Heroes Die
Encyclopedia
Heroes Die by Matthew Stover
is the first of a series of novel
s blending science fiction
and fantasy
and featuring the protagonist
Caine.
Earth where a parallel world called Overworld reminiscent of the worlds featured in post-Tolkien secondary world fantasy has been discovered. The corporations that run Earth send actors into Overworld in order to provide the masses of an overcrowded world with virtual-reality entertainment.
-based dystopia
n government; the masses turning to the adventures of the Actors such as Caine for entertainment and distraction. The violence within the Acts of Caine is often portrayed in graphic (arguably too graphic) detail because that is what the viewers on Earth are seeking. Michaelson, in the character of Caine, exhibits willingness to sacrifice the citizens of Ankhana and even his friend Majesty in order to save his wife. Hari's father is a former libertarian
academic who provides a counterpoint to the violence and despair of Earth.
, Heroes Die utilizes multiple point of view; a number of characters including Hari, Shanna, and Berne are used as third-person narrators for various parts of the story. However, for the scenes from Hari's perspective when he is on Overworld as Caine, the sections are portrayed from a first-person viewpoint and are meant to be Caine's interior soliloquies he runs for the benefit of the audiences on Earth; toward the end of the novel he addresses the audience directly. These segments tend to be more in plain speech, more peppered with profanity, shorter paragraphs, and tangents that follow Caine's train of thought.
as the source of Pallas Rill's pseudonym, Simon Jester.
Matthew Stover
Matthew Woodring Stover is an American fantasy and science fiction novelist. He is perhaps best known for his four Star Wars novels, including the novelization of Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith. He has also written several fantasy novels, including Iron Dawn and Jericho Moon...
is the first of a series of novel
Novel
A novel is a book of long narrative in literary prose. The genre has historical roots both in the fields of the medieval and early modern romance and in the tradition of the novella. The latter supplied the present generic term in the late 18th century....
s blending science fiction
Science fiction
Science fiction is a genre of fiction dealing with imaginary but more or less plausible content such as future settings, futuristic science and technology, space travel, aliens, and paranormal abilities...
and fantasy
Fantasy
Fantasy is a genre of fiction that commonly uses magic and other supernatural phenomena as a primary element of plot, theme, or setting. Many works within the genre take place in imaginary worlds where magic is common...
and featuring the protagonist
Protagonist
A protagonist is the main character of a literary, theatrical, cinematic, or musical narrative, around whom the events of the narrative's plot revolve and with whom the audience is intended to most identify...
Caine.
Setting
The novels are set in a future dystopiaDystopia
A dystopia is the idea of a society in a repressive and controlled state, often under the guise of being utopian, as characterized in books like Brave New World and Nineteen Eighty-Four...
Earth where a parallel world called Overworld reminiscent of the worlds featured in post-Tolkien secondary world fantasy has been discovered. The corporations that run Earth send actors into Overworld in order to provide the masses of an overcrowded world with virtual-reality entertainment.
Plot summary
Hari Michaelson is a famous Actor and son of a now-mentally ill libertarian professor. On Overworld, he is the assassin Caine, while his estranged wife Shanna is another Actor playing the mage Pallas Ril. In this world Actors are people who travel to Overworld through advanced technology and assume an alternate persona which they then use to carry out 'adventures'. Pallas is captured by Ma'elKoth, the Emperor of Overworld's human kingdom of Ankhana on one of her adventures. Ma'elKoth's plan to rule Ankhana by wiping out a final resistance group, is blocked by a spell that causes others to forget the existence of the resistance group's members. The remainder of the book plays out the conflict between Ma'elKoth, Caine and the resistance. Hari finds himself manipulated by both the powers on Overworld and the Studio on Earth, and must defeat them both in order to save himself and Pallas Ril from death.Major themes
Heroes Die, as with Stover's other works, contain moral questions the author does not believe typically arise in fantasy. In a 1999 interview regarding the novel, Stover describes it as follows:"It's a piece of violent entertainment that's a meditation on violent entertainment- as a concept in itself, as a cultural obsession. It's a love story: romantic love, paternal love, repressed homoerotic love, love of money, of power, of country, love betrayed and employed as both carrot and stick. It's about all different kinds of heroes and all the different ways they die. It's a pop-top can of Grade-A one-hundred-percent pure whip-ass."
Violence within the novels
Earth is overcrowded and oppressed, with a casteCaste
Caste is an elaborate and complex social system that combines elements of endogamy, occupation, culture, social class, tribal affiliation and political power. It should not be confused with race or social class, e.g. members of different castes in one society may belong to the same race, as in India...
-based dystopia
Dystopia
A dystopia is the idea of a society in a repressive and controlled state, often under the guise of being utopian, as characterized in books like Brave New World and Nineteen Eighty-Four...
n government; the masses turning to the adventures of the Actors such as Caine for entertainment and distraction. The violence within the Acts of Caine is often portrayed in graphic (arguably too graphic) detail because that is what the viewers on Earth are seeking. Michaelson, in the character of Caine, exhibits willingness to sacrifice the citizens of Ankhana and even his friend Majesty in order to save his wife. Hari's father is a former libertarian
Libertarianism
Libertarianism, in the strictest sense, is the political philosophy that holds individual liberty as the basic moral principle of society. In the broadest sense, it is any political philosophy which approximates this view...
academic who provides a counterpoint to the violence and despair of Earth.
Style
As with its sequelBlade of Tyshalle
Blade of Tyshalle is a science-fiction/philosophical novel by Matthew Stover and sequel to Heroes Die set seven years after the events of its predecessor. It is the second book in the ongoing Acts of Caine novel cycle...
, Heroes Die utilizes multiple point of view; a number of characters including Hari, Shanna, and Berne are used as third-person narrators for various parts of the story. However, for the scenes from Hari's perspective when he is on Overworld as Caine, the sections are portrayed from a first-person viewpoint and are meant to be Caine's interior soliloquies he runs for the benefit of the audiences on Earth; toward the end of the novel he addresses the audience directly. These segments tend to be more in plain speech, more peppered with profanity, shorter paragraphs, and tangents that follow Caine's train of thought.
Influences
Caine mentions the book The Moon is a Harsh MistressThe Moon Is a Harsh Mistress
The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress is a 1966 science fiction novel by American writer Robert A. Heinlein, about a lunar colony's revolt against rule from Earth....
as the source of Pallas Rill's pseudonym, Simon Jester.