Blade of Tyshalle

The Second of the Acts of Caine

By: Matthew Stover

Narrated by: Stefan Rudnicki

Length: 31 hrs and 48 mins

Publisher's summary

On Earth, Hari Michaelson was a superstar. But on Overworld, he was the assassin Caine. Real monarchs lived and died at his hands and entire governments were overthrown...all for the entertainment of millions back on Earth. But now Hari, stripped of his identity as Caine, must fight his greatest battle: against the powerful corporate masters of Earth and the faceless masses who are killing everything he loves. Enemies old and new array themselves against him. And Hari is just one man - alone, half-crippled, powerless. They say he doesn't have a chance. They are wrong.

©2001 Matthew Woodring Stover (P)2011 Audible, Inc.

Critic reviews

" Day of the Jackal meets Lord of the Rings.... A marvelous conspiracy thriller of worlds within worlds, where no one is necessarily who or what they seem." (Simon R. Green)

love this book and the series

as title says. love this book. it's so much more than a grim dark scfi / fantasy book. this review was done after my 3rd listen. highly recommend this series

Fantastic characters!

Excellent follow-up to the equality fantastic first book of the series! This guy build characters at the same level as Brandon Sanderson does world building..

Why the bad reviews?

Would you listen to Blade of Tyshalle again? Why?

Yes, and I have many times already. This is a fantastic book, it evolves the characters unlike anything you could expect and lets them develop as you read. It gives you every emotion, from happiness to sadness and back again.

I find it baffling that people reviewing this book haven't even FINISHED it, how can you truly review a book if you haven't read the whole thing? Makes no sense.

This book evolves so much that the end is imperative to the reader. Yes this book can have some rough spots throughout, but having read it 10+ times I cannot think of a point that isn't important TO THE SERIES not just this book. This is book 2 of 4 and SO many things from this book are so important in both book 3 and 4 that don't seem important at all to this book it is astonishing.

If all 4 books were one book these complaints people are making wouldn't even exist because it would be fluid, but that is not how series work.

Read the whole thing before you try to judge.

What was one of the most memorable moments of Blade of Tyshalle?

When Caine learns is in the dungeon.

What does Stefan Rudnicki bring to the story that you wouldn’t experience if you just read the book?

By far the best reader I have heard

Was this a book you wanted to listen to all in one sitting?

Yes, beyond a doubt.

Really wanted to like this

This book really ruined what could have been a killer (no pun intended) series. Instead, the author separated from the winning combination of whit and grit that made the first book so good and decided to give us a soap opera of dialog and drama with very little action or adventure. Rarely do I stop listening to a book halfway through but the only thing that even kept me listening that long was the hype that carried over from the first book. This time he completely missed the mark (for this reader at least). Disappointing.

Excellent book, broken format for Iphone.

This is an excellent follow-up to Heroes Die. I'm not here to give a detailed review, but I gave the story 5 stars. Stover writes an excellent narrative and does a great job of making Caine a character who you hate to love. He reminds me of Logen Ninefingers from Abercrombie's First Law trilogy. The performance is also outstanding, and I gave it 5 stars. Rudnicki's gravely voice is perfect for Caine and Ma'Elkoth. I did, however, give an overall 4 star rating. This is because of any deficiency in the quality of writing or performance, but rather because the iphone file format is corrupted in both the multi-part and single-part versions. After chapter 25, I could no longer listen to the book on my Iphone, and had to finish it on my laptop.

Could’ve been another epic book in this series

This sequel to heroes die starts brilliantly, taking off at a point after the first book that allows lots of story to unfold without much “forced” action in the plot.
A quarter into this book, the editor or author(or both) decided to over write and hyper describe every situation, scene, perception, and backdrop.
The excessive writing does not flow with the first book at all, it’s not needed to convey the story and important details, it’s just unnecessary fluff, that deters from the entire story time after time.
I honestly struggled to finish the last quarter of the book, and fought my desire to just end the diatribe of dialog even though I wouldn’t know how the book ends. I finished the book. It’s a three star book that could’ve been a five star book with proper editing and less ego based writing(it felt like the author had something to prove, and missed horribly)

Caution.

It's raw and disgusting but the best story ever. a great sequel to Heroes Die.

Not quite as good as the first

Not as quite as enjoyable as the first but that isn’t saying much for a Matthew Stover book.

Great fantasy Series - highly recommended

the acts of Caine are a great story stretching four books. I can highly recommend them to every fantasy reader. buy now, no questions asked. some have said they are too violent, that's akin to saying the zombie apocalypse has too many zombies, within this world that Matthew stover had elegantly crafted it fits, and is appropriate to the story.

Good philosophy, dumb mysticism, weird action

Would you listen to Blade of Tyshalle again? Why?

Yes, probably. Though not for a long time.
Some of the scenes were very brutishly cruel and vividly written, to the point of turning my stomach, and I'm a seasoned reader.
Also, I dislike mysticism, and this book has way too much of it.

If you’ve listened to books by Matthew Stover before, how does this one compare?

It's worse than the 1st in the series. Less interesting plot, way too much preaching about how bad humanity is, the action scenes, while very nicely written, seem kinda disconnected from the overall plot. Also, Caine's surfacing from his despair is too far-fetched, in my opinion.

Which character – as performed by Stefan Rudnicki – was your favorite?

All of them. He is a great reader.

Was this a book you wanted to listen to all in one sitting?

Um. No? It's over a day long.

Any additional comments?

Stover is a very talented writer, he has a lot to say, his thoughts are interesting, his characters are interesting... too bad the whole book didn't come together as it could have.