Tim--

Anyone who wants to read the stories I would have written if Caine had been inspired by MacGyver can just go ahead and pick up Daniel Keys Moran's Trent stories (start with EMERALD EYES, which isn't actually a Trent book but introduces the character, and go on through "The Star" and THE LONG RUN and THE LAST DANCER).

The best way I can describe Trent is that he springs from the tradition of Simon Templar (that would be the Saint, for you heathens out there) and Robin Hood -- the lone thief/freedom fighter/general do-gooder -- but who finds himself facing dilemmas that really challenge his moral convictions.

I know you meant that comment as a joke, but I can't pass up the chance to plug Dan's stuff. Trent is one of the few SFF characters I've come across who deserves broader exposure even more than Caine does.

Gio --

I'd love to see Caine come to whatever screen might be available, large or small; he is, after all, designed as an action-movie star (more or less). The aforementioned Dan Moran, by no coincidence at all, has a Caine treatment out there. There's another friend of mine named Moe Suleiman who's been trying to pull together a Heroes Die animé series. My own endeavors into screenwriting won't be Caine (unless I'm just collaborating with Dan, or somebody like him: somebody with some perspective, not to mention experience and actual screen credits).

But Caine doesn't have any traction in Hollywood. He's just not famous enough.

Yet.

Caine has another issue, too: he's not a superhero.

Sure, he does superheroic things, but the defining characteristic of the superhero is that he (or she) is essentially unmarked by his adventures. Emotional scars are largely relegated to origin stories; each new adventure begins afresh. And I'm not talking strictly about comic-book underwear-on-the-outside types. James Bond is a perfect example, as is Indiana Jones. Even (most) long-running detectives.

To get a look at what happens when the scars actually accumulate, check out John D. MacDonald's Travis Magee books. They are as compartmentalized as the Bond novels, but there is just enough carry-over that each book finds Travis a little older, more tired, more cynical, less resilient . . .

These are brilliant stories, among the best hard-boiled detective stories ever written. But nobody's ever made a really successful Travis Magee movie (there was a TV show in the 70s, but it kinda stunk), because a lot of Travis' power as a character depends on the feel of that long and painful history.

The Acts of Caine takes this all a bit further. They're not self-contained at all, though each is its own tale. I think of the AoC as a single biographical series; each book is an episode that's only part of the story-arc of Hari Michaelson's life.

As Hari himself puts it, in the first chapter of Caine Black Knife:

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Everything I've ever done pursues me. Like a doppleganger, a fetch, my past creeps up behind and strangles me in my sleep. When hunted by a monster in your dreams, you save yourself by facing the monster and demanding its name. In learning the monster's name you rob it of the power to haunt you. But I was awake. And anyway I already knew my monster's name.
It was Caine.
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Somebody may very well be able to capture Caine in a movie or TV show . . . but I don't know how. And even if the script managed, it would still take a hell of a fine actor to pull it off.

Anybody got Robert Downey Jr's email address?