[Coco with marshmallows]

actually:

Spoiler

The reveal is earlier, in the naming of the weapons as Scalpel and Cat's Claw - both Mouser's.

Also, loved the reference to Thrud - took me back

[polishgenius]

Abyss, on 09 January 2014 - 04:37 PM, said:

And relatedly...

Spoiler

And i get a good laugh out of how Caine is MORE worried about who it turns out to be than who he thought it was.


By any logic of reading the respective series', Conan and Elric could slaughter entire bars of Fafhrd's and Mouser's, but their iconic value and history is just so huge that Stover goes the other route.

Spoiler

Well they could, but they wouldn't, because Fafhrd and the Grey Mouser would have stolen all their stuff and vanished long before it got to a fight.

[Tattersail_]

I once went into a Waterstones to get me some Acts of Caine and Stover wasn't there. No books by him. None. I still haven't read any.

[polishgenius]

Yeah, if you've not got an e-reader, you're going to struggle to get his stuff in the UK. You might find Heroes Die and the last two in dedicated geek shops like Forbidden Planet, but not Blade of Tyshalle.

[Tattersail_]

polishgenius, on 10 January 2014 - 11:23 AM, said:

Yeah, if you've not got an e-reader, you're going to struggle to get his stuff in the UK. You might find Heroes Die and the last two in dedicated geek shops like Forbidden Planet, but not Blade of Tyshalle.

Something you can get on the Kindle?

[polishgenius]

Indeed. Cheap too...

[Abyss]

Ganoes Paran, on 10 January 2014 - 11:35 AM, said:

polishgenius, on 10 January 2014 - 11:23 AM, said:

Yeah, if you've not got an e-reader, you're going to struggle to get his stuff in the UK. You might find Heroes Die and the last two in dedicated geek shops like Forbidden Planet, but not Blade of Tyshalle.

Something you can get on the Kindle?

polishgenius, on 10 January 2014 - 11:44 AM, said:

Indeed. Cheap too...

And entirely fucking worthwhile.

[Ukjent]

Until you hit book number 4 and just starts wondering what the fuck is going on. But still, more worthwhile then most of whats out there. Is Stover's Star Wars stuff worth the time?

[Salt-Man Z]

Graablick, on 10 January 2014 - 04:00 PM, said:

Is Stover's Star Wars stuff worth the time?

Absolutely. In publication order:

Traitor is part of the New Jedi Order series. It takes an in-depth philosophical look at the Force that no licensed material has done before or since. It's also (if I recall) the only post-RotJ novel to not include any of the movie cast, and in fact only focuses on like four characters total. The biggest drawback is that it's book 13 in a 19-book series. However, I've seen reviews from people who'd never read another NJO book who loved this one. Plus you can always catch yourself up on Wookieepedia if you feel like you have to. It's brilliant stuff.

Shatterpoint is a Clone Wars (post-episode II, long before the TV show) that focuses on Mace "Bad Motherf@#$er" Windu. It's basically a mash-up of Star Wars with Conrad's Heart of Darkness. Lots of people love it, but it's probably my least favorite of his SW work.

Revenge of the Sith is the best SW novel ever written. Full stop. It takes a mediocre-to-bad movie and turns it into a spectacular character study. I always say, if you read only one Star Wars novel in your life, make it this one.

Luke Skywalker and the Shadows of Mindor is a blast. It's Stover's only novel that features the original Big Three, and it's Stover's homage to the early "pulp" roots of the EU. It's fun, it's funny (Stover needs to write more Lando) and has a brilliant R2-D2 POV section. There are some cameos from Shatterpoint characters, so you'll get a little more out of this if you read that one first, but it's far from necessary.

I'll also go ahead recommend his Magic: the Gathering novel Test of Metal, which I enjoyed; it's not as good as his SW stuff, but it does have some fun time-travel/play-with-the-narrative-structure stuff going on. Also check out his original Bronze Age fantasy duology, Iron Dawn and Jericho Moon (collected by SFBC as Heart of Bronze.)

[Tattersail_]

Is he dead? Why does no one publish his books anymore?

[Salt-Man Z]

Ganoes Paran, on 10 January 2014 - 05:00 PM, said:

Is he dead? Why does no one publish his books anymore?

Shoot, it hasn't even been two years since his last book was published! I think the thing is just that he write slowly. Shadows of Mindor got pushed back a lot when he missed deadlines, and Bob Vardeman had to come in to finish his God of War tie-in. Last I heard, he was working on a few projects (including a Chicago-set mystery novel that would probably be published under a pseudonym.) On his Facebook page it seems like he's been trying his hand at writing scripts.

[Abyss]

Ganoes Paran, on 10 January 2014 - 05:00 PM, said:

Is he dead? Why does no one publish his books anymore?

No, he's quite alive, but that is an excellent question.


My take on it is this: the CAINE books never took off. This is likely because people are fucking stupid, the world is fucking wrong, and the universe is a cruel sad fucking fuck of a place and God wants us to be miserable like sideways fucked chicken pot fucking pies. but there it is. Fuck.

Stover makes his dollars writing very well received licensed property books like SW and games-related stuff, and if you look at his biography, the pattern more or less runs a Caine book one year, a licensed novel per year the next two years, then back to Caine. Recently he's gotten into screenplay writing too but who knows if that will go anywhere. Fuck.

Al of which is to say he's not prolific or widely read and we're lucky to have the four Caine books which are sadly likely all we're going to get (fuck) and you should give him your money for them.

[Morgoth]

Also because the cover of Heroes Die was fucking atrocious.

[Abyss]

Morgoth, on 11 January 2014 - 12:45 PM, said:

Also because the cover of Heroes Die was fucking atrocious.

Which?

[Vengeance]

The first two are fucking eye gouging atrocious.

[Abyss]

Vengeance, on 13 January 2014 - 04:56 PM, said:

The first two are fucking eye gouging atrocious.

...and the last one looks like every other fantasy assassin cover that's been made in the last five years.

I always found it jarring how much more interesting than HD the 'original' BLADE OF TYSHALLE covers were, abstract tho they are.

[Gnaw]

Is there a working link to this story? Haven’t read it in awhile.

Also, now that I’ve had loads of therapy I can recognize something in Stover’s Caine books: the man has bought a couple of really, really nice cars for a therapist or three.

[acesn8s]

Gnaw, on 21 January 2019 - 04:34 AM, said:

Is there a working link to this story? Haven’t read it in awhile.

Also, now that I’ve had loads of therapy I can recognize something in Stover’s Caine books: the man has bought a couple of really, really nice cars for a therapist or three.

See if this works.

https://www.scribd.c...-by-Matt-Stover

[Gnaw]

It did. Thanks.