The Water Outlaws

By: S. L. Huang

Narrated by: Emily Woo Zeller

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.

I’m glad I finished it.

The story had some good parts. Overdramatization of the characters, distracted a bit from the storyline. The names were extremely hard for me to follow as there were many of them that sounded quite similar it difficult to tell the emperors people from the outlaws. The fight scenes were well depicted. Telling this from the feminine perspective, gave it an interesting vibe. For that, the author is to be applauded. I’m neutral on whether I would recommend this one or not. There were a number of times when I wished the author would cut out lengthy descriptions that added no value to the plot line. For that, I place blame on the editor. If you are in a Chinese culture, I do recommend the book. If not, you may have a difficult time following along as I did.

Tremendous physical and psychologic violence seemingly accepted as routine.

The various characters were well developed, some serious, some humorous, all well intentioned and interesting. The use of mystery, magic and fantasy in addition to martial arts skills of the women fighters made the intense violence a little easier to accept in the storytelling.

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.