(This review was written several months ago, before I launched the review site)
I just finished reading Heroes Die, by Matthew Stover.
Synopsis: In a dystopian future earth with a caste system based on a parody of modern corporate structure, the best entertainment that money can buy is using advanced technology to relive the experiences of professional actors who get into dangerous situations for your amusement. Specifically, dangerous situations on an alternate fantasy earth, which the actors transition to and then have actual adventures in, adventures which often result in a lot of death and destruction that are very real for the inhabitants of said fantasy world. Professional actor Hari Michaelson, playing the infamous assassin Caine, is tired of following the Studio’s instructions for his long-running and well-loved character, but gets pulled in for one last big show when his estranged wife is threatened and he has to go stab a bunch of elves and wizards to rescue her. In the entire novel, there’s basically only one or two characters that I would call “good people,” and the protagonist very definitely isn’t one of them.
There’s a lot going on in this book. The main character is a classic pulp violence hero, always ready with a cynical joke and witty narration and an immediate and unreasonable level of force. The society, though, and the world-hopping premise, that’s a bit different. Actors going through a portal and murdering for the entertainment of people experiencing their emotions and actions through a live feed, corporate caste system, no one really caring about the very-clearly-on-display disruption of the society that they’re playing out these adventures in…it’s old-fashioned blood sport stuff, which authors in the ’80s and ’90s were absolutely convinced that the wealthy and powerful were totally into, for whatever reason. When you want to make someone seem irredeemably evil, there’s still no better way than that.
This book came out just over 20 years ago, in 1998, which is long enough for the world to have changed dramatically but close enough that this sci-fi future doesn’t feel too unreal. The only minor hitch in the worldbuilding was that it took me a little while to realize that the entertainers in the novel were traveling to an actual alternate world for their fantasy adventures, rather than just being in a simulated environment or virtual reality or something. I suspect that a reader used to today’s virtual reality headsets and modern post-cyberpunk sci-fi is likely going to make different assumptions about that particular technology than a reader in 1998 would, and it takes a little while for that misunderstanding to ease.
But that’s a minor hitch, like I said. The rest of the book is fantastic. The culture commentary is still relevant, and the action is grade-A old-school fantasy pulp, of the very best kind. Every time Caine gets into a fight, or encounters one of his seedy fantasy gangster friends, or outwits someone who thinks they run the world, it just gets better.
I bought this book at a library book sale a couple years ago, and proceeded to completely forget about it. It came up in conversation recently as an example of a really good portal fiction novel, where someone from our world is adventuring in another, so I dug it up and gave it a read. It’s a darker, more cynical take on that particular fantasy sub-genre, and frankly I love it.
Definitely worth a read, and I’m downloading the sequel onto my e-reader as I type this review.