The Tangleroot palace

Marjorie M. Liu

Book - 2021

The award-winning author of the graphic novel Monstress, in this long-awaited debut collection of darkly enthralling short fiction, takes us into the heart of the tangled woods - a place rife with unexpected detours, dangerous magic and even more dangerous women.

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Subjects
Genres
Fantasy fiction
Short stories
Novellas
Published
San Francisco : Tachyon 2021.
Language
English
Main Author
Marjorie M. Liu (author, -)
Edition
First edition
Physical Description
iv, 239 pages ; 23 cm
ISBN
9781616963521
  • Sympathy for the bones
  • The briar and the rose
  • The light and the fury
  • The last dignity of man
  • Where the heart lives
  • After the blood
  • Tangleroot palace.
Review by Booklist Review

On the surface, the stories in Liu's first solo collection seem to have little in common as they span from fairy tales to westerns to dark fantasy. In truth, they are united by dangerous, strong, and determined women as lead characters, and by themes of freedom and self-determination. The lead short story tells of Clora, a young girl who finds a way out from under the thumb of the witch who saved her. The titular novella centers on Sally, a young princess who is headstrong, with a bold spirit that seems to twist the same way other modern fantasy heroines do, but is actually more like a character from Patrick Rothfuss' The Name of the Wind (2007). Briar Rose reimagines the story of Sleeping Beauty as the tale of two women, one a brutal swordswoman who helps a beautiful victim trapped in her own body break free of a sorceress who has possessed her. Fans of Liu's paranormal romance and urban fantasy series will enjoy exploring the many facets of her imagination.

From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review

Liu (the Monstress series) charms with this spellbinding collection of six short stories and one novella. The standouts are "The Briar and the Rose," a darkly fascinating retelling of "Sleeping Beauty," in which a female duelist discovers her witch employer is living in the stolen body of Princess Rose, and helps Rose to regain it; and "Call Her Savage," a steampunk western set during the Opium Wars and following half-Chinese antiheroine Lady Marshal as she struggles to be the hero others need her to be. Also of note are the haunting and eerie, "Sympathy for the Bones"; "The Last Dignity of Man," about a would-be supervillain who realizes he must be his own superman; and two stories set in the world of Liu's Dirk & Steele paranormal romance series: the atmospheric historical fantasy, "Where the Heart Lives," which serves as a prequel to the series, and the dystopian "After the Blood," about Amish vampires, set in the series's future. The title novella offers a more standard secondary world fantasy, about a runaway princess drawn to an enchanted forest, but uses this familiar plot to probe the character's feelings of being trapped. Liu's mastery of so many different subgenres astounds, and her ear for language carries each story forward on gorgeously crafted sentences. This is a must-read. Agent: Duvall Osteen, Aragi Agency. (June)

(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Review by Kirkus Book Review

A collection of short stories exploring the emotional complexity, diverse physicality, and layered sexuality of resourceful women. In "Sympathy for the Bones," Clora is old Ruth's unwilling apprentice witch in Kentucky, forced to murder men with hoodoo magic or surrender her soul. Having lost her family, Clora longs to know what it feels like to love and be loved, even as she plans her escape. Another kind of escape is brewing in "The Briar and the Rose," a retelling of "Sleeping Beauty," only this time the charming prince is a brown warrior-woman who must walk the dangerous line between freeing the woman she's come to love and her duty to her mistress---the sorceress who inhabits Rose's body six days out of seven. In "Call Her Savage," a striking magical alternate history, ex--Lady Marshall Xīng MacNamara--who comes from New China, on the Pacifica coast of an America allied with its Native peoples--must kill her former lover Maude in order to stop the Redcoats from colonizing the world. Rounding out the collection are a story about Amish vampires and a secret marriage in a plague-ridden future that gingerly explores trauma and strength; a gay wannabe-supervillain looking for a superhero to love him in a story that asks what true vulnerability can awaken; and a princess, determined to forge her own path through sentient trees and evil queens, who wrestles with how to remain true to duty, heart, and mind. Within each tale, author Liu gives a masterclass in the art of storytelling. She doesn't waste a word or a comma, nor does she miss an opportunity to dive into what makes us human, no matter who we are or who we love. In the title novella, the protagonist learns that "some trees are bark and root, and some trees have soul and teeth." So, too, will readers find that Liu's writing is all "soul and teeth." Neither will release them quickly. The only drawback to these seven stories is that readers will want far more time in each world. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.