Jonathan Zacsh reviewed The Water Outlaws by S. L. Huang
Lots of fun, highly recommend!
5 stars
Lots of fun, highly recommend!

S. L. Huang: Water Outlaws (2023, Doherty Associates, LLC, Tom)
English language
Published Jan. 14, 2023 by Doherty Associates, LLC, Tom.
Lots of fun, highly recommend!
Looks like it could be a fascinating story in the mode of Ken Liu's "silkpunk" stories and R.F. Kuang's Poppy War trilogy (the author of which whose name was mangled with S.L. Huang's in the Hugo controversy "report", I just thought that was hilarious), but as with the a previous work by this author I found the prose too herky jerky, long stretches of action with some dialogue but it doesn't really convey atmosphere and character to me, reads more like a screenplay, so I set it aside after the first chapter.
A mostly female, partially LGBTQ cast (on the hero side anyway) sees a former arms instructor in ancient China join a bandit camp in the vein of Robin Hood. Quite a fun read! Much adventure and swashbuckling as well as fighting for justice from oppression, sexual assault, classism etc.