hardcover, 563 pages
Published Sept. 5, 1998 by Del Rey, Ballantine Books.
HEROES DIEBut Caine's no hero. He's an assassin.Renowned throughout the land of Ankhana as the Blade of Tyshalle, Caine has killed his share of monarchs and commoners, villains and heroes. He is relentless, unstoppable, simply the best there is at what he does. He is free.At home on Earth, Caine is Hari Michaelson, a superstar whose adventures command an audience of billions. Yet he is shackled by a rigid caste society, bound to ignore the grim fact that men die on a far-off world for the entertainment of his own planet--bound to keep his rage in check.But now Michaelson has crossed the line. His estranged wife, Pallas Rill, has mysteriously disappeared in the slums of Ankhana. To save her, he must confront the greatest challenge of his life: a lethal game of cat and mouse with the most treacherous rulers of two worlds.Matthew Woodring Stover has created a spectacular, page-turning …
HEROES DIEBut Caine's no hero. He's an assassin.Renowned throughout the land of Ankhana as the Blade of Tyshalle, Caine has killed his share of monarchs and commoners, villains and heroes. He is relentless, unstoppable, simply the best there is at what he does. He is free.At home on Earth, Caine is Hari Michaelson, a superstar whose adventures command an audience of billions. Yet he is shackled by a rigid caste society, bound to ignore the grim fact that men die on a far-off world for the entertainment of his own planet--bound to keep his rage in check.But now Michaelson has crossed the line. His estranged wife, Pallas Rill, has mysteriously disappeared in the slums of Ankhana. To save her, he must confront the greatest challenge of his life: a lethal game of cat and mouse with the most treacherous rulers of two worlds.Matthew Woodring Stover has created a spectacular, page-turning epic where a Jackal-type assassin maneuvers through a vivid Tolkienesque world. With a plot as driven as its main character and drawn against a setting as vivid as the very best in fantasy, Heroes Die is a brilliant feat of the imagination.From the Trade Paperback edition.
Great ideas and flow. Would be a 5 if the writing were better and some inconsistencies were dealt with.
Light, fun action. At least in comparison to Neuromancer. The world is kind of dystopian and cool. Though it does seem to have some inconsistencies.
SECOND READ 2023
Started re-reading the series.
It's much better on the re-read, I have to say. The uneven writing no longer bothers me, now that I know that the story is all good and, dare I say it for these books, entertaining :-)
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FIRST READ 2015:
Quick impressions:
Refreshing premise, very interesting.
The writing is rough and unpolished. I don't mean "gritty". I mean untried, uncertain and a little bit uneven. Like the writing of a student. Maybe it is because of the use of soliloquy as an important element.
But the story makes more than up for that. Fast-paced, twisty. It is as twisty as I would have wanted the books in the Locke Lamorra series had wanted to be. I was never surprised by the outcome, everything is easy to figure out, but the fact is that I still enjoyed following the leads.
You can clearly …
SECOND READ 2023
Started re-reading the series.
It's much better on the re-read, I have to say. The uneven writing no longer bothers me, now that I know that the story is all good and, dare I say it for these books, entertaining :-)
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FIRST READ 2015:
Quick impressions:
Refreshing premise, very interesting.
The writing is rough and unpolished. I don't mean "gritty". I mean untried, uncertain and a little bit uneven. Like the writing of a student. Maybe it is because of the use of soliloquy as an important element.
But the story makes more than up for that. Fast-paced, twisty. It is as twisty as I would have wanted the books in the Locke Lamorra series had wanted to be. I was never surprised by the outcome, everything is easy to figure out, but the fact is that I still enjoyed following the leads.
You can clearly feel the influences of Donaldson and Leiber in this book. In a good way.
The narrator takes some getting used to. He gets better but his manner of speech is thick and sticky. It gets more sleek and in fact quite appropiate to the book further in the story. Or maybe i'm getting used to the voice.
This is one of my favorite books, but it's actually a book I would not recommend to very many people. It's very, very, violent, and it can be gruesome and graphic in its depiction of violence. Some of the violence is sexual in nature--particularly the main villain, Berne, talks about, fantasizes about, and perpetrates rape. There's a lot of offensive stuff, too, including strong language and slurs about gender and sexuality. Some of the above (although thankfully not the sexual violence) is engaged in by our protagonist. Basically, if you think that any of the above will upset you, stay far away from this book and others by this author.
All of that makes it sound like a big brainless gore-fest, but it's not. This novel deals heavily with the consequences of violence, told largely from the perspective of a violent and murderous protagonist, Caine. It's actually a well-thought-out adventure …
This is one of my favorite books, but it's actually a book I would not recommend to very many people. It's very, very, violent, and it can be gruesome and graphic in its depiction of violence. Some of the violence is sexual in nature--particularly the main villain, Berne, talks about, fantasizes about, and perpetrates rape. There's a lot of offensive stuff, too, including strong language and slurs about gender and sexuality. Some of the above (although thankfully not the sexual violence) is engaged in by our protagonist. Basically, if you think that any of the above will upset you, stay far away from this book and others by this author.
All of that makes it sound like a big brainless gore-fest, but it's not. This novel deals heavily with the consequences of violence, told largely from the perspective of a violent and murderous protagonist, Caine. It's actually a well-thought-out adventure story with a decidedly philosophical bent.
The setting is pretty cool. It's set in two parallel universes--one is a standard "fantasy" setting in the Tolkien mold (but with a lot more grit and realism), and the other is a dystopian future Earth run by corporations, with a rigidly defined caste system. The corporations of Earth send "actors" to the fantasy setting, "Overworld", to risk their lives in interesting ways. Their adventures get broadcast back to the "studio" on Earth through a brain implant.
The protagonist is Hari Michaelson, who plays Earth's favorite character on Overworld, the brutal and murderous assassin Caine. The hook into the story is a somewhat familiar cliche--he wants to retire, but just when he thinks he's out, he gets pulled in for one last job. Essentially he has to rescue his estranged wife Shanna, another actor on Overworld whose link with Earth was severed mid-adventure while she was aiding the resistance against the cruel emperor Ma'elKoth. Now, the damsel in distress thing is definitely a strike against the book, but rest assured that things get more complicated than that. Shanna is a secondary character in this book but she has a rather interesting plot of her own.
The main draw of this book is that Hari/Caine, despite being a murderous asshole and not a very nice person, ends up making for a great underdog protagonist. It becomes increasingly clear as the story progresses that forces much larger than Hari are attempting to use him as a pawn, and the ways in which he copes with this prove very interesting and fun to read about.
It's a book with problems, but as skeptical as you might be at the outset, by the ends you'll be cheering for Caine with the rest of us.
This book made my testicles grow testicles.
