Review: 'The Water Outlaws' by S.L. Huang
Pub. Date: 8/22/2023
Publisher: Tordotcom
Inspired by a classic of martial arts literature, S. L. Huang's The Water Outlaws are bandits of devastating ruthlessness, unseemly femininity, dangerous philosophies, and ungovernable gender who are ready to make history—or tear it apart.
"This wuxia eat-the-rich tale is a knockout."—Publishers Weekly, starred review
In the jianghu, you break the law to make it your own.
Lin Chong is an expert arms instructor, training the Emperor's soldiers in sword and truncheon, battle axe and spear, lance and crossbow. Unlike bolder friends who flirt with challenging the unequal hierarchies and values of Imperial society, she believes in keeping her head down and doing her job.
Until a powerful man with a vendetta rips that carefully-built life away.
Disgraced, tattooed as a criminal, and on the run from an Imperial Marshall who will stop at nothing to see her dead, Lin Chong is recruited by the Bandits of Liangshan. Mountain outlaws on the margins of society, the Liangshan Bandits proclaim a belief in justice—for women, for the downtrodden, for progressive thinkers a corrupt Empire would imprison or destroy. They’re also murderers, thieves, smugglers, and cutthroats.
Apart, they love like demons and fight like tigers. Together, they could bring down an empire.
As some of you may know, I'm a Medievalist and work with medieval texts in Old Norse and Old English, mostly. But I'm also fascinated with texts written outside of Europe during the time we "traditionally" call the Middle Ages. The period 500 - 1500 (roughly) is a kind of demarcated period for Europe, but this time span is nothing special in Chinese history. Chinese culture goes back 4000 years and it has a completely different way of deciding where one period starts and ends. Usually this is linked to the various imperial dynasties, I think. I bring all of this up, because The Water Outlaws is a genderbent retelling of a Chinese vernacular text, Water Margin, which is dated either to the late 13th century or the early 16th. Water Margin tells the tale of a group of 108 outlaws, led by Song Jiang, who resist the empire from their hideout in Liangshan (the Liang Mountain) in the early 11th century. It's a fascinating tale and is considered one of the foremost early vernacular Chinese texts and I'm now very curious to read it. Not just because I'm interested in roughly medieval texts, but also because I'm curious to see the extent to which S.L. Huang adapted and changed the story, aside from the gender of the bandits.
Lin Chong is the Arms Instructor of the Imperial Guard, a position she achieved by working hard, obeying the rules, and accepting some of the limitations placed upon her as a woman. She doesn't complain, she is good at her job, and she is loyal to the Emperor. But despite her hard work, her male superior rips it all away in an instant over his own idiocy. Now Lin is marked as a criminal and injured, cast adrift. But she has friends, one of whom brings her to the mountain hideout of the Liangshan Bandits. The Bandits are a ragtag group of thieves and criminals who have managed to strike an odd balance between pillaging the countryside and considering themselves loyal to the Emperor. Lin has no real choice but to join them, yet she remains torn in her loyalties and her own morals. These are criminals; some of them are even cannibals! But they're also the first real home she's found and Lin will have to decide how far she's willing to go to defend them once the Empire's attention focuses in on them. While Lin is the technical protagonist of The Water Outlaws in my eyes, we also get the perspective of various other characters, such as her friend Lu Junyi, who is both socialite and seditionist but finds herself drawn into Imperial business; Lu Da, the Flower Monk who brings Lin to Liangshan; and more. I loved the differences between these characters and how it also came forward in some of the writing. Lu Da is very much a "punch first, think of some questions later" type and I adored her. Lu Junyi is a very conflicted character and I was fascinated by her. Her high birth and wealth has given her a certain kind of safety which she uses to dabble in seditionist literature, but once she's put to the test it proves harder to truly rebel.
S.L. Huang starts The Water Outlaws with a content warning, which is fair. The Bandits are a riotous bunch, some of whom were falsely sentenced, but many of whom are also hardened criminals. The violence of their exploits are at once explicit and yet, as Huang also states in their warning, it is not what the novel is about. The Water Outlaws strikes a rather nuanced balance, in my eyes, between dramatic actions scenes in which everything goes and countless die horribly and scenes of family, connection, and character development. Much like Lin, the reader has to decide for themselves whether these Bandits are righteous or criminal, but I found myself becoming very fond of them very quickly. I loved the chapters taking place in Liangshan but was a little less fond of Lu Junyi's storyline in the Imperial city of Bianliang (now Kaifeng), although it is a very interesting and crucial part of the story. I just adored the Bandits, what can I say. The push and pull between these two storylines, however, worked really well and I think the pacing throughout was really well done. There is also a mythical element to the story, of potential gods and divine powers which worked very well and brought an extra layer of urgency to the whole endeavour. I personally can't wait to read more by S.L. Huang in the future!
I give this novel...
4 Universes!
The Water Outlaws is a majorly entertaining and satisfying romp in history which hits the balance between action, character development, and myth just right.
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