Books like D'Shai

I was pleased and delighted to reread this for the first time in 11+ years and find it still very, very enjoyable.D'Shai is a pseudo-mystery novel set in an Asian-inspired fantasy world in which professions are more-or-less determined at birth, both through rigid class/caste systems, but also through a form of inherent magic; people are born to their professions not only due to social control but because they have the ability to 'raise kazuh' and perform their profession at the absolute peak of their abilities -- a kazuh runner never tires, a kazuh warrior is incredibly deadly, and so forth.D'Shai's main character, Kami, is a late-adolescent acrobat whose keen powers of observation tend to fail him when it comes to his personal relationships. Through a series of mis-steps (mostly his own) and dangers he eventually ends up playing the role of a detective. Rosenberg does a good job of combining some classic detective moments with the unique cosmology of his world, but I'd say that the mystery aspect is definitely secondary to Kami's coming-of-age, so I wouldn't recommend it to a die-hard mystery fan. Come to think of it, it reads rather like a historical mystery, except instead of period detail one gets subcreated world detail.For me, the biggest flaw in the book was Kami's personality; he is at times a pretty unbearable example of an arrogant, selfish male adolescent who cannot resist showing off in spite of great danger. To a certain extent I had a difficult time seeing how someone like him would have survived so long in a world in which members of his class can be casually killed by aristocrats without any justification. On the other hand, I've never gone through teenage boy socialisation, while I got a pretty strong dose of the 'keep out of trouble' version of teenage girls socialisation, so the milage of other readers will doubtless vary.I liked this much, much more than the Guardians of the Flame series, which I tried rereading before this and ended up putting aside in dismay.