Books of 2026: THE WATER OUTLAWS by S. L. Huang.
Am I daisychaining my way through Huang's catalogue? MAYBE SO, listen I REALLY liked BURNING ROSES okay
I also preordered this, which came out in 2023, and it's been sitting on my shelf since then, unread, because of Who I Am As A Person. Oops.
It's a retelling of the 14th-ish century Chinese novel Water Margin, which is about mountain/marsh bandits and imperial corruption, except Huang's version is hella genderbent and queer (like casually queer characters, not like That's The Plot--my speed!). It's martial artsy, it's epic fantasy/magic/sorcery, it's wuxia, it's smash the patriarchy, it's so very much longer than the other books of Huang's I've read.
The pacing in the front half was slower as Huang laid a lot of character groundwork, and then the action picked up in the second half A Lot (ouch, my bedtimes). I appreciated that we followed two women on very different character arcs: Lin Chong, an expert arms instructor for the Empire, as loyal as they come, and Lu Junyi, who starts borderline-seditionist and becomes [SPOILERS REDACTED]. Very intimate perspectives for both of them, and for our beloved Lu Da and also our Big Bad Antag--good stuff all around.
I also enjoyed being able to see Huang's areas of expertise on page: the author bio says, "Huang is a Hollywood stunt performer, firearms expert, and Hugo Award winner with a math degree from MIT and credits in productions like Battlestar Galactica and Top Shot." The fight scenes were peak, the magic scenes did read like they were straight out of a movie, and the weaponry was delightful! (I just think Huang is a supremely cool person, and Huang's author bio--totally pronounless, btw, Give Us Nothing <3--gets me every time haha.)
Overall, I enjoyed this! It took me a little bit to get into, but I'm glad I stuck with it and I may or may not have binged the last 200 pages this evening. Huang does provide fairly comprehensive content warnings at the front of the book (and the bit about cannibalism was NOT fucking around, holy shit), but if none of those send you screaming toward the marsh and you vibe with feminist epic fantasy wuxia, check this out!
