What a fantastic book for those of us who love a good c-drama, dashing wuxia nonsense and are full of queer feelings! I can only imagine the layers it opens up if you are familiar with the original Chinese classic it references, but rest assured even without that knowledge the book is perfectly enjoyable, It's an absolute romp, and at the same time it's a thoughtful exploration of the role of "invisible" people and those not in position of power, delivered with nuance that doesn't detract from the events unfolding at breakneck pace.

I thoroughly enjoyed myself. Thank you Rebellion publishing and Netgalley for an advance copy of #TheWaterOutlaws.

Thank you to Netgalley, Tor, and S.L. Huang for providing me with a free electronic ARC in exchange for an honest review.
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The Water Outlaws is a genderspin retelling of a classic Chinese novel, an epic fantasy adventure of the Liangshan Bandits, a group of women, trans women, and gender binary non-conforming people who work to liberate the people of the empire from the swollen, brutal rule of beaurocrats.
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Inspired by wuxia, the book has beautiful and intricate fight choreography, and Lin Chong, one of the main characters, is a true martial arts master. I thoroughly enjoyed following each of the narratives as they led to the epic conclusion, and seeing queer representation in wuxia inspired fantasy was refreshing and natural. I really hope to see more stories in this universe!

This is a gender-swapped retelling of Water Margin, following arms instructor Lin Chong who is falsely accused of attempting to assassinate Grand Marshal Gao Qiu and branded a criminal. She manages to escape and join up with a group of female and NB bandits who are talented martial artists determined to take justice against corrupt members from inside the empire.

First of all, a disclaimer; I had not read the source material and went in completely new to the story. This is my first novel about Chinese history too, so this novel was definitely not like anything I have read before. I would just like to mention that this book falls under the LGBT+ category but there is no romance or exploration of sexuality or the like, but it does feature queer characters. The overall themes of the story are politics and injustice with a feminist element.

In short, I loved the action and I loved the characters a lot. I thought the battle scenes were incredibly well written and I really enjoyed the bonds that the characters had - Lu Da and Lin Chong were some of my favourites of the series. I really loved the bandits and enjoyed the few humorous moments we had with them as well as the priestess we meet later in the novel. The first part of the book really pulled me in, it was engaging and easy to follow.

However, from the middle of the book to the final climactic scene, the book became a bit of a slog. It took me three weeks to finish because of some pacing issues and I found myself often lost in the words and having to re-read large parts of it. I also found it very hard to get attached to the characters as we were given such bare bones information about them and I would have really enjoyed the opportunity to get to know more about their history and their friendships.

Speaking of bare bones, do watch out if cannibalism is something you struggle to read because there are a few moments.

Obviously please take my review with a pinch of salt because I have not read or know much about the source material but I did enjoy this novel as my first introduction to the Wuxia genre. I’m excited to read more Chinese historical novels and fantasy.

3.75/5

A fantastic adventure story that really examines what it takes to rebel against an oppressive government. Although I’m not familiar with the original story of The Water Margin, I found this retelling very easy to fall in love with, especially the very distinct characters- no easy feat with a cast this large. I especially liked the sympathetic treatment of Lady Lu, whose attempts to work within the system as opposed to the rest of the bandits could have easily been straightforwardly pathetic or pointless- instead, we get a really good view on her inner life and what her capitulation costs her, treatment normally reserved for male characters.

I loved this story, and didn’t really want it to end. Highly recommended!

Not for the faint of heart (do check the trigger warnings), fairly action packed and very political, “The Water Outlaws” is a feminist historical retelling of a Chinese classic novel I admit I’m not familiar with. It’s a very ambitious story, with many characters and POVs, and a very complex world building. I think the pacing or the power plays sort of lost me in the middle at some point but I thought this was really clever and escapist book.

I voluntarily read and reviewed an advanced copy of this book. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

The Water Outlaws is a wonderfully written feminist epic fantasy with a diverse cast ensemble that makes you laugh and root for in a fully immersive world.

I love c-dramas and I love books that read as c-dramas. I could definitely see in my head the adaptation of The Water Outlaws into a c-drama because the author did an amazing job at conveying the world as well as the characters themselves. It's written in third person, and it follows various characters but mostly Lin Chong.

Lin Chong is a widely respected Arms Instructor who serves the Empire with pride. She's disciplined and dedicated to her duty and rules/laws. But everything changes when her superior sexually assaults her and Lin Chong fights back-and wins, of course. She's portrayed as a traitor and gets exiled, whereas her superior tries to kill her off, all for daring to fight back. She then joins Liangshan- a group of bandits who fight back against injustice, bandits who may have committed crimes. I loved how torn Lin Chong was. She wanted-and needed- to belong there since she had nowhere else to go, but her morality was at odds with how Liangshan was formed and operated. I believe that the author did a truly amazing job at expressing that and making Lin Chong a remarkably compelling main character that got us invested into her journey.

Liangshan was formed by a wide variety of characters. I felt like every character was unique and had their own quirks and personality traits. I have to say that I liked Lin Chong best and her opinion reflected mine but also they influenced mine, so if she didn't like or trust a character, neither did I. 😅

The plot was original and fresh. A plot twist was very shocking, but I didn't really focus on finding the next plot twist as I read. I just enjoyed the story every step of the way. The wuxia elements were there, mostly thanks to Lin Chong, and I would have loved for much more. I really love wuxia, and I felt like I wanted much more of it, but at the same time, the book is perfect like it is. I wouldn't change a thing. The last pages of the book deserve an award, to be honest. Outstanding ending told in an exquisitely masterful prose.

I also believe that this book deserves to be critically acclaimed and be nominated in all big awards. It belongs up there next to other big fantasy names and titles. It's epic fantasy at its best.

What really shone in this book, in my opinion, is the characters' bravery, Lin Chong, and the author's storytelling ability. I'm truly looking forward to more books by this author.

Review 🧐📖 "The Water Outlaws", SL Huang 🌊⚔️
Beautiful cover by illustrator Feifei Ruan 🤩
Released August 22, 2023, thanks @solaris for sending this e-ARC 🙏

"What is a dream, but a reality invented by the mind."
Lin Chong is a master-at-arms instructor in the Imperial Guard. A status earned by the strength of his work and his skills. There are only a handful of women in similar positions because society in general is still misogynistic and repressive. Everything changes for our heroine when a man, a Grand Imperial Marshal, takes a dislike to her.
On the verge of being executed, Lin Chong manages to escape and joins a group of outcasts, the bandits of Liangshan.

With such a neat cover, the book immediately caught my eye.
The author writes a retelling of a monument of classical Chinese literature (which I admit I have not read) "The Water Margin", inspired by the Song dynasty (960-1279); one of the most prosperous dynasties, from what I have read of it and in which women enjoyed greater freedom (they had access to high positions).

The Water Outlaws is a story of women and misfits, a Queer narrative, mixing Epic Fantasy and Wuxia (a story set in ancient China with characters possessing extraordinary physical skills, acquired through strict training from an early age ). 💕
Suffice to say that the result is captivating and the combat scenes, extremely visual, are worthy of a film! 🤯
The descriptions are worked with meticulousness, and our mind easily escapes by discovering the decorations of the palaces from the beginning of the story.
However, what struck me the most was the whole philosophy combining combat techniques and approaches to life, put forward by the author thanks in particular to the character of Lin Chong, whom I adored from start to finish. the end 🤩.
The author integrates a magic system based on "God's Teeth", artifacts giving access to phenomenal power. Here again, I loved the meeting between martial philosophy and magic and the morality to be drawn where the strength acquired by training and instinct can be as powerful as magic itself, or even more.
I devoured this novel in 48 hours, the action being there at every turn!

First off, the cover of this book is really beautiful, so props to the cover designer! Secondly, while I did enjoy this book and found the plot and the writing really engaging (at first), my interest definitely waned as the book went on. While the action scenes were fun, it was difficult to care about a lot of the characters that were introduced later on as most of them were only one-note. It's hard to be as invested in the action or the plot when you don't really care about 70% of the characters. I think this would maybe work better as a movie or a TV show than as a novel.

Overall though, this was quite a fun, action-packed read, and it's always interesting to read female and queer retellings of classic stories.

I remember watching 'The Water Margin' after school as a little'un. I'm sure I didn't quite understand the context, but the heroes fighting against the corrupt bosses was clear even then. Not just vengeance, but righteous rebellion. Consequences and justice.

SL Huang has written a beautiful and worthy version of that tale, very much making it her own. I began reading while stuck in hospital, and didn't want to stop for anything!

From the first, I loved protagonist Lin Chong - a strong and resolute teacher, using all her resources (including some less orthodox methods) to train warriors for the state. But given the story, it was clear that she would fall; and being female, it was all too clear what form that fall would take. And off we go, into a land of action and love, sorrow and victory.

The world of the tale feels both historically real and interwoven with the spirit and magic of oriental legend. It's not hard to imagine a 'Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon' adaptation, but while the action is amazing, the very human story was what held me. Being pushed to the limit, forces outside your control, knowing what's right and fighting for that against those in power.

This book is subtle as well. Beautiful prose and fantastic characters draw the reader in, but with an undercurrent of gender and class issues, the urge to fight back versus the ingrained lessons of being 'good' and behaving as society demands... I would say that this book doesn't bang a political drum, but by its very nature, it does. It has to. These are all aspects of life that we can relate to in the 21st century, and which we should be caring about.

There are so many brilliant books appearing in recent years that encourage folk who have previously been silenced to retaliate, to know their own power and recognise it, raise their voices and stand together. This takes it place proudly amongst them, and deserves to be read by as many as possible. A strong recommend.

This is such an actioned packed story, you can really see it playing out in your mind! Excellent writing, really bringing the plot to life.

Unfortunately, there were a few too many characters and I didnt really care about a lot of them. That made some bits start to drag.

I received a copy from the publisher in exchange for an honest review

A retelling of Chinese classic Water Margin, this is a novel that doesn’t hold back, even from its very first page. Lin Chong is an arms instructor, expertly training the Emperor’s soldiers in every class. Her impressive skill and devotion to the job is what she holds higher than anything else, unlike her friends that are beginning to question and challenge inequalities in hierarchy, morals and values. After being targeted and disgraced by an Imperial Marshall, Lin Chong is recruited by the Bandits of Liangshan – mountain outlaws that believe in justice for women, progressive thinkers and other marginalised people.

I haven’t yet read the original text on which this was based, but I am thoroughly besotted by The Water Outlaws. The martial arts elements are fantastic: Huang brings the movements and fight scenes to life in a masterful fashion and it really feels like non-stop action. I’d LOVE to see this as a film adaptation someday. The lore, backstory and settings are also wonderful, there’s no questioning of the rich backdrop of the story.

What I adored the most here, however, is the feminist heart of the story. The sisterhood that are the Bandits of Liangshan was impressive and inspiring, and Lin Chong was the perfect heroine to catalyse the courage and progressive values of the clan. Huang comments on power and hierarchy against a backdrop of tradition here, and Lin Chong’s development is just… *chef’s kiss* My only note here is that there’s not nearly enough magic and fantasy elements for a ‘fantasy historical fiction’, but I can let that slide for what a great read this was!

I actually really liked the beginning of this book. I was immediately pulled into the story. I'd been worried that it would be too confusing or more historical than I'd have liked, but that wasn't the case and the historic aspects were actually amazing.
It was exciting and tragic, with strong characters and a good story. I have no idea what this is based on - so I don't know how much of it was the author, but I did enjoy it.

At least until I reached about 50%. That's when it started to be boring. Too many characters that weren't characterised well doing uninteresting things I didn't care about. At this point, it also became more political, but unfortunately not the interesting kind. I feel like there were at least 150 pages that could've been cut out without any loss.

When the action did finally start again, I was at a point were I simply didn't care anymore. I just wanted everything to be over. And I'm actually really disappointed that it turned out that way, because the beginning was great!

The fantasy part of the story is barely there. It's mainly historical, which I don't mind, but you shouldn't expect too much fantasy. It could've probably also been left out. I might've even preferred that.

Overall - nice idea, very nice beginning, but it simply couldn't hold up to that promise.

Thank you, NetGalley and Rebellion Publishing for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

This book is a gender-swapped retelling of a Chinese classic martial arts legend "The Water Margin". I had no previous knowledge of the source material so this was the first experience of this story for me and I loved it!
We follow a few characters, but our main protagonist is Lin Chong, a martial arts instructor who is very rigid and lawful. But when she finds herself in an unjust situation and the law is completely against her, she has no choice but to join Liangshan - a group of female bandits that inhabit the countryside.

Filled with a variety of questionably good and evil characters, this was a story that really made me think about right and wrong and for the first few chapters I couldn't quite pinpoint who I thought would be the heroes of the story. The outlaws are very morally grey which makes perfect sense and I enjoyed this aspect of the novel, it was much more believable than having bandits who are just angels on the wrong side of the law and just want to save people without reason.

I tend to automatically be drawn towards novels like this - martial arts, culture, tragedy and heroes, what's not to like?! This one certainly didn't disappoint; loaded with action, alchemy and even ghosts which all came together to create a unique story. There were a variety of LGBTQ+ characters woven throughout and the fact that our lead character was a woman in her forties rather than an attractive twenty-year-old was refreshing!

I do wish, however, that there had been a little more characterization happening throughout the plot, as I never felt particularly attached to any of them, despite the fact I was reading about their lives. It felt very detached, but I tend to find this is very common in books like this and I suppose it fits in well with the fact that it's the retelling of a Chinese legend - stories that often don't usually involve too much personal characterization either.

Overall this was a great read and I'm already itching to read another book about corrupt politics and heroes of the people!

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for an advance copy of this book in exchange for an honest review!

Inspired by a martial arts classic, this book follows a group of women who are labelled as bandits. I really enjoyed this book. The world was an interesting one, the plot was compelling throughout and the characters are well written. I would definitely recommend checking this one out.

From the first chapter, I could tell I was going to eat this book up. It has this wonderful lyrical writing style you can get from wuxia novels and such strong badass feminist characters you want to yell along with them and run away into a marsh yourself and start up your own group of bandits.

Now I will say though if you have read any Chinese fantasy novels, the writing style may be different from you are used to. I appreciate that. Think less modern fantasy young heroine going on adventure and more written that gives the quality of a dramatic production. Dramatic production is right for the fact that I was unable to picture anyone other than martial arts film star herself, Michelle Yeoh as the main character Lin Cheong the entire story. Lin Cheong was such a complex character, fantastic.

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for providing me with an ARC.

I was sold on this project by Shelley Parker-Chan's wonderful review, and I have to say that I was not disappointed. A feminist take on the perennially popular Wuxia genre of Chinese fiction, The Water Outlaws focuses on a sisterhood of man-eating (literally) bandits, brought together by their shared treatment at the hands of a tyrannical, misogynistic empire and the men who run it. We follow this group of brave warriors as they attempt to strike a blow at the heart of the empire they once felt such loyalty to.

The action set-pieces, focusing largely on mysterious, magical artefacts known as god's teeth, imbued with a terrible power, were exhilarating and often brutal, but were offset well with emotional development and character growth. I was truly invested in Lin Chong and Lu Da, and hoping that Cai Jing and Gao Qiu would get their richly deserved comeuppance.

This seems to be intended as a standalone, and as a result I did feel at times that the worldbuilding and character examination didn't quite reach the heights I wanted it to. There was limited time for certain interesting characters to come to the fore, and it seemed as though Lin Chong's children, mentioned in the early chapters, disappeared from the narrative after this altogether. But those things aside, this was a highly accomplished fantasy novel, and I will eagerly await the author's next outing.

Thank you to Solaris for providing an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

The Water Outlaws is a complex and rich high fantasy inspired by classical martial arts literature.

While I enjoyed the concept of this book and it's core roots in real history, I feel like the execution of this story let the book down as a whole.
Throughout reading I felt like the constant exposition of so many intricacies of the world in this novel and it's fantasy and scientific elements took too much away from the characters and story building. There was so much time spent describing law and long conversations that I became bored easily and the characters I felt were never given enough time to be fully fleshed out. The pacing just felt off for a book that is described as such high action when in reality my mind would often wander while reading this because the book that didn't grip me.
I think this novel has a great groundwork to be an amazing read but I believe more time should have been given to the characters as the world was so vast it sucked the heart out of this novel.

Having loved S.L. Huang's previous work I was excited not only to see what came next and how their writing had developed but also to experience something a bit more long-form.
I thoroughly enjoyed reading The Water Outlaws, the story and world created in these pages is emotive, exciting and extremely readable.
I had no previous context for the story on which this work is based so I thank SL Huang for sending me down a research rabbit hole, I'm excited to learn more about this work and others like it. In a market somewhat oversaturated by fairytale retellings it was good to experience something a little different.
I thought that the overall plot of the book was very interesting, I liked the way the action split between locations and we got to see all different kinds of scenes from more scientific inquiry scenes to combat training sequences. You can feel the breadth of SL Huang's interest alongside the depth of research that must have gone into creating such a book.
I think this book does require you to have a semi-decent memory for names as I found it tricky at times to keep track of who was who - but that is a common issue I have with all fantasy works so your mileage may vary! There is a character guide helpfully placed at the start of the book so those with physical copies should have no issue flicking back and forth.
Overall I would definitely recommend The Water Outlaws, particularly to those feeling burned out on the usual humdrum retellings we've been seeing for a while!
I received a free digital review copy of this book from the publisher via NetGalley. All opinions are my own.

Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for an advance copy of this in exchange for an honest review.

The Watee Outlaws is a historical fantasy retelling of the Chinese legend ‘The Water Margin’ detailing the origin of a group of bandits and their motivations for going against the Chinese empire. The prose was stunning and very poetic, the battle descriptions very detailed and made you feel like you were in the middle of a martial arts movie. It had a very classic feel to it and although at almost 500 pages it is a weighty book, you didn’t feel too bogged down with detail. The magic in it was quite clearly explained and I felt from the halfway mark that I had a good grasp of the overall story.

Now for the downsides. This is down to personal taste, but martial fantasy is not one of my usual genre’s so it is to the authors credit that I appreciated the writing and read it through to the end. However, I normally prefer books that are a little more character led, and this was definitely more on the events than the characters. Also there were some pacing issues that meant I felt it dragged a little halfway through, though the last third made up for that. Fantasy readers should be aware that there is little to no romance in this story, it is more found family.

3.5 stars rounded up to 4.

Thankyou NetGalley and Rebellion publishing for an e-arc of this book in exchange for an honest review

An action packed feminist adventure that I couldn’t put down! This book was paced extremely well, keeping me hooked the entire time and the fighting scenes were amazing (definitely brutal!). Each character had such depth, I loved the found family in this book and it was hard to not feel as if you, as a reader, were also part of the group of bandits and had these connections with each character personally - It was definitely bittersweet parting with them at the end of the book!
The way that Huang smoothly transitions between characters POV’s made it so easy to picture the whole story so vividly and even with a lot of characters to keep track of it, none of it felt confusing or overwhelming.
I cannot recommend this enough, especially if you’re looking for an action packed read full of deep character connections and strong inspiring female/gender fluid lead characters!