The Acts of Caine: Difference between revisions

''The Acts of Caine'' is a series of fantasy-science fiction (trending toward fantasy) books by [[Matt Stover|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.

 

 

The series' setting is an interesting combination of a [[Dystopia|futuristic earth run by corporate governments with a strict caste system and loads of repression]], and a [[Dark Fantasy|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 [[Earn Your Happy Ending|bouts of idealism]]. Oh, all of the books contain loads of very well written violence.