Thursday, September 2, 2021

番外編:Death Among the Undead Released

Doing announcements of announcements is like shooting myself in the foot, because I'm always left with nothing to say in the actual announcement... It's common practice to make an announcement of an upcoming major announcement, or at least it's like that in the game industry, but I guess you're not supposed to give away everything during the pre-announcement.

So now that Locked Room International has today published my newest translation of Masahiro IMAMURA's 2017 debut novel Death Among the Undead (original title: Shijinsou no Satsujin), do I have anything to add to my original announcement post not even two weeks ago? No, not really.  Pointing out that Death Among the Undead was an unprecedented monster hit that became the first title in history to conquer the first place in all the major Japanese annual rankings of mystery novels, and that it has since become a multimedia franchise, with a manga adaptation and an excellent live action adaptation would just be repeating myself. Raving about how it introduces a completely original take on the closed circle situation and locked room murder mystery is all I have been doing here ever since I read the book back in 2018. It is the book you need to read if you want to know in what (amazing) state the Japanese mystery novel is now currently, but yes, it's all been said here before.

Though I am really excited the book is out now! I assume most people reading this are regular readers of this blog, so they'll be aware that probably about 85% of the books I discuss here are not available in translation (English or any other language) and it's not uncommon to see comments on articles here where people voice their wishes for a translation. And I can safely say that at least on this blog, Death Among the Undead was by far the most wished-for title. Heck, when I reviewed the third novel in the series released only a few weeks back in Japan, the comment section once again had people wishing for a translation of Death Among the Undead. As it hadn't been formally announced yet by Locked Room International, there wasn't much I could say then though. Anyway, it's awesome that the book is now indeed available in English translation now, and that I got to work on it myself!

Edit: Publishers Weekly's starred review is also up!

For those who have read previous translations of Japanese mystery novels published by Locked Room International, this might be a slightly surprising work. Like Lending the Key to the Locked Room released last year, Death Among the Undead is a fairly recent work, as opposed to the early shin honkaku novels from the eighties Locked Room International did before (not to mention the even older The Ginza Ghost and The Red Locked Room). Death Among the Undead follows the classic tropes of the murder mystery, but at the same time it's unmistakenly a contemporary work, a murder mystery written within the current zeitgeist and presenting familiar-looking ideas in a brand new context. I myself love this book, as it really shows the potential the puzzler mystery story has and that there's stll a gold mine of ideas to be explored for the genre. This Locked Room International version features a special introduction by Soji SHIMADA by the way!

Anyway, I can only hope you'll enjoy the book as much as I did back in 2018! It's such an important work in the context of contemporary Japanese mystery fiction, I really recommend you read it even if the premise of the book sounds a bit... uncanny, because Death Among the Undead is an excellent example of how far the Japanese mystery novel dares to go, and how at the same time it still manages to hold onto our beloved classic tropes and structure firmly. And I'm really repeating myself now, so that's it for today! Enjoy Death Among the Undead!

12 comments :

  1. Thanks for for your hard work, I can't wait to read such an acclaimed book. And with an introduction by Soji Shimada ^^ I do love these intros and missed them in Lending The Key. I remember a couple were also done by Ashibe. What's the process for deciding who's going to introduce a new book?

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    1. I think John Pugmire just asks around to see if any of his contacts are interested/are available ^_^'

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  2. You're doing fine work making these titles available in English. Any chance we'll see anything from Mitsuda Shinzou in the future?

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    1. I hope so! Well, at least we know that wishes sometimes come true :P

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  3. will definitely keep on the look out for the kindle version of this little masterpiece. right now it's only available as physical. but sadly due to lack of space, i have to forego the paper-y joys of life.

    how are you dealing with all the storage side of things?

    anyways. congratulations mr ho-ling. tat was definitely a surprise. for sure.

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    1. I just keep piling the books higher and higher.... XD

      I'm not sure when the e-book will come out, but I hope it won't take too long!

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  4. Since I commented on the announcement of the announcement, I don't really have anything to say. Except perhaps that it's just a bit optimistic to say that 15% of the books you review are available in translation ;) Can't wait to read Death Among the Undead though!

    (And I'm definitely with anonymous regarding Mitsuda Shinzou.)

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    1. I didn't want to exaggerate with 99%, and quite a few of the books I discuss (especially the 'big' ones) are often translated to Chinese or other Asian languages (ha, even Jikuuryokousha no Sunadokei is already available in translation), so I decided to go with the completely arbitrarily chosen 85% ;)

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  5. Just read this! It was worth the long, long wait since I read your review back in 2018.

    V unq n jdhrfgvba nobhg gur raqvat. Fb vf vg vzcyvrq gung Xramnxv sbetnir Unzhen sbe uvf xrrcvat dhvrg nobhg jvgarffvat gur zheqrere, naq ur vf ngbavat sbe vg ol orvat ure Jngfba?

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    1. Glad you liked the book! And re:question, yep, that's it!

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  6. I am absolutely loving this book, you’ve done a brilliant job translating it and the novel itself is such a strange and delightful ride for a fan of the genre. Lending the Key to the Locked Room was great as well— I would love to see LRI continue to publish contemporary shin honkaku because I truly cannot get enough of it. If I see it on their blog I will order it immediately lol

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    1. Happy to hear you're loving it! Let's hope I'll be able to work on more shin honkaku in the future too :P

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