Audio Play / Panther Soul

Panther Soul is an audio drama created by Alexander Shaw and is the eleventh story in The New Century Multiverse, as well as a sequel to Tiger's Eye.

The panther Kolo Nash may be an accomplished treasure hunter, but he's also the greatest boxer who ever lived. He has a silver tongue and the lightning-moves to back up his wild, rhyming claims.

The race is on to find 'The Cloudbreaker', a mythical artefact from the deep past. All kinds of cats are now seeking it; A blackhearted pirate, the Royal Navy of the lions of Albion, and a shadowy figure from the furthest Yesterday; a Divine Leopard named Maugg, and her court of exceptionally dangerous acolytes.

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Panther Soul provides examples of:

• Adventure Archaeologist: Kolo has a deep knowledge of the history of Rama, and the skills to break into the most dangerous Temple of Doom.
• Affectionate Nickname: Maximus refers to his daughter, Beatrix as "sunflower".
• Amazing Technicolor Wildlife: Continuing on from Tiger's Eye, some of the cats of Rama have unnatural fur colors, such as the magenta colored lynx Lia.
• Archaeological Arms Race: The main plot revolves around the hunt for an ancient weapon known as the Cloudbreaker.
• Arrow Catch: Or dart catch, as Kolo manages to snatch a projectile fired from a dartgun when Beatrix and her men try to ambush him.
• Batman Cold Open: Kolo is introduced raiding a Zaoan temple, an event that shows off his skills as a tomb raider and fighter but has little relevance to the overall plot.
• Battle Rapping:
  • Similar to Muhammad Ali, Kolo is fond of annoying his opponent by insulting them in rhyme.
  • In a flashback, Kolo shares a flirtative one with Beatrix shortly after they meet.
• Better to Die than Be Killed: The leopard who killed Captain Fairbrass flings herself into the sea rather than face whatever justice the lions had in mind for her.
• Booby Trap: Zaoan temples tend to be filled with them, designed to kill the unwary.
• Bookcase Passage: The Zaoan temple at the start of the story has one hidden behind a painting of Zao.
• Bring Me My Brown Pants: The very first line of the book is about Beatrix causing the captain of a slave to shit his britches.
• Career-Ending Injury: Maximus suffered one on his last adventure before the start of the story, when part of a collapsing temple crushed his leg.
• Cat Folk: As with Tiger's Eye, the world of Rama is populated by a variety of humanoid cats.
• Choke Holds: Hren attempts to strangle Kolo during their fight in Kolo's flashback, with Kolo only being saved by Noah's intervention.
• Close-Call Haircut: A variation when the end of one of Kolo's whiskers gets cut off by a blade trap.
• Collapsing Lair:
  • The Zaoan temple that Kolo raids during the Batman Cold Open collapses in on itself after he reaches the end, forcing him and his companion to escape by Shield Surf down the side of a mountain.
  • Apparently Zaoan temples have a habit of doing this, as Kolo had previously escaped one that ended up crushing Maximus' leg.
• Color-Coded Eyes: Maugg has fuchsia colored eyes to signify her supernatural nature.
• Connected All Along: Beatrix, who was previously introduced in Tiger's Eye, is revealed to be Maximus' daughter part way through the story.
• Covered in Scars: The panther fighter Hren is described as being covered in claw marks.
• Crossing the Desert: In order to reach Iberius, Kolo, Maximus and Lia must cross the Maraja Desert, which can apparently only be crossed on the back of sundragons.
• Dark and Troubled Past: Lia implies she was abused by someone who took her in after her parents died.
• Death from Above: Stardancer and her group are introduced when they ambush a group of jaguars by dropping down on them from the trees.
• Dedication: The book begins with "For the Greatest and the King."
• Defector from Decadence: When we meet Captain Beatrix again in this story, she has gone from commanding a slave ship to captaining a pirate vessel dedicated to attacking slave ships and freeing their captives.
• Does This Remind You of Anything?: There's a scene where Kolo sees another panther boxer being beaten by lion police, including one kneeling on the panther's neck.
• Dope Slap: In a flashback, Kolo remembers receiving one from Maximus for touching a delicate artifact.
• Due to the Dead: After the deaths of Lisseth and Rickish, Beatrix, Kolo and Lia do the best to recreate their tribes' burial practices.
• Ear Notch: The veteran panther fighter Hren has a chunk missing from his ear.
• Embarrassing Nickname: Early in his boxing career, the Albise crowd dubs Kolo "Flapjaw" due to his You Fight Like a Cow tendencies. Kolo does not appreciate the name.
• Epigraph: After the dedication, the book begins with a quote from Muhammad Ali: "A man who views the world the same at 50 as he did at 20 has wasted 30 years of his life."
• Exact Words:
  • Kolo knows that Maximus will not give him the Cicerone if he knew that Kolo plans on selling the Cloudbreaker, so he carefully words he oath to not let the power of the Cloudbreaker corrupt him to hide this fact.
  • Shrike does this after she is beaten by Kolo, agreeing to release him and his friends, but doing so in the middle of the desert without any water.
• Eye Poke: Noah saved Kolo from Hren by scratching at the panther's eyes.
• Eye Scream: Commodore Shrike recalls killing the tribesman who almost killed her by stabbing her thumbs into his eyes.
• Face Death with Dignity: While Lisseth is caught offguard, Rickish sees his death at the hands of Shrike's men coming, and quietly accepts it, urging Beatrix not lead Shrike to the Cloudbreaker.
• Fantasy Counterpart Culture: An offhand mention is made to Elgato, which seems to be a stand in for Spain on Rama.
• Fat, Sweaty Southerner in a White Suit: Sir Dashington, the owner of Sweet Meadows plantation, is a fat lion who dresses in white suits.
• Flashback: A number are spread throughout the story, mostly dedicated to filling out Kolo's backstory, and filling in what happened to Beatrix between this story and Tiger's Eye.
• Fuzz Therapy: Crunchy attempts to console Lia after Maximus' death by licking her cheek.
• Given Name Reveal: In a flashback, it is shown that Beatrix's violent former first mate, known as Mohawk for the entirety of Tiger's Eye, was actually named Sykes.
• Gladiator Games: Kolo was forced to participate in one of these by the lions of Albion in his past, before they decided to make him a boxer instead.
• Good Scars, Evil Scars: Commodore Shrike has a jagged scar across her face, running through her blind left eye, and then continuing down her chest and stomach.
• Grave Robbing: The narrative makes no bones about the fact that what Kolo and Maximus do is stealing relics from indigenous people.
• Groin Attack: Beatrix does this to Kolo when they are reunited.
• Horse of a Different Color: Kolo, Maximus, and Lia use large lizards named sundragons to cross the Majara desert.
• Invasion of the Baby Snatchers: It's implied Maugg's "family" is made up of children she has abducted over the years.
• Istanbul (Not Constantinople): In addition to Albion carrying over from Tiger's Eye, mention is made to Europa (the figure from Greek Mythology from which Europe derives its name), Alkebulan (an ancient name for Africa used by North Africans), Hindustan (the Persian name for India) and Arcadia (a term used to refer to North America in the 16th century).
• Just Like Robin Hood: Lia and her gang believe in only stealing from the rich, not the poor, and Lia directly steals from Maximus at one point to give money to a beggar.
• Large and in Charge: Maugg, who is much larger than a leopard should be.
• Life Drinker: Maugg is some form of this, resorting her health and looks after doing something to a jaguar warrior.
• Lost Orphaned Royalty: Lia claims to be the lost Princess of Iberius.
• Man Bites Man: Fairbrass, the captain Beatrix served under before becoming one herself, met his end when a leopard Sex Slave he had taken bit his throat out.
• Meaningful Name: Elgato appears to be the cat-dominated world of Rama's stand-in for Spain. "El gato" means "the cat" in Spanish.
• Meaningful Rename: After being bought by Maximus, the lion gives Kolo the opportunity to rename himself. The panther chooses "Kolo Nash", the name of a panther demigod and trickster.
• Mentor Archetype: Maximus, a lion archeologist who first got Kolo involved in treasure hunting.
• Mentor Occupational Hazard: Shrike kills Maximus out of petty revenge for losing her fight with Kolo.
• My Hovercraft Is Full of Eels: Kolo is only partially fluent in the Signed Language of Rappaw, and when he sees it in Bastarian, he understands a few phrases as nonsense such as "Where is Esteba? He ate the library" and "My mother is not far from...the moon?"
• Mushroom Samba: Kolo warns Lia that if she drinks from the cacti of the Majara desert, this is likely to happen to her.
• Natural Spotlight: There's a spot in the ruins in Gazrahat that is illuminated this way, in order to utilize a function of the Cicerone to unlock the way forward.
• No Celebrities Were Harmed: Kolo Nash is a clear homage to Muhammad Ali, sharing many of the man's personality traits.
• Noodle Incident: Kolo mentions having stolen from the Silent One in the past and that he partially lives in fear that she will track him down and kill him for it.
• One Bad Mother: Maugg, a monstrous Life Drinker is referred to by her followers as "Mother".
• The Paralyzer: Stardancer knows a form of martial arts that allows them to disable their opponent by striking them in the right spots.
• Parrot Pet Position: Crunchy tends to perch on Lia's shoulder.
• Percussive Pickpocket:
  • Lia and her puma partner manage to steal the Cicerone off Kolo by pretending to have a fight that knocked the lynx into Kolo so she could lift the artifact.
  • Lia and Kolo later attempt the same thing against Shrike, but she catches on before they can get away.
• Prelude to Suicide: It's shown in flashback that during Tiger's Eye, Beatrix was having suicidal thoughts over her involvement in the slave trade.
• Pressure Plate:
  • Kolo uses a severed animal head on one in a Zaoan temple to open a hidden door.
  • Shortly after, he finds a booby trapped hall with pressure plates that activate scything blades.
• Pressure Point: Stardancer uses these techniques to disable and knock out her opponents.
• Portmanteau: Kolo comes up with the word "rapterror" to describe his admiration and fear for the Zaoan's ingenious traps.
• P.O.V. Sequel: A small example in that Chapter 18 shows some of the events of Tiger's Eye from Beatrix's perspective.
• The Power of Hate: Commodore Shrike is powered by her hatred of the tribes of the western continent, believing that this is what let her survive an otherwise fatal wound.
• Power Crystal: Kolo found a magic red orb on his last adventure with Maximus, which gave him his Power Tattoo.
• Power Tattoo: Kolo has red tattoos that can glow. He received them after touching one of the series' magic orbs.
• Religious and Mythological Theme Naming:
  • The ancient city of Bast shares its name with the Ancient Egyptian goddess of cats.
  • The sea that separates Albion from the Dark Continent is referred to as the Atlantean Sea.
  • Roofhopping: Kolo chases Lia and her partner across the roofs of Bastarian to recover the Circerone.
• Rugged Scar: Commodore Shrike has a nasty scar on her abdomen from where she was stabbed during a military campaign, a near mortal wound that would have killed her if not for her fierce refusal to die.
• Sacrificial Lion: Or leopard and jaguar in this case, when Lisseth and Rickish, a pair of secondary characters in Tiger's Eye who are shown to have become part of Beatrix's crew and are later killed by Commodore Shrike's men to try and force the group to show her where the Cloudbreaker is.
• Scoundrel Code: Lia's gang, the Bastarian Softpads, operate on three rules: 1. "The best pickings come from those who who have no clue how much they can lose." 2 "If a mark looks like they know where they're next meal is coming from, let them be." 3. "If you ever, ever see one cat be cruel to another, watch that mean one carefully from a safe place, bide your time, and make sure they pay for it."
• Sex Slave: The lions take the other cats slaves for a variety of purposes, including this.
• Shield Surf: Kolo and Dalesh do this down a mountain after the Zaoan temple closes in on itself.
• Shout-Out:
  • The first chapter is titled: Dead Lions Curl No Tails.
  • Kolo raiding the Zaoan temple at the start of the story is clearly an homage to the Cold Open in Raiders of the Lost Ark.
  • In Albion, there is the urban legend of the Scarlet Peterbald, a dashing lion who hides among the lion gentry by day and works to free enslaved cats by night.
  • One of the chapters focused on Beatrix is titled Dread Pirate.
  • Lia: "I've decided this is a....quest. A race against evil. To keep the armies of darkness from marching all over Rama."
  • Word of God says that Maugg's design is based on Mumm-Ra.
• Slave Liberation: The story starts with Beatrix and her crew freeing a group of cats from a lion slave ship.
• Spikes of Doom:
  • In the Zaoan temple, one room has a floor covered in spikes hidden beneath a thin layer of ice.
  • Kolo later encounters smaller, poisoned spikes in the same temple.
• Starfish Language: Kolo mentions a language known as Nascent, an ancient language that was based on *smells*.
• Street Urchin: Lia and her gang of thieving cubs.
• Take My Hand!: Kolo manages to catch his guide Dalesh after she falls off a cliff in the first chapter.
• Temple of Doom: The Zaoan temple at the beginning is an ancient structure full of traps. Kolo mentions the Zaoans built many structures like this.
• Thirsty Desert: The Maraja Desert, a great wasteland of shifting dunes and burning sand.
• Throwing the Fight: In a flashback, after witnessing one of his fellow boxers beaten by the police, Kolo purposefully throws a fight he knew the cops bet on him to win in order to spite them.
• Trial by Ordeal: The Cloudbreaker is protected by a ring of fire that will burn any who pass through it in accordance with the sins they have committed.
• Treasure Map: The Cicerone, which supposedly shows the way to the hiding place of the Cloudbreaker.
• Tricked-Out Gloves: The Cloudbreaker is a gauntlet holding immense, destructive magic in it.
• Vehicular Turnabout: It's revealed that Beatrix and a group of other cats stole The Intrepid, described as "the pride of the King's Navy," and turned it into The Crimson Serpent, an abolitionist pirate ship.
• The Walls Are Closing In: After Kolo reaches the end of the Zaoan temple, the walls of every room of the entire complex begin closing in on themselves, forcing Kolo to rush back through the temple.
• Win Your Freedom:
  • Kolo helped his partner and lover Dokoda do this by fighting him in a big boxing match.
  • Kolo later challenges Shrike to a boxing match to earn the freedom of him and his friends.
• Would Hurt a Child: Shrike implies this when she tells Lia she has a very loose and frequently bent rule about not killing cubs.
• Wretched Hive: How Stardancer and Maugg view Bastarian.
• You Are in Command Now: Beatrix first became a captain when her commanding officer, Fairbass, is killed by his Sex Slave mid-voyage.
• You Fight Like a Cow: Kolo is fond of taunting his foes as he fights them.

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