Review – The Tangleroot Palace by Marjorie Liu (4/5 stars)
Reading Level: Adult
Genre: Fantasy
Length: 257 pages
Publisher: Tachyon Publications
Release Date: June 15, 2021
ASIN: B08HVJMFYG
Stand Alone or Series: Stand Alone
Source: Borrowed ebook from Library
Rating: 4/5 stars
“Briar, bodyguard for a body-stealing sorceress, discovers her love for Rose, whose true soul emerges only once a week. An apprentice witch seeks her freedom through betrayal, the bones of the innocent, and a meticulously plotted spell. In a world powered by crystal skulls, a warrior returns to save China from invasion by her jealous ex. A princess runs away from an arranged marriage, finding family in a strange troupe of traveling actors at the border of the kingdom’s deep, dark woods.
Concluding with a gorgeous full-length novella, Marjorie Liu’s first short fiction collection is an unflinching sojourn into her thorny tales of love, revenge, and new beginnings.”
Series Info/Source: This is a stand alone collection of six short stories and one novella. I borrowed this as an ebook from my library.
Thoughts: Like with any short story collection there are hits and misses here. The stories are all over the place genre-wise. There are some fairy tale retellings, more classic fantasy, science fiction, superhero, urban fantasy, and steampunk stories.
I did feel like the first couple stories were a bit rough around the edges; they just didn’t flow as well as the later stories and were a bit tough to understand at parts. I did really enjoy a lot of the later stories.
Usually I would do a run down of each story but I am a bit lazy with the new year just starting and all. I am also writing this quite some time after I read these stories and only have a vague impression of some of the stories in my head now. Suffice to say, my favorite of the bunch was the novella “Tangleroot Palace”. However, all of the stories were decent and I enjoyed the later ones more than the first couple. All of these are intriguing and the collection as a whole is definitely worth the read.
My Summary (4/5): Overall I enjoyed this collection of stories (and one novella) by Liu. I liked that there was such a breadth of fantasy topics and sub-genres here. The first couple stories were a bit rough around the edges but the rest were engaging and very readable. The Tangleroot Palace novella was by far my favorite. I would recommend it to those looking for a solid fantasy anthology to read or, of course, if you are a big fan of Liu.
