Title: The Tangleroot Palace: Stories
Author: Marjorie Liu
Genre: Short Stories
Trigger Warnings: See end of review for breakdown by story
Back Cover:
New York Times bestseller and Hugo, British Fantasy, Romantic Times, and Eisner award-winning author of the graphic novel, Monstress, Marjorie Liu leads you deep into the heart of the tangled woods. In her long-awaited debut story collection, dark, lush, and spellbinding short fiction you will find unexpected detours, dangerous magic, and even more dangerous women.
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.
Review:
I so badly wanted my Monstress fix that I went and read an entirely unrelated short story collection just because it was written by the same author. So do with that what you will.
This whole collection has a vibe like a dark fairy tale. Even though three of the stories are ones I would not label “fantasy,” they all had the same mood of magic gone dark and twisted and violent even when there was no magic in the story at all. Several of them also contain forests that are magically twisted and/or otherwise dangerous, but I’m not sure what to make of that theme.
The emphasis in these stories is on the darkness in humans. A lot of the worlds are magical and twisted, but it’s the humans who make them violent and dangerous. There are things out there that can hurt you, but the ones who will do the most damage are frightened and angry people, and you won’t see it coming.
Personally, I like stories that aren’t afraid to go dark. Every single story in this collection goes hard on blood and trauma. That makes it a very intense reading experience – not the kind of book it’s easy to read straight through. The breaks between stories provide a nice opportunity to take a break from all the feelings and trauma in the stories.
None of these stories particularly stood out to me, but none of them were bad. Each was unique and compelling and did a great job grabbing my emotions. It’s not really the Monstress fix I wanted when I picked it up, and I think that prevents me from unequivocally saying it’s awesome, but these stories are all very good.
Trigger Warnings:
Sympathy for the Bones: Death, death of parent, child abuse, body horror, gore
The Briar and the Rose: Violence, blood (brief), rape, mind control/someone controlling someone else’s body without consent, suicidal ideation
The Light and the Fury: Death, death of children, blood, gore, body horror, war, imperialism
The Last Dignity of Man: Injury, excrement, vomit
Where the Heart Lives: Death, body horror, abandonment
After the Blood: Death, blood, gore, violence, fire/fire injury, parental rejection, body horror, rape (implied)
Tangleroot Palace: Death of parent (mentions), forced marriage, body horror, existential horror
Bluejay Reads 