The water outlaws

Title:

The water outlaws

Author:

Summary:

In the jianghu, you break the law to make it your own. Lin Chong is an expert arms instructor, training the Emperor's soldiers in sword and truncheon, battle axe and spear, lance and crossbow. Unlike bolder friends who flirt with challenging the unequal hierarchies and values of Imperial society, she believes in keeping her head down and doing her job. Until a powerful man with a vendetta rips that carefully-built life away. Disgraced, tattooed as a criminal, and on the run from an Imperial Marshall who will stop at nothing to see her dead, Lin Chong is recruited by the Bandits of Liangshan. Mountain outlaws on the margins of society, the Liangshan Bandits, proclaim a belief in justice—for women, for the downtrodden, for progressive thinkers a corrupt Empire would imprison or destroy. They’re also murderers, thieves, smugglers, and cutthroats. Apart, they love like demons and fight like tigers. Together, they could bring down an empire. -- Amazon.

Edition:

First edition.

Physical Description:

xi, 484 pages : illustrations ; 22 cm.

Genre:

Fantasy fiction.

Action and adventure fiction.

Epic fiction.

Subject Term:

Outlaws -- Fiction.

Revolutions -- Fiction.

Political corruption -- Fiction.

Government, Resistance to -- Fiction.

Brigands and robbers -- Fiction.

Publisher:

TorDotCom, Tor Publishing Group,

Publication Date:

2023

ISBN:

9781250180421

Publication Information:

New York : TorDotCom, Tor Publishing Group, 2023.

Call Number:

HUANG

Holds: Copies:

Available:*

Item Barcode	Collection	Call Number	Status	Item Holds
33607003670307	New Adult Fiction	HUANG S.L.	Searching... Unknown	Searching... Unavailable

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On Order

Summary

A 2023 Pick for Vulture | The Washington Post | Publishers Weekly | Men's Health | IGN | Polygon | Goodreads | Amazon | Nerd Daily | WeAreBookish | Paste | Books, Bones & Buffy | The Escapist | Paste Magazine | SciFixFantasy | Distractify | Gizmodo | Ms. Magazine | Booklist | Popsugar | Book Riot | Autostraddle | The Mary Sue & others

Finalist for the American Library Association Carnegie Medal; finalist for the BSFA Award for Best Novel; finalist for the Nebula Award for Best Novel

Inspired by a classic of martial arts literature, S. L. Huang's The Water Outlaws are bandits of devastating ruthlessness, unseemly femininity, dangerous philosophies, and ungovernable gender who are ready to make history--or tear it apart.

"This wuxia eat-the-rich tale is a knockout."-- Publishers Weekly , starred review

In the jianghu, you break the law to make it your own.

Lin Chong is an expert arms instructor, training the Emperor's soldiers in sword and truncheon, battle axe and spear, lance and crossbow. Unlike bolder friends who flirt with challenging the unequal hierarchies and values of Imperial society, she believes in keeping her head down and doing her job.

Until a powerful man with a vendetta rips that carefully-built life away.

Disgraced, tattooed as a criminal, and on the run from an Imperial Marshall who will stop at nothing to see her dead, Lin Chong is recruited by the Bandits of Liangshan. Mountain outlaws on the margins of society, the Liangshan Bandits proclaim a belief in justice--for women, for the downtrodden, for progressive thinkers a corrupt Empire would imprison or destroy. They're also murderers, thieves, smugglers, and cutthroats.

Apart, they love like demons and fight like tigers. Together, they could bring down an empire.

Author Notes

S. L. Huang is a Hollywood stunt performer, firearms expert, Nebula Award finalist, and Hugo Award winner with a math degree from MIT and credits in productions like "Battlestar Galactica" and "Top Shot." The author of the fantasy novella Burning Roses as well as the Cas Russell novels including Zero Sum Game , Null Set , and Critical Point , Huang's short fiction has also appeared in Analog , The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction , Strange Horizons , Nature , Tor.com, and more, including numerous best-of anthologies.

Reviews (2)

Publisher's Weekly Review

In this addictive queer, feminist epic fantasy, Huang (Burning Roses) brilliantly retells the 14th-century Chinese classic Water Margin for a 21st-century audience. Arms instructor Lin Chong is proud to be one of the few women in the Song Empire's bureaucracy, but after she fights off sexual assault from the more politically powerful Marshal Gao Qiu, she is arrested, declared a traitor, and nearly beaten to death before she reaches prison. Luckily, she's saved by delightful scene-stealer Lu Da, the Flower Monk. Lu Da shares a god's tooth (a magical stone that imbues the user with power) with Lin Chong and takes her to the Liangshan bandits, a group of women and queer people who have "fallen off the edges of society," and who set out "to aid and protect" others like themselves--even if that means taking on the empire itself. By cycling through perspectives, Huang brings a large and varied ensemble cast to vibrant life, skillfully including queer identities in a way that feels historically and mythically resonant (bandit Chao Gai, for example, "rides the sixteen winds," an idiom for "people who changed the gender they lived as, for a time or permanently"). The author's background as a Hollywood stunt performer enriches the kinetic action sequences, which are both easy to follow and thrilling to read. This wuxia eat-the-rich tale is a knockout. (Aug.)

Library Journal Review

As an expert arms instructor for the Imperial Guard, Lin Chong served the Empire of Song, devoted to training the soldiers in all sorts of weapons, and kept herself away from politics and hierarchies. However, when she denies an Imperial Marshal, Lin Chong is arrested, tattooed as a criminal, and sent away to an "accidental" death. Her escape takes her into a nest of outlaws, the Bandits of Liangshan, many of whom are women looking for a life beyond the usual gender and class inequities. While the group proclaims to mete out justice, Lin Chong is unsure of either their true motives or their deadly methods. As the Marshal pursues Lin Chong, he also looks to create a way for his soldiers to claim the powers of a god--and it may be that only a band of those with dubious goals can outwit and overcome the empire's sinister deeds. Strong worldbuilding, fast action, and exciting, detailed battle scenes from multiple points of view create a fully immersive story. VERDICT Huang (Critical Point) skillfully recreates an old Chinese tale into a gender-bent and queer novel, to showcase how the fringes of society can rise up against unjust rules and actions.--Kristi Chadwick