- Jerkass Stu: Caine comes dangerously close, but then he falls in love and becomes fiercely (and I mean fiercely) devoted to his family. Getting badly wounded on several occasions and crippled once tends to avert Sue-ism as well.
- Knight In Shining Armor: The Knights of Khryl in Caine Black Fist. They are good guys...but...
- Knight Templar: The Knights of Khryl.
- Loads And Loads Of Characters
- Magnificent Bastard: Ma'elKoth in Heroes Die
- Motif: Fire, Water, and human excrement.
- Moral Dissonance: Caine is not a nice person.
- Name Of Cain: Ya think?
- New Powers As The Plot Demands: Or rather, new species traits we weren't told about in the last novel, as Caine Black Knife introduces the ogrilloi's horse-outrunning quadripedal lope.
- Nice Job Breaking It Hero: Oh man, poor Deliann...
- Our Orcs Are Different: Ogrilloi
- Physical God: Ma'elKoth and Pallas Ril, before the events at the climax of Blade of Tyshalle.
- Proud Warrior Race Guy: Orbek
- Rebellious Spirit: Caine and the Cainists in general.
- Redshirt: subverted. Guys who seemed like mooks in Heroes Die have plot impacts in Blade of Tyshalle, and the unfortunate death of one guard in Caine Black Knife becomes a point of argument between Caine and his Knight of Khryl escort.
- Screw The Rules I Have Money: Earth's caste system means that most of the Businessmen (management) caste think this way, and the Leisuremen (executives and shareholders) above them are even worse.
- Shut Up Hannibal: Caine to Ma'elKoth: "You talk too fucking much"
- Sick Sad World: Earth
- State Sec: The Social Police.
- Survival Mantra: "Keep your head down and inch towards daylight"
- Sword Of Plot Advancement: Kosall, though a Justified Trope here in that Kosall just happens to do a lot of important shit included but not limited to crippling the main character.
- Talk To The Fist: Happens no less than five times in Blade of Tyshalle alone.
- Tear Jerker: A couple in Heroes Die, as ubiquitous as the philosophizing in Blade of Tyshalle, if not moreso.
- Telepathy: Kris' "flashes" are described as the product of empathy and a vivid imagination, but this is effectively it.
- The Combat Pragmatist: Caine/Hari embodies this trope.
- The Slow Walk: Played straight in Blade of Tyshalle, mildly deconstructed in Caine Black Knife
- The Unfettered
- This Is Gonna Suck: Trope Namer.
- Too Good For This Sinful Earth: Harshly deconstructed with Shanna and Deliann, both of whom made significant mistakes that aided the bad guys and put innocents in danger.
- Trying To Catch Me Fighting Dirty
- Unfortunate Implications: If you are a homosexual or into BDSM you are probably a Complete Monster or evil in some way.
- Furthermore, female badasses often asking themselves "What would Caine do?"
- Vasquez Always Dies: Heroes Die. Talaan and Shanna are both Action Girls to an extent, but Talaan is much more Badass. Naturally, she's the one to draw the short straw.
- Walking Disaster Area: Caine.
- Wall Banger: Also of epic proportions; see Vasquez Always Dies.
- What The Hell Hero: Eventually, anyone who gives a shit about Overworld asks the Actors this.
- We Could Have Avoided All This: Their plot to transfer Hari to the College of Combat in Blade of Tyshalle. "Couldn't you have asked?"
- You Bastard: through Caine both this on his audience, and the reader.
