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Algernon (Darth Anyan)'s Reviews > Caine Black Knife
Caine Black Knife (The Acts of Caine, #3)
by
"Why would I want to join your f_cking clan?"
"What 'you' want? Who cares?" Orbek rose grinning. "You don't choose your clan, Caine. Born Black Knife, you're Black Knife. Borned Hooked Arrow, you're Hooked Arrow. Now: say that you are Black Knife, then let's go kill some guards, hey?"
Actor Hari Michaelson on the Home planet, known as Caine on parallel universe Overworld, is sort of retired from violent pursuit, following what can only be described as wholesale slaughter in the first two books in the series. Yet he's now coming back to the scene of his very first video adventure, the one that made his an instant star on Home, because one of his former enemies, the Ogrilloi Orbek seems to be in trouble with the local authorities.
Below, the vertical city spreads in descending rings like a peeled-open map of the Inferno.
Huh! When I called it Hell, I was just, y'know, riffing. But now I see it with different eyes.
Welcome back to Hell, a cliff city at the edge of the Boedeken badlands, where once the Black Knifes where the most feared of the cannibalistic ogrilloi tribes preying on the unwary traveler. That is, until they came face to face with Caine and became virtually extinct. How Caine became a clan member of his once mortal enemies is told in "Blade of Tyshalle". This new episode takes place three years later (view spoiler), as he returns to the vertical city, where the surviving ogrilloi tribes (a sort of huge, mean orcs) are enslaved by the Knights of Kryll. The arrival of Overworld's most famous assassin is a sure portent of troubles ahead, as Caine has a tendency to kill indiscriminately whenever one of his family, even an adopted one, is threatened. And Caine at fifty is as dangerous as Caine at twenty-five, especially since he is on speaking terms with God:
He told me once I have a gift for breaking things in useful ways. So sometimes He pushes me towards things He thinks need breaking.
The story is told in two parallel streams : a young Caine, minor freelance actor in a group of similar small time mercenaries, is staging a "Die Hard" style commando raid against Black Knife raiders in Hell, in what will became known on Home as the hit reality show "Retreat from Boedecken". A middle aged Caine infiltrates the fortress of the Knights of Kryll as several unknown political factions are making a play for control of what appears a new gateway to forbidden planet Home.
The style of storytelling – the excessive foul language, the explicit gore, the black humor, the volatile temper of Caine, the high stakes of the game – should be familiar o readers of the first two books in the series. Less expected for me was the apparent lack of tension, of fast paced and clearly exposed plot. The book seems to be going nowhere at a leisurely pace, with an inordinate amount of time spent dwelling on the past. It wasn't until I reached the last page that I realized this is only half of the third episode in the "Acts of Caine" and everything is just a big setup for the final confrontation in book 4. So, I will let my initial four star rating stand, even if I already read through the rest of the story and it proved to be every bit as good as the first two installments.
As a teaser for the last action hero on Overworld final appearance, here's what to expect:
I came to Overworld – became an Actor in the first place – to taste the kind of power I could never have on Earth. Sure, wealth. Sure, fame. Adulation, and even some political influence. But all that was just perks, y'know? The real prize was power: to ignore the laws that circumscribe the lives of Earth' undercastes. To live without law altogether. To bow to no law except my own will. But that's more abstract than it really was; when you get right to the bone, it was about being a god.
To kill without consequence.
by
"Why would I want to join your f_cking clan?"
"What 'you' want? Who cares?" Orbek rose grinning. "You don't choose your clan, Caine. Born Black Knife, you're Black Knife. Borned Hooked Arrow, you're Hooked Arrow. Now: say that you are Black Knife, then let's go kill some guards, hey?"
Actor Hari Michaelson on the Home planet, known as Caine on parallel universe Overworld, is sort of retired from violent pursuit, following what can only be described as wholesale slaughter in the first two books in the series. Yet he's now coming back to the scene of his very first video adventure, the one that made his an instant star on Home, because one of his former enemies, the Ogrilloi Orbek seems to be in trouble with the local authorities.
Below, the vertical city spreads in descending rings like a peeled-open map of the Inferno.
Huh! When I called it Hell, I was just, y'know, riffing. But now I see it with different eyes.
Welcome back to Hell, a cliff city at the edge of the Boedeken badlands, where once the Black Knifes where the most feared of the cannibalistic ogrilloi tribes preying on the unwary traveler. That is, until they came face to face with Caine and became virtually extinct. How Caine became a clan member of his once mortal enemies is told in "Blade of Tyshalle". This new episode takes place three years later (view spoiler), as he returns to the vertical city, where the surviving ogrilloi tribes (a sort of huge, mean orcs) are enslaved by the Knights of Kryll. The arrival of Overworld's most famous assassin is a sure portent of troubles ahead, as Caine has a tendency to kill indiscriminately whenever one of his family, even an adopted one, is threatened. And Caine at fifty is as dangerous as Caine at twenty-five, especially since he is on speaking terms with God:
He told me once I have a gift for breaking things in useful ways. So sometimes He pushes me towards things He thinks need breaking.
The story is told in two parallel streams : a young Caine, minor freelance actor in a group of similar small time mercenaries, is staging a "Die Hard" style commando raid against Black Knife raiders in Hell, in what will became known on Home as the hit reality show "Retreat from Boedecken". A middle aged Caine infiltrates the fortress of the Knights of Kryll as several unknown political factions are making a play for control of what appears a new gateway to forbidden planet Home.
The style of storytelling – the excessive foul language, the explicit gore, the black humor, the volatile temper of Caine, the high stakes of the game – should be familiar o readers of the first two books in the series. Less expected for me was the apparent lack of tension, of fast paced and clearly exposed plot. The book seems to be going nowhere at a leisurely pace, with an inordinate amount of time spent dwelling on the past. It wasn't until I reached the last page that I realized this is only half of the third episode in the "Acts of Caine" and everything is just a big setup for the final confrontation in book 4. So, I will let my initial four star rating stand, even if I already read through the rest of the story and it proved to be every bit as good as the first two installments.
As a teaser for the last action hero on Overworld final appearance, here's what to expect:
I came to Overworld – became an Actor in the first place – to taste the kind of power I could never have on Earth. Sure, wealth. Sure, fame. Adulation, and even some political influence. But all that was just perks, y'know? The real prize was power: to ignore the laws that circumscribe the lives of Earth' undercastes. To live without law altogether. To bow to no law except my own will. But that's more abstract than it really was; when you get right to the bone, it was about being a god.
To kill without consequence.
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Reading Progress
January 17, 2018
–
Started Reading
January 17, 2018
– Shelved
January 27, 2018
– Shelved as:
2018
January 27, 2018
–
Finished Reading
