The Water Outlaws, by S. L. Huang

 Review copy provided by the publisher.

 

This is a retelling of the Chinese classic Water Margin, and if you think you know antiheroes, you don't know antiheroes until you know classic Chinese lit antiheroes. These people do not let up on the antihero. The author's note warns you in the front: "gloriously violent," it says, and that is true. Torture, one attempted sexual assault, cannibalism: yep. It's all here, and Huang does not look away. If that's not something you're up for, this is not the book for you. Take the content warnings seriously here, people.

 

It's martial arts fantasy. It's got a big cast of--not brothers, not quite that, this is sisters mostly, siblings but mostly sisters. It's queer and female and full of people who aren't fitting the mold, going off and becoming bandits and challenging the oppressive empire, and some of them would really like to tell themselves that they're doing it in an honorable, upright way, but they're not, they're bandits, they do bandit things, they steal and they maim and they kill, they fight among themselves, they politic and they lie. They mess with alchemical forces beyond their ken, or at least that should have been beyond people's ken. They mess up a lot, and sometimes they mess each other up. They mess up the work that their healer does, much to her annoyance.

They make themselves heroes. They make the wrong people gods. They make an immense amount of trouble, not least for each other. And there's nothing quite like them, but you know, there probably should be.

The Curse of Penryth Hall, by Jess Armstrong

 Review copy provided by the publisher.

 

This is a very Gothicy Gothic. There's a creepy house, there are villagers who know secrets, there is tragic history of various shapes between various characters that is Tainting! Their! Present! Lives! And of course there is a horrible, horrible murder, with supernatural elements that may or may not have anything to do with it.

 

Ruby is a flapper trying to recover her spirits after the horrors she saw nursing the wounded in WWI. She assists a bookstore owner (there is remarkably little of this, please do not read the book for this) who sends her on an errand...right into the neighborhood of the last person she wants to see. Who is of course someone she does see. And with whose fate hers is inextricably intertwined.

INEXTRICABLY INTERTWINED. Because it is that kind of book. DOOM DOOM DOOM that kind of book. BALEFUL SERVANT that kind of book. Coincidental dream or is it that kind of book. There are a few consistent usage errors I really hope get picked up in the copy edit, since this is an eARC, but in general this was a pulpy fun read and I was glad to spend an evening with it.

City of Bones, by Martha Wells

Review copy provided by the publisher.

 

This is a re-release of a novel first released in 1995. The promotional copy notes that this is the author's preferred text; I don't have the original edition, so I can't make comparisons between the two and say what has changed and whether I like it better or worse than the original. In some senses the question is moot for me. This is the edition in front of me; this is what I'm reviewing.

 

The titular city is one of desert wastes and technological fantastika. This is a world past its golden age, a world full of relics and mysteries. Khat is from a race of humanoids often not considered fully human though deeply humane in his own instincts; Elen is a Warder, powerful in her own sphere but unable to penetrate some important areas to retrieve artefacts of interest. Together they--well, there appears to be more committing than fighting of crime, from some points of view. But together they muddle through. Get double crossed. And find themselves an unlikely team in the face of a still more unlikely threat.

 

The role of relics and their forgeries in all of this was the strongest part of the book for me. It's an engaging enough science fantasy but not my favorite of her works--but then, that's a pretty high bar to clear at this point, and not a choice anybody should be pushed into making. 

Short stories (and poems) I've enjoyed this spring

 

Notable Escapes, Leah Bobet (Strange Horizons)

"At the Heart of Each Pearl Lies a Grain of Sand," Marie Brennan (Sunday Morning Transport)

"What I Remember of Oresha Moon Dragon Devshrata," P Djeli Clark (The Book of Witches)

"John Hollowback and the Witch," Amal El-Mohtar (The Book of Witches)

The State Street Robot Factory, Claire Humphrey (Apex)

"Catechism for Those Who Would Find Witches," Kathleen Jennings (The Book of Witches)

Better Living Through Algorithms, Naomi Kritzer (Clarkesworld)

Still Life With Slain God and Lemon, Anne Leonard (Translunar Travelers Lounge)

Steve Irwin and the Unicorn, Theo Nicole Lorenz (Strange Horizons)

"So Spake the Mirrorwitch," Premee Mohamed (The Book of Witches)

A Chronicle of the Mole-Year, Christi Nogle (Strange Horizons)

Little Apocalypses, Aparna Paul (Reckoning)

There's a Door to the Land of the Dead in the Land of the Dead, Sarah Pinsker (The Deadlands)

"Amrit," Kiran Kaur Saini (F&SF May/Jun)

Blooms, Grace Seybold (Beneath Ceaseless Skies)

"Drained," Sonya Taaffe (Not One Of Us #74)

Construction Sacrifice, Bogi Takács (Lightspeed)

"The Cost of Doing Business," Emily Y Teng (The Book of Witches)

She Blooms and the World Is Changed, Izzy Wasserstein (Lightspeed)

"Manic Pixie Girl," AC Wise (The Other Side of Never)