Caine's Law By Matthew Stover

Caine's Law 

By Matthew Stover

“What if you could take back the worst thing you ever did?” 

Caine page 24 

Hey folks, our regular editor Dr. Allen couldn’t make it this week so we have special guest editor, please welcome Mr. Davis, science teacher, trained in marine biology and the wrangling of small mammals. Hey all Mr. Davis here, like Frigid said your usual editor is away on other business so I’ll be taking the reins. Don’t worry you get the same level of quality in service but with 40% less communist propaganda.

It's been years since we covered Caine Black Knife. So let me start from the top, Matthew Stover was born in 1962 in the United States. He attended Danville high school graduating in 1979 and then graduated from Drake University in 1983. He studied the Degerberg Blend, a style of combined martial arts that is based somewhat on Jeet Kune Do. His earliest novel I can find is the bronze age fantasy Iron Dawn and the first book of the Caine Series, Heroes Die were released in 1997. He would also write a large number of Star Wars novels (including the novelization of Return of the Sith) and dozens of short stories. He also wrote a Flash Gordon novel, entitled the Real Flash Gordon that was unfortunately blocked from publication by the gentlemen who holds the rights on the grounds of it being “unwholesome.” I'll just note for the record that I think we're all missing out and we could have seen a novel that brought Flash Gordon screaming into the 21st century. That's the kind of timidness that kills characters. The novel we're actually taking a look at today is Caine's Law, however. The most recent and as things stand most likely final installment of the story of Hari Michaelson aka Caine, it was published in 2012 by Del Ray Books, which is owned by Ballantine Books which is in turn owned by (say it all together) Random House.

Before we pitch in, let me do a quick recap of the worlds here. Caine (I'm just going to refer to him as Caine for simplicity's sake, although like anyone in his business he has a wealth of other names) is an Actor from a future Earth. Here the world has been unified under a world government that has created a massively restrictive caste system and enforces it by rewriting history, making political and social dissent illegal and breaking the critics of the system as cruelly and publicly as possible. It also keeps the masses distracted via massive entertainments and other diversions, Caine is part of that. See Actors in this Earth don't make movies and plays. That's too blasé and safe for this society. Actors are people fitted with cybernetic gear to record everything they sense, through all their senses, while the Actors provide a sub-vocal narrative that is picked up and recorded by those same cybernetics. These people are sent to an entirely different world, called Overworld, where magic works, there are elves, dragons and worse. There they have bloody, violent adventures which are then edited, packaged and released in everything from virtual reality experiences where you practically experience what the Actor experiences or less immediate experiences that you can watch on a screen with your friends. Of course, while this is an entertainment for you, it's real bloody life for the Actor and many of them can expect to die in the saddle. Suddenly if they're lucky, but if not... Well there's a market for Actor dies an incredibly slow painful death while you watch entertainments as well. (I understand how there is a market for SOME activities to have the full sensory experience, but I’m just imagining if you have it set on a high level of physical sensation when out of nowhere you have some monster chewing on your face. Man i’m guessing netflix and chill could have some really great “date gone wrong” stories from this.) Much like our modern day Actors have varying levels of stardom with starlets and C levels and superstars who can bring a city to a standstill just by showing up. Caine isn't just a superstar, he's basically the superstar. Like Brad Pit smashed together with a Special Forces operator. The guy whose adventures are in the top 10, with billions of followers hanging off his gestures and words but due to the Caste society he's in and the sheer level of control that the Studio maintains, he's basically a dangerous but pampered pet. At least on Earth. On Overworld, he's Caine, a famous and terrifying assassin who has killed kings and paupers with equal disdain. Of course, the people of Overworld aren't entirely ignorant of the aliens in their midst. In their society Actors are the worst type of demons and Earth a wretched hell full of suffering souls dependent on the whims of indifferent and conceited monsters. They aren't entirely wrong about Earth honestly and given the actions of some Actors it's not surprising how they view them. I should also mention that Overworld and Earth actually have a long intertwined history but since finding out the scope and length of that history is part of reading the series, all I'll say is that it's no accident that our legends and myths feature things that are native to Overworld and it's no accident that there are humans on both worlds.


Caine's Law picks up right where Caine Black Knife (the book before Caine's Law) left off so I would recommend reading them back to back. Caine Black Knife gave us a look at Caine's beginnings and how to reach the heights of popularity that he did... He committed a genocide. Maybe I'm a terrible person but it's hard for me to judge Caine to harshly on this, given the Black Knife tribe of Orgilloi (basically orcs) had essentially chased Caine and his party down and proceeded to torture them to death until Caine pulled off his win. This was also the Black Knifes standard procedure, they would raid their neighbors, kill, rape, torture and enslave and would have kept doing it until someone stopped them. However, Caine has been feeling a bit of guilt over this, because frankly his escape and revenge weren't clean ones and he ended up not only basically destroying the Black Knife nation but being the cause of death for a lot of their children. Children who hadn't killed, raped or tortured anyone. So I can understand the guilt. This is also wrapped in the relationship that Caine has with Orbek, a Black Knife survivor who adopted him and who Caine in turn adopted as a younger brother. Because of this relationship, Caine learns that the majority of the survivors have been basically enslaved by a human theocracy and that the males can only get decent jobs and lives by submitting to castration. Frankly, the Black Knives may have been dangerous and wrong but this treatment is just as bad if not worse since the Black Knives can't really fight back anymore. When Orbek decides to address this and Caine tries to save his life, Caine ends up on Earth and is forced into a bad deal. From which our entire story flows.

While Mr. Stover has often experimented with non-linear storytelling, using flashbacks for example to tell related stories set in different times, he embraces the metaphysical fully in this book. As we are sent careening across different times and places of Caine's life as he works to pull off one last trick. To try and make a good bargain from a bad one, Caine moves across time and space to try and tilt history and the universe just enough to in his own words, take back the worse thing he's ever done. With Caine, there's a lot of prior actions competing for that title. To be fair that's not the only thing he's trying to do, as always Caine is trying to maintain the safety and well being of his friends and family. It's interesting to see how this self-professed monster is mostly only moved to violence to keep the people he loves safe, isn't it? He's also quick to enlist others into this quest by offering them the same reward and to be fair it's a hell of a pitch. I don't have anything that I've done that would be considered in the same league, hell even the same sport as Caine does but if he cornered me on the street and convinced me that it could be done? I'd be willing to do quite a bit and give a lot to get it done. Take a moment to ask yourself what you would do if you could make it so that the worst thing you ever did... Just never happened. So you can imagine what Caine, someone who starts his “what I’m willing to do” list with murder and maiming is willing to do. He's going to need every ally he can find though, because not only does he have to pull off a number of wild capers against angry priests, elvish lords and worse, he might be attracting attention from the divine. If you're doing something the gods don't want done, you gotta do it fast after all. Let's talk about some of these folks.

The most pivotal is likely the Horse Witch, a woman or something that looks like one, who travels with a feral herd of horses. Now I don't mean wild, I mean feral, as every horse was an abused animal that escaped it's situation to find shelter with the herd and with the Horse Witch. This is not a human-friendly herd, not necessarily hostile but it's made real clear that these horses are done tolerating abuse from humanity or anyone else. The Horse Witch herself is an interesting character that the book takes time and effort to unwrap for the reader, and her growing and developing relationship with Caine ends up forming a pole for the story to move around. This is true in a literary and metaphorical sense, as the story only makes sense when you fully grasp who the Horse Witch is, what her relationship to Caine is and how important and life-altering that is for him. Now, this isn't a Caine redeemed by the love of a woman story, banish that idea right now. Caine already tried that with his relationship with his first wife and in a realistic fashion, it failed quite miserably. Instead, this is Caine, with the help of someone who cares for him, not their idealized version of him but him the actual person learning to come to terms with himself and forgive himself his mistakes and learn to stop punishing himself. The Horse Witch is strangely well equipped for this as forgiveness and permission are her greatest powers. If you're wondering what that means, I'm going to tell you to read the book. What I will say is that Caine's journey in this book is a reflection of his internal journey which adds another layer to a story that already has a number of them. We also get a look at a real professional assassin, a gentleman by the name of Tanner from the same organization as Caine, he serves as a foil, ally, and snarker to Caine. Tanner kinda ended up being my favorite character in the book. He's not entirely sure what's going on, but he's gonna do his job and try to have some fun along the way, usually at Caine's expense. He can also get away with it because he's at least as good at hurting people as Caine is and younger so he doesn't have the same fear of Caine most men in his position would have. We also have returning characters but going over them would be spoilers so I'll invite you to take a look for yourself.

The book isn't entirely perfect, while Caine faces a lot of obstacles and near death events. Including finding himself almost getting the whipping of his life from a high-class elvish drug dealer and whore, who also happens to be a runaway prince. There's also a scene that I will laugh at until I die, where Caine finds out that an old enemy of his has a death cult devoted to him. Caine is morally appalled of course, but he's also offended that he isn't transgressive enough for some people considering all the ultra-violence and social upheaval he's committed in his life. It's kinda humanizing in a way. As usual, the violence is bone-jarringly real and full of consequences, people are crippled and maimed, our hero takes repeated injuries that slow him down and trip him up. That said, there's not much in the way of organized opposition from the various cosmic forces that the characters keep warning about us and seeing some would have increased the stakes and tension in the books. I do have to repeat for the reader that this book isn't told in an entirely linear fashion and the story becomes an exercise in piecing together clues from Caine's remarks and actions just what he is trying to do. Odds are since I didn't read the series in a single go that I missed a clue or three but frankly if you're paying attention and willing to do the mental footwork you can work it out pretty quickly. That said this book is not for lazy readers or for readers who are looking for straightforward simple storytelling. You definitely need to have read the prior books and expend some mental effort on this one. I'm not going to penalize the book for that though, since in all honestly reading a book or three that makes you expend some effort to figure things out isn't that bad for you. In fact, it might be good for you. (yes it is good for you, active reading skills are lacking in modern society and most people experience a sharp decline in technical reading ability after they leave academic settings. Being able to read and predict outcomes as well as interpret information that is talked about but not directly handed to you is a skill that many industrial psychologists have identified as an indicator of success in almost any profession.) I suppose this is me telling you to read your bloody veggies along with your junk food but there you go. I'm giving Caine's Law an A-, it's inventive, complex and provides a satisfying ending to the Caine saga. I just think it's unfortunate that we're not likely to see more books from Mr. Stover, since this is also the most recent book of his I can find, but you can't have everything.

 If you enjoyed this week's review consider joining us at https://www.patreon.com/frigidreads, where for a dollar a month, you can vote on what books come up for review.  Next week, we look at Champion of Mars by Guy Haley and after that, we kick off World War II month.  Until then, Keep Reading.

Blue text is your editor Mr. Davis
Black text is your reviewer Garvin Anders