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The Acts of Caine by Matt Woodring Stover


Larry.

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I've been reading these.. currently on Blade of Tyshalle.

They are really well-written. I didn't like the concept originally, but I had to give them a try after reading so much praise, and so far it's been well worth it.

BTW yesterday Barnes and Noble marketplace had several paperback copies of BoT up for sale, but they were all in the $30 range.

Me neither. It was on my TBR pile for quite awhile for that reason, but once I got into the book it was one of my favorite reads for the year.

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I need to check this series out. I'm either going to go for this or The Book of the New Sun once I finish the Dune series. I think I might go for this though. i feel like something a little "lighter" (relatively speaking) after blasting through all six Dune novels.

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So why would this book have gone out of print?

They don't sell. I believe Stover has indicated that he only got to write Caine Black Knife and Caine's Law as part of his deal to write Star Wars novels. I get the impression from interviews and his Facebook that writing further Caine books will require the existing ones to sell a fair bit better than they have so far. The UK release and the resulting increased profile should help with that.

i feel like something a little "lighter" (relatively speaking) after blasting through all six Dune novels.

They're really not. Blade of Tyshalle is easily as heavy-going (if also a lot more active as a narrative) as God-Emperor of Dune. Brilliant, though.

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ok, all this positive talk about the series has got me to pick up the first book (nicely priced on kindle). Hopefully no omnibus now that I've bought the first book.

It's a shame some series seem to be overlooked despite such good reviews. Hopefully it's a late bloomer.

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They don't sell. I believe Stover has indicated that he only got to write Caine Black Knife and Caine's Law as part of his deal to write Star Wars novels. I get the impression from interviews and his Facebook that writing further Caine books will require the existing ones to sell a fair bit better than they have so far. The UK release and the resulting increased profile should help with that.

They're really not. Blade of Tyshalle is easily as heavy-going (if also a lot more active as a narrative) as God-Emperor of Dune. Brilliant, though.

It is hard for them to sell when you can't find them anywhere. I had to watch for quite awhile on amazon to get a copy of Blade of Tyshalle.

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ok, all this positive talk about the series has got me to pick up the first book (nicely priced on kindle). Hopefully no omnibus now that I've bought the first book.

It's a shame some series seem to be overlooked despite such good reviews. Hopefully it's a late bloomer.

I hope so too... I mean, how come Stover isn't up there with the greatest writers of our time. I myself enjoyed all of his books more than I enjoyed Lord of the Rings, and how much is it than stuff like Twilight? Stover is really underappreciated (which is weird because he generally gets really good reviews).

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Just one question what is up with these two books from Stover?

Jericho Moon

Iron Dawn

They look like barbarian bodice ripping romance. Not that he necessarily has had a knack for good covers despite writing very good books.

His first two books. I never read them, they're a hard to find IIRC, but I doubt they're as good as Acts of Caine or his Star Wars books.

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It is hard for them to sell when you can't find them anywhere. I had to watch for quite awhile on amazon to get a copy of Blade of Tyshalle.

Chicken and the egg situation. They didn't sell well so the publishers didn't push or reprint them. But maybe they didn't sell well because the publishers didn't put in the legwork? Heroes Die is still in print in pb in the USA after being reprinted a couple of years back, which does bode well.

I just finished vol. 1 (Heroes die) as an ebook and really liked it.

Nice :) Let us know how you find Blade of Tyshalle. It is very different.

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On amazon, the 'covers' for the ebook versions look great. My kind of style - simple and good-looking. None of this overdone bullshit that seems so common in USA covers.

But I don't do E-books, so my physical copy ended up looking like... this.

I cannot honestly imagine a more hideous looking cover.

I'm glad that I live in the UK where most of my books look respectable on my shelf.

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Yeah; if I saw this in a bookstore I'd not even give it a second glance (except maybe to appreciate how impressively awful that cover is...)

I tend to find that when browsing for books I'm attracted to the least elaborate covers first, and automatically look away from the artistically cluttered or overdone ones. Some exceptions, of course.

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Yeah; if I saw this in a bookstore I'd not even give it a second glance (except maybe to appreciate how impressively awful that cover is...)

I tend to find that when browsing for books I'm attracted to the least elaborate covers first, and automatically look away from the artistically cluttered or overdone ones. Some exceptions, of course.

Off topic, but that would be The Long Price Quartet for me. I love those covers.

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On the other hand, the other three US covers all look great to me, especially the Dave McKean one for Blade of Tyshalle. The UK 'man in hood' thing is not really representative of the series.

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