"It's not you who pays for it, Hari. It's Toa-Phelathon. His wife. His daughters. Thousands of wives, husbands, parents, children. They're the ones who pay for it."

Two centuries from now, our world is united under the heel of an unforgiving caste-based social tyranny, a form of capitalism run amuck without even the pretense of egalitarianism to hold it in check. At the bottom of the heap are the desperate Temps and the Laborers; above them are the assorted Professionals and the calculating Administrators; at the topmost slivers of the social pyramid are the active Businessmen and the ultra-rare, ultra-powerful Leisurefolk, some of whom (the lines of Saud and Windsor, for example) have managed to cling to their ancestral wealth long enough for it to transmute from informal social dominance to concrete political authority.

This world co-exists somewhat uneasily with an unprecedented ; advanced technology has opened the door to parallel worlds, and Earth has a near-mirror in the form of Overworld. Overworld is Earth minus a thousand years of industrial progress and overpopulation, a world where "magic" in an infinite number of permutations is simply a part of local physical laws, a world right out of any "heroic fantasy" of the late twentieth century. Vast tracts of harsh and beautiful wilderness, clean air and untainted rivers, fantastic beasts and nonhuman sentients, filthy medieval-level cities teeming with brutality, intrigue, and wonders... all of these things are there for the taking on Overworld. Naturally, the upper-caste rulers of Earth only have one use for the place.

Bloody entertainment.

Just one class of person is (openly) allowed to transfer to Overworld and spend any time among its people-- Actors. Each Actor is a member of the Professional caste, given years of expensive and elaborate training at the Conservatories of the worldwide Studio. Each Actor learns the languages and mannerisms of Overworld like a native, and learns the deadly skills of archaic combat or esoteric magic (although magic does not function on earth, its "laws of physics" are consistent and can be simulated for training purposes by humans with the proper mental aptitude). After a long period of free-roaming acclimation on Overworld, each Actor is recalled to Earth and implanted with devices that will capture his or her full range of sensory impressions for live broadcast back to Earth.

Actors entertain by Adventuring. The essential purpose of each Adventure is to disrupt Overworld society for the amusement of the billions on Earth, who live these Adventures through the five senses of the Actors themselves. The masses receive these full-immersion fantasies in recorded form, often edited for brevity and the suppression of "socially damaging" content. The Leisure and Business castes spend fortunes on live-immersion Firsthand booths, living Adventures as they happen, high on the very real possibility that they may be privileged to experience the death of an Actor in realtime. Running, hiding, skulking, questing, spell-weaving, and slaying by proxy; these are the pleasures the Studio has to offer. A chance to experience these exotic Adventures through the fit young bodies and theatrically polished personalities of the Actors...

Hundreds of Actors are on Overworld at any given time, some of them struggling just to make a profit for the Studio, others claiming devoted legions of followers back on Earth. They are inserted at every level in Overworld society, ordered out on Adventures carefully planned by Studio forecasters to yield maximum ratings. Should the Studio send Actors to aid one side in a civil war, or should it send them to assassinate the other side's leaders? Which option has the greatest potential for a mega-selling Adventure, full of danger, intrigue, romance, and violence? Which option will cause the biggest cascade effect throughout Overworld's society, birth more unrest, and give other Actors a chance to carve Adventures out of the ruins?

Adventure consumption has banished every other form of mass entertainment to the ash-heap of history. What could possibly compete with an entire toy world, a world any common Laborer can come home to from a shift at his meaningless life's work, a world where he will always be handsome, young, and free, and a god with a blade or a spell?

What does it mean to be one of those imaginary gods, deliberately ruining lives on a world where Gods are very real?

San Francisco was now the jewelled diadem of the whole Studio system, the flagship operation, the prestige market; San Francisco took in fifty million marks a year from the mere waiting lists it maintained for hopeful subscribers to its top ten stars.

And when one speaks of the top ten stars of San Francisco, when one speaks of the top ten stars of all time, one inevitably comes around to Caine.

Say what you will about Burchardt, about Story and Zhian and Mkembe, bring up any name you want; there was only one Caine. Never been anyone like him, probably never will be again; often imitated, never duplicated. There were any number of conflicting theories about Caine's popularity, giving the credit variously to his eloquence, to his curious combination of ruhtlessness and passion, to his peculiar quirks of honor; Kollberg knew all these to be empty rationalization.

They were bullshit.

There were two reasons Caine continued to dominate both the firsthand and secondhand markets. The first was his snarling bare-knuckle brawling.

Throwing spells is one thing-- feeling the power of magick surging through your body. Hacking into an enemy with a steel blade is something else-- something more intimate, more brutal. But even that can't compare with the erotic power of the snap of bone beneath your bare hands, the smack of flesh on flesh and the sudden, delicious surge that takes you when your enemy gives that faint sigh--that gasp of the consciousness of defeat-- when his face goes slack and he sees his death in your eyes. It's the fighting itself that Caine's fans live for, and Caine throws himself into combat with the abandon of a cliff diver: he springs out into space, to live or die, just for the rush.

The second reason was Kollberg himself.

Kollberg had made Caine, had managed his career with the sort of personal attention that most men reserve for their sons. Anyplace on Overworld where a situation was reported that would make a thrilling backdrop for a Caine story, Caine went. Kollberg had even sent him to places where other Actors were at work-- even when it meant dropping him into their story lines and having him take over. Kollberg had been criticized for this favoritism, and he'd been criticized for pandering to the public, for damaging the stories of the other Actors and destroying their artistic validity.

He had answered every charge with a gesture, a chubby finger pointed straight at the Studio's bottom line. Even the lesser Actors gave up grumbling; after all, the chance that Caine could show up unexpectedly in their Adventures boosted the subscription rates for every single Actor in San Francisco.

On Overworld, there is Caine-- freebooter, adventurer, assassin without peer. The powerful whisper his name to themselves to send shivers of cold fear down their spines. Moving and striking at will, disappearing just as mysteriously, he has been called the Blade of Tyshalle-- Tyshalle, God of Death. It was Caine's assassination of Prince-Regent Toa-Phelathon of Ankhana that triggered the longest, bloodiest civil war Overworld has ever seen and the highest Adventure ratings the Studio has ever known.

On Earth, there is only Hari Michaelson, the Actor who plays Caine when he's on Overworld and mimics a vague shadow of that passion at home. Hari, pushing forty and letting socially compromising elements slip into his Adventures, suffering through his separation from his wife Shanna Leighton (another Actor, known on Overworld as the sorceress Pallas Ril), is about to step into the biggest and most obvious trap of his entire life.

On Overworld, Emperor Ma'elKoth, a sorcerer of unprecedented power and ambition, has taken the throne that Caine/Hari emptied when he slew Toa-Phelathon. Ma'elKoth's vision of a secure and orderly future for Overworld humanity is useless for the Studio's ratings needs. Ma'elKoth's recent discovery of a mysterious sect of outside agents he knows only as Aktiri is a direct threat to the future of Adventuring itself. The living toys on Overworld must never be allowed to learn the true nature of the Actors moving among them.

On Earth, the Studio is growing aggravated with Hari Michaelson's potential for sedition. Caine is far too popular to allow him to espouse or demonstrate socially compromising material in his Adventures. The worldwide Caste Riots of the decade previous had been triggered by a popular Actor, a charismatic figure whose efforts to unite the poor and downtrodden of Overworld were emulated by revolutionaries on Earth, with society-shaking consequences. The Studio has not forgotten.

Hari is a problem. Ma'elKoth is a crisis waiting to break. The Studio puts two and two together to arrive at the obvious solution-- the greatest Adventure of all time. Caine must be sent to assassinate Ma'elKoth, the physically invincible and seemingly omniscient ruler of the greatest empire on Overworld, a genuine god-figure who has actually earned the trust and veneration of his people.

If Caine should happen to die in the course of this adventure, the Studio really doesn't lose anything. Hari will cease to be a problem, and the ratings will be the best of all time. Death of Caine or Death of Ma'elKoth, the Studio cannot lose. To further complicate matters, Hari learns that Shanna is stuck on Overworld due to the malfunction of an experimental new transfer technology, and that she is firmly trapped in Ankhana with agents of Ma'elKoth hot on her heels. The Studio orders Hari to contrive matters to present his assassination of Ma'elKoth as a purely personal vendetta, with no hint that the Studio has directly ordered the Emperor's death. The Studio is monitoring Hari's live feed, and at the slightest slip, the tiniest hint of sedition or truth from his words or actions, they will pull him back to Earth and leave Shanna without hope of rescue. Caught between an unbeatable Overworld foe and an all-powerful Studio that can see everything he does and hear everything he says, Hari will need all the legendary ruthlessness of Caine to have a chance in hell of saving the woman he still loves.

Arturo Kollberg squirmed wetly in his simichair. At last, some action, he thought as he/Caine skidded down the two flights of stairs and sprinted past the startled guards in the corridor. He/Caine had gotten enough details from that dwarf whore to know which turns to make, and he was at the service door before anyone could possibly know he was coming.

Kollberg's heart pounded with anticipation. Only four hours into the Adventure, and already Caine was about to confront Berne. It might make up for some of the plodding dullness of this first day so far; Studio-sponsored focus groups had determined that an average of 1.6 lethal combats per day was optimum for a Caine Adventure, and Caine had barely thrown a punch, yet. Dropping the houseboy, knifing the pixie, big deal. Beating up a whore had a certain old-fashioned charm, but it hardly qualified as actual combat. Confronting Berne, on the other hand...

He licked his already moist lips and smiled into the face shield.

Live or die, this was going to be great.

That's the premise of Matthew Woodring Stover's Heroes Die, a bold, vigorous, and multi-layered hybrid of fantasy and science fiction. It is a relentlessly violent book, as chock-full of brutal mayhem as any action-adventure tale you're likely to find. Yet it's also a deep and moving reflection on the consequences of violence and the moral fallout of human decisions. As an added bonus, it's a novel of particular interest to roleplayers. Stover, a former roleplaying gamer and stage actor himself, infuses the story with a great deal of reflection on how actors are changed by the roles they play as well as parallels (both subtle and obvious, narratively important and totally trivial) between the Earth/Overworld relationship and the basis of the hobby we share here at RPG.net.

Although it's charged from end to end with philosophy, pathos, and politics, one of the most appealing aspects of this novel is that its deeper subtexts are entirely "opt-in;" it's neither a polemic nor a cranky book-length lecture on the Way Things Oughtta Be. Sharp-eyed readers will spot a number of friendly homages to the works of Robert Heinlein, but a story-dominating Important Cultural Lesson isn't one of them. If you're looking for a fast-moving fantasy thriller thick with intrigue, plot twists, peril, and snapped necks, well, it's an all-you-can-read buffet. If you're looking for something deeper, something more emotionally grounded and thought-provoking, those elements are there as well. Stover doesn't preach; he invites you to consider his work as you see fit. Taken as a whole, gut-wrenching violence and emotional insight alike, it's a fictional tapestry with very few ready comparisons in my experience.

Hari Michaelson/Caine is a complicated protagonist. "Anti-hero" is such a played-out term, loaded with so many false and misunderstood meanings at this point that I won't dignify it by applying it to him. He's a killer, a cold-blooded one, a willing participant in the Studio's ongoing for-profit interference in the natural development of Overworld. He's utterly steeped in blood, a sly cynic, reminiscent of Edward (The Comedian) Blake from Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons' Watchmen, minus the gleeful nihilism and misogyny. Hari might have once been a vessel for a burning idealism, perhaps a social crusader like his (incarcerated) father, but the relentless cruelty of life in the Studio's world has reshaped that idealism into what can only be described as a smoldering, feral abandon. Hari/Caine isn't the strongest fighter around, nor the toughest, nor even the most skilled by a long shot. What he is, is the most relentless-- the most insatiable, the most hungry, the most do-or-die-and-screw-the-consequences guy you'd ever wish not to meet in a dark alley. When he fights, he fights as though the next second of life is the last one he'll ever be given. This is the primary reason why objectively superior opponents are always hitting the ground in pieces around him with surprised expressions on their faces.

Hari/Caine isn't a protagonist for everyone's taste-- if you can't get past the fact that he kills a great many people with very little demonstrative remorse, if you somehow think that he should simply know better or that the "good guys" don't behave like this, well, all I can say is that the technical skill and emotional energy that have gone into Heroes Die might still be a point of attraction for you... but perhaps think twice before riding this bloody roller coaster. Hari/Caine isn't a "good guy" or a "bad guy;" he doesn't fit neatly into any pat moral duality, and neither do most of the people around him. Hari/Caine is, for all of his cold-blooded lethality, a deeply honorable, self-honest, and anti-hypocritical individual. By wearing the feral mask of Caine for so long, Hari has become acutely aware of the masks that everyone around him wears to hide their true nature (and that of their world) from themselves. His arch-antagonist, the "villainous" Ma'elKoth, is much the same-- relentlessly true to his own vision, genuinely dedicated to the welfare of his subjects and the future of the human race, a proponent of order and creative dynamism above all else. Heroes Die refuses to break the difficult decisions we all face in life (and those the characters face within the story) down into Children's Chewable Abstracts.

The Connor family motto of NO FATE-- "No fate except that which we make for ourselves,"-- from James Cameron's Terminator films is perhaps the clearest distillation of the essence of Heroes Die. This novel is an intricate examination of decision and consequence, action and reaction, both in an immediate sense and in the broader scheme of events. It also contains an unprecedented amount of wall-to-wall ass-kicking, threaded together by a writer at the balance point between youthful exuberance and mature reflection. I've never read anything else quite like it... and I unhumbly suggest that it may be one of the most unjustly overlooked novels of the past decade. Give it a try, gentle reader. It's heady stuff.

Help support RPGnet by purchasing this item through DriveThruRPG.