Have you ever, for some small reason, made a silly wish only to find out it just came true the day before? Moby just had one of those things happen today…simply awesome. That little wish was for a book called Hour of the Octopus by Joel Rosenberg to be available on audio, so on a whim I checked Audible and there it was. Released yesterday…wow.
The whole thing started while working on the previous post about the Foreigner Audio Movie and I came across a post on Ms. Cherryh’s blog stating that she would like to (perhaps) do her own version of The Clan of the Cave Bear. So of course I immediately got on twitter and called her a tease because that would be fantastic, if she actually did it, but it will never happen. Tease. So, while composing my little tweet to CJ, I got to thinking and suggested that she would be perfect to write a sequel to Rosenberg’s D’Shai novels. And THAT led me to check Audible to see if there was an audio version available. And there it was. Funny how that works out sometimes.
In this elegant feudal society, where nobles have absolute rights over the peasant class and intrigue is a way of life, Kami and his troupe must walk more than one kind of tightrope to survive…”
Rosenberg’s D’Shai series consists of only two books, D’Shai and Hour of the Octopus. A third book, The Last Assassin, shows up in searches as not yet published. The D’Shai series is set in a fantastic light fantasy setting, but are really mystery novels that takes place in a world with Japanese and/or Chinese influences and a rigid caste system. Rigid, but with enough room for interpretation to keep people on their toes. Everyone also has one magic talent, a kazuh, which defines that persons skill and makes each a master of his craft. There are only 52 kazuh, or talents or professions, and have been only 52 for a very, very long time.
The first book in the series, D’Shai, is not on Audible as of yet. But one can easily enjoy Hour of the Octopus on it’s own, it doesn’t rely too much on the previous book and can be read alone.
UPDATE: D’shai was released by Audible on 2/6/13!
I should warn you, there be spoilers below:
Here’s what you need to know. The protagonist, Kami Khuzud, is an acrobat. He has been one for a long time, so he’s pretty good at it but not great. The problem is he has never had his kazuh ‘flare’, never had that sense of super-human skill while performing. Then one day (in book one) there’s an accident, but Kami suspects foul play. So, for his own reasons, the Lord of the house say’s Kami should investigate the death…and this can be bad for Kami…very, very bad. You see, Nobles are immune for anything they do to a lower class, and Kami is a peasant, the lowest. But in the course of the first book he finds out the truth about the accident and his kazuh as well. It turns out that Kami has a new, 53rd kazuh…a new profession: Discoverer-of-Truths.
In an ancient world of magic, Kami, the Discoverer-of-Truth, must use his detective skills to investigate the murder of a nobleman on the eve of a royal wedding, a crime in which the bridegroom becomes the prime suspect.”
Joel Rosenberg (via wikipedia)
In book two, Hour of the Octopus, he is Kami Dan’Shir now, the Discoverer-of-Truths, and has been elevated from being a peasant to the bourgeois class. And then there’s another death, and then some stuff happens. Yup, stuff. Not gonna ruin it for you, sorry. Let us say someone has a bad day and Kami is charged with finding out the truth. While he is a little better off as a bourgeois he is still susceptible to the whims of the very nobles he has to investigate, so his job is hardly any easier than in the first book.
Audible has really been putting out some great stuff lately, stuff that SHOULD be in their catalog but has been missing until now. But that’s a story for another post…
Sadly, Joel passed away June 2, 2011, “after a sudden respiratory depression caused a heart attack, brain damage and major organ failures”. RIP Joel, and thanks for the stories.
