The Water Outlaws

December 1, 2022

Set in an alternate 1840s New England, To Shape a Dragon's Breath features Indigenous teenager Anequs, honored by her people when she bonds with a newly hatched dragon but challenged by the repressive rules at her dragon school, run by Anglish conquerors; debuter Blackgoose is an enrolled member of the Seaconke Wampanoag Tribe. Disappointed in love and life, Harlow Estrada returns home to The Enchanted Hacienda, where the women in her family purvey a gift she lacks, creating magic from flowers--but who knows what kind of magic might come her way as she runs the house in their absence; an adult debut from best-selling YA/Middle School author Cervantes. In The Water Outlaws, Hugo Award winner Huang draws on the Chinese classic Water Margin to tell the story of Lin Chong, who is driven from her job training the emperor's soldiers and taken in by the Bandits of Liangshan--thieves and murderers who seek justice for the empire's downtrodden (30,000-copy first printing). Living in an isolated apartment outside London five years after a microplastic storm killed most of Earth's population, Katie and son Harry--born after the storm--learn they are Not Alone in ecologist Jackson's debut; a stranger barges in, unsettling their lives but inspiring Katie to seek out her fianc�. In British Fantasy winner/Bram Stoker finalist Khaw's The Salt Grows Heavy, a mermaid murders her husband, destroys his kingdom, and runs off with a mysterious doctor to the taiga, where they discover a village full of creepy children whose blood sport jeopardizes their visitors (125,000-copy first printing). It is foretold that Psyche will vanquish a monster that makes even the gods quake, and she dutifully trains for battle, but in debuter McNamara's retelling of the Psyche and Eros myth, her victim is the god of love himself, pricked by his own arrow (100,000-copy first printing). In the mega-best-selling Paolini's Fractal Noise, a huge pit clearly made by someone or something is spotted by the crew of the Adamura on the supposedly uninhabited planet of Talos, and a team is dispatched to investigate (400,000-copy first printing). Seeking a cure for her desperately ill mother, Nat Drozdova travels to a snow-shrouded Manhattan skyscraper, where she encounters a winter goddess who sends her on a dangerous mission in the New York Times best-selling Saintcrow's Russian fantasy-inspired Spring's Arcana (100,000-copy paperback and 10,000-copy hardcover first printing). In this new fantasy from Wells, winner of Hugo, Nebula, Locus, and Alex honors for her New York Times best-selling "Murderbot Diaries" series, Witch King Kai-Enna has been confined to a complex water trap after being murdered and is struggling to understand why he was imprisoned and why the Rising World Coalition is getting stronger by the day (200,000-copy first printing).

Copyright 2022 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

Starred review from June 5, 2023
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.

Starred review from July 1, 2023
Lin Chong is an arms instructor with plenty to prove as a rare woman within the empire's military system, but she has faith in the order of things--until a single bitter man rips the world out from under her, branding her a criminal and sending her on the run. She is forced into the refuge of Liangshan, a group of female bandits determined to carry out some much-needed justice against the corrupt, greedy officials of the empire. As rebellious intellectual Lu Junyi works under the Grand Chancellor to create a dangerous weapon that could level cities, the Liangshan dare the empire to challenge their stronghold. Huang's new epic fantasy moves at a breakneck, adrenaline-filled pace that makes it difficult to put down, and the convincing, broad cast of characters powers the plot forward amidst cunning turns of strategy and shocking, dark twists. The chronology can bend a bit in execution, but only because Huang is determined to give us only the juiciest bits of discovery and the grimiest, most thrilling battles and skip the filler in between. Fans of Iron Widow (2021), by Xiran Jay Zhao, and She Who Became the Sun (2021), by Shelley Parker-Chan, will eat up this new adventure about justified anger and fierce female warriors.

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July 1, 2023

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

Copyright 2023 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.