The Water Outlaws

By: S. L. Huang

Narrated by: Emily Woo Zeller

Length: 19 hrs and 43 mins

Publisher's summary

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.

But then 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.

©2023 S. L. Huang (P)2023 Dreamscape Media

Great Book

Enjoyed this book thoroughly. Fighting descriptions excellent. Story was engaging.
Narrator did a wonderful job with so many different characters.
Will listen again soon.

The characters

The book excels in crafting a multitude of well-developed characters, each introduced gradually with unique nicknames and traits, ensuring they stand out vividly. This approach skillfully prevents the reader from getting overwhelmed by details, allowing for a seamless journey through the compelling tale of power abuse, sacrifice and redemption.

Good listen!

This was a great listen, and the voice acting was awesome! At times, characters felt a bit too silly where they should have been more serious, but that’s only because it’s hard to do so many character voices, imo.
The story was paced a little oddly, and was a bit predictable, but overall I really liked it! Indefinitely would recommend it and/or listen again.

Promising start unravels as story drags

I was really rooting for some Black Belt Theater, Crouching Tiger/Hidden Dragon, or 47 Ronin adventure. Unfortunately, as much as I enjoyed the first few hours, things got pitchy in the middle, and then I had to force myself to finish the last six hours. By the end, I didn’t care about any of the characters, didn’t understand the magic system, and kind of regretted spending my time on this.

The first few hours started out great, with three interesting characters in arms master Len Cheung, scholar Liu Jun Ni, and student Liu Da (probably spelling these wrong). Unfortunately, once Len Cheung is betrayed and finds her way to the outlaws, the tone becomes uneven. On the one hand, it has a kind of Asian Robin Hood vibe, right down to Liu Da as the comedic sidekick and Len Cheung needing to prove herself among the outlaws. On the other hand, it has dark parts where those outlaws take ruthless, repugnant action, including a scene involving torture and cannibalism. The two main bad guys are one note, irredeemably evil, and delivered too much torture (hands smashed by hammers, stabbing eyes, etc). The more the story progresses, the darker it gets.

Another issue I had was the magic system. For the first ten hours, there’s extremely little magic, just vague descriptions of GodsTeeth which, near as I could ever tell were artifacts or totems that gave the bearer random powers like strength or flight. The use of magic expands in the second half, but I never bought the explanations of how it worked.

Finally, the women/LGBTQ vs the patriarchy theme felt heavy handed and didn’t mesh well with the fantasy. Other than constantly giving the MCs reason to be disgruntled, I didn’t get much out of the fact that all the main “good” characters were female.