voodoocactus's review of The Water Outlaws

5/5: The Water Outlaws is a genderbent retelling of the fourteenth-century Chinese classic Water Margin (水滸傳). I’m not familiar with the original so this is a completely new story for me but I’m tempted to check out the Chinese Lore podcast’s version of the book. This pretty much starts with an attempted sexual assault and from there on, we’re ON. Lin Chong is a stoic woman who learns Female Rage the hard way, Lu Junyi is her bestie who tries her best while caught up between the rock and the hard place. And then we have Liangshan Bandits (aka the lesbean Robin Hood and her merry women) AND THE ...

Just finished reading #TheWaterOutlaws by #SLHuang - A reimagining of the Chinese classic #TheWaterMargin #水浒传 set in #SongDynasty China. #BooksofMastodon https://www.slhuang.com/
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But! What’s selling right now is the first printing still — it’s not sold through YET, it's just going fast — so if YOU want to be a book collecting dork and get a hardcover with the “1” in it, you still can!

https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250180421/thewateroutlaws

Happy Mid-Autumn Festival! Celebrate with mooncakes and stabby lesbians!! 🥮⚔📕

#TheWaterOutlaws #publishing #AmWriting #AmPublishing #author #authors #trivia #sff #fantasy #EpicFantasy #swords #lgbt #lgbtq #queer #book #books #MidAutumn #MidAutumnFestival

The Water Outlaws

A 2023 Pick for Vulture | The Washington Post | Publishers Weekly | Men's Health | IGN | Polygon | Goodreads | Amazon | Nerd Daily | WeAreBookish | Paste | B...

Macmillan Publishers

You’ll see discussions of this among book collectors, where earlier printings can be more valuable...

Or, yanno, among people like me who are just TOTAL DORKS

In fact this is the first time one of my books has had a second printing (YAY!), so I might actually go out and buy it so I can have a copy without the “1” there 🤣🤣🤣

#TheWaterOutlaws #publishing #AmWriting #AmPublishing #author #authors #trivia #sff #fantasy #EpicFantasy #swords #lgbt #lgbtq #queer #book #books

Have you ever looked at a copyright page and seen this line?

This is the “number line” or “printer’s key” and it tells you which printing a book’s on! The lowest existing number is the current print run.

(I think 0 means 10 here, making 1 the lowest number = 1st print run)

For the second printing... drum roll... the “1” will be DELETED!!!

#TheWaterOutlaws #publishing #AmWriting #AmPublishing #author #authors #trivia #sff #fantasy #EpicFantasy #swords #lgbt #lgbtq #queer #book #books

How did I celebrate the Mid-Autumn Festival?

~✨ By finding out THE WATER OUTLAWS is getting a second printing! ✨~

https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250180421/thewateroutlaws

Hey anyone want some PUBLISHING TRIVIA about print runs?

#TheWaterOutlaws #publishing #AmWriting #AmPublishing #author #authors #trivia #sff #fantasy #EpicFantasy #swords #lgbt #lgbtq #queer #book #books

The Water Outlaws

A 2023 Pick for Vulture | The Washington Post | Publishers Weekly | Men's Health | IGN | Polygon | Goodreads | Amazon | Nerd Daily | WeAreBookish | Paste | B...

Macmillan Publishers

end of thread. here is the book btw!

my 150,000-word novel with one of the 5 third-person POVs written pronoun-less!

THE WATER OUTLAWS:
https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250180421/thewateroutlaws

plus yanno lots of swordfights 😆⚔️

#TheWaterOutlaws #fantasy #sff #SpeculativeFiction #book #books #bookstodon #EpicFantasy #language #MartialArts #swords #lgbt #lgbtq #queer #nonbinary @bookstodon

The Water Outlaws

A 2023 Pick for Vulture | The Washington Post | Publishers Weekly | Men's Health | IGN | Polygon | Goodreads | Amazon | Nerd Daily | WeAreBookish | Paste | B...

Macmillan Publishers

The craft was actually easier than I expected, but I did put a lot of thought and effort in, and a lot of time double-checking the updated drafts...

...so I hope at least a small number of people notice and get joy out of it eventually 🤣

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well then, what do, how write?

I experimented a lot & no pronouns felt best for the character!

(they're in "fantasy Chinese", which doesn't gender pronouns just as real Chinese doesn't...which doesn't stop misogyny btw. Anglophones sometimes seem to assume that'd correlate but ungendering pronouns doesn't magically heal sexism/transphobia, sadly 😭)

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Why did I do it? Well when a book is "translation convention" from a language that doesn't gender pronouns --

and the group is genderdiverse-norm in the midst of a regressive society --

but there's no misgendering via pronoun or in-POV way to introduce neopronouns --

#TheWaterOutlaws
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#linguistics #fantasy #pronouns #AmWriting #WritingCommunity