S.L. Huang

In this prequel novelette to the critically acclaimed The Water Outlaws, nine-year-old Li Li is introduced to a web of community secrets and family intrigue when she helps her mother bury the corpse of a man that has somehow wound up in the storeroom of her family's inn...At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.

A 2023 Pick for Vulture | Men's Health | IGN | Polygon | Goodreads | Amazon | Nerd Daily | WeAreBookish | Paste | Books, Bones & Buffy | The Escapist | Paste Magazine | SciFixFantasy | Distractify | Gizmodo | Ms. Magazine | Popsugar | Book Riot | Autostraddle | The Mary Sue & others Inspired by a classic of martial arts literature, S. L. Huang's The Water Outlaws are bandits of devastating ruthlessness, unseemly femininity, dangerous philosophies, and ungovernable gender who are ready to make history―or tear it apart. "This wuxia eat-the-rich tale is a knockout."― Publishers Weekly , starred review In the jianghu, you break the law to make it your own. 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. Until 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.

When Rosa (aka Red Riding Hood) and Hou Yi the Archer join forces to stop the deadly sunbirds from ravaging the countryside, their quest will take the two women, now blessed and burdened with the hindsight of middle age, into a reckoning of sacrifices made and mistakes mourned, of choices and family and the quest for immortality.

Xiao Hong travels to her mother's homeland in pursuit of Rosa in the sequel to Hunting Monsters My seventeenth birthday, the day I became a woman in the eyes of the law, my mother sat down at the small table in our cottage and said, “It is time.” It has been two years since Rosa fled the west, walking out on Xiao Hong and Mei, breaking their family. Now that the King's men no longer hunt the grundwirgen killer, Xiao Hong's mother makes the hard decision to return to her homeland to find Rosa and make their family whole again. Xiao Hong, still angry and hurt by her Auntie Rosa's secrets and lies, must decide whether or not she will join her mother's quest. Xu Meng Jiao grew up knowing his mother was a demon, and that he must save her. Meng Jiao has lived in the shadow of his parents for his entire life. The child of a human father and snake demon mother, he has vowed to become the best possible student, scholar, and son he can be--in the hopes of saving his mother from her imprisonment. Two paths collide in Fighting Demons, as Xiao Hong and Meng Jiao come to terms with their parents, their families, and find their place in the world.

“Happy birthday, child. Careful not to shoot any grundwirgen.” Ever since she was a small girl, she has learned to be careful on the hunt, to recognize the signs that separate regular animals from human-cursed grundwirgen. To harm a grundwirgen is a crime punishable by death by the King's decree - a fatal mistake that her Auntie Rosa and mother have carefully prepared her to avoid. On her fifteenth birthday, when her mother is arrested and made to stand trial for grundwirgen murder, everything she thought she knew about her family and her past comes crashing down. Auntie Rosa has always warned her about monsters. Now, she must find and confront them to save her mother, no matter the cost.

An alternate history short story looking at decisions and consequences, and what it takes to pull the trigger. At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.

A blockbuster, near-future science fiction thriller, S.L. Huang's Zero Sum Game introduces a math-genius mercenary who finds herself being manipulated by someone possessing unimaginable power..... Cas Russell is good at math. Scary good. The vector calculus blazing through her head lets her smash through armed men twice her size and dodge every bullet in a gunfight, and she'll take any job for the right price. As far as Cas knows, she’s the only person around with a superpower...until she discovers someone with a power even more dangerous than her own. Someone who can reach directly into people’s minds and twist their brains into Moebius strips. Someone intent on becoming the world’s puppet master. Cas should run, like she usually does, but for once she's involved. There’s only one problem...She doesn’t know which of her thoughts are her own anymore.

The vector calculus blazing through Cas Russell's head lets her smash through men twice her size and dodge every bullet in a gunfight. In the first three books of her action-packed adventures, Cas faces opponents as powerful as telepaths and as unstoppable as mobsters. She's not the only person in the world with a superpower or the technology to mimic one -- but how many can claim a mastery of the whole numerical world as their battle skill? Adrenaline, snark, and science fiction combine into a noir superhero thriller. This bundle contains the first three books, as well as two additional bonus short stories. BOOK 1 - ZERO SUM GAME Going up against a psychic with a god complex isn’t exactly a rational move, but Cas isn’t about to let anyone get away with violating her brain. Besides, she’s got a small arsenal and some deadly mathematics on her side. There's only one problem . . . she doesn’t know which of her thoughts are her own anymore. BOOK 2 - HALF LIFE Cas knows she isn’t saving a child. She’s only stealing a piece of technology that looks like one, and it's expensive and high-stakes enough for innocent people to have been killed over it. But Cas has a distraught father on one hand and a robot programmed to act like a distraught daughter on the other, and she’s never been able to sit by when a kid is in trouble -- even a fake one. BOOK 3 - ROOT OF UNITY When Cas agrees to find a professor's stolen proof, she's immediately ducking car bombs and men with AKs -- this is the type of math people are willing to kill for, and the U.S. government wants it as much as the bad guys do. But all that pales compared to what Cas learns when she starts to unravel the mathematics. Because the more she works on the case, the more she realizes something is very, very wrong . . . with her. Bonus material: Short story - RIO ADOPTS A PUPPY A puppy appears on Rio's doorstep. Fortunately, Rio is fully aware he’s a sadistic psychopath utterly lacking in empathy, and thus does not hurt the puppy. But he also doesn’t know what to do with it. Bonus material: Short story - LADIES' DAY OUT Cas teaches Pilar to shoot. Considering Cas is an acerbic mercenary and Pilar is a delightful admin, this goes about how you’d expect.

Inspired by a classic of martial arts literature, S. L. Huang's The Water Outlaws are bandits of devastating ruthlessness, unseemly femininity, dangerous philosophies, and ungovernable gender who are ready to make history—or tear it apart.In the jianghu, you break the law to make it your own.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.Until 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.

Cas Russell, antisocial mercenary, has decided to Fight Crime. With capital letters, like in one of her friend’s comic books. After all, she has a real-life superpower: with her instantaneous mathematical ability, she can neuter bombs or out-shoot an army. And it’s Cas’s own fault violence has been spiking in the world’s cities lately — she’s the one who crushed the organization of telepaths that had been keeping the world’s worst offenders under control. Now every drive-by or gang shooting reminds Cas how she’s failed, and taking out these scumbags one at a time is never going to be enough. She needs to find a way to stop all the violence. At once. But Cas’s own power has a history, one she can’t remember — or control. A history that’s creeping into the cracks in her mind and fracturing her sanity . . . just when she’s gotten herself on the hit list of every crime lord on the West Coast. Cas isn’t going to be able to save the world. She might not even be able to save herself.

Cas Russell is back — and so is her deadly supermath. Cas may be an antisocial mercenary who uses her instant calculating skills to mow down enemies, but she’s trying hard to build up a handful of morals. So when she’s hired by an anguished father to rescue his kid from an evil tech conglomerate, it seems like the perfect job to use for ethics practice. Then she finds her client’s daughter . . . who is a robot. The researchers who own the ’bot will stop at nothing to get it back, but the kid’s just real enough for Cas to want to protect her — even though she knows she’s risking everything for a collection of metal and wires. But when the case blows up in her face, it plunges Cas into the crossfire of a massive, decades-long corporate espionage war. Cas knows logically that she isn’t saving a child. She’s stealing a piece of technology, one expensive and high-stakes enough that spiriting it away is going to get innocent people killed. But she has a distraught father on one hand and a robot programmed to act like a distraught daughter on the other, and she’s never been able to sit by when a kid is in trouble — even a fake one. Screw morals and ethics. All Cas wants to do is save one little girl.

Cas teaches Pilar to shoot. Considering Cas is an acerbic mercenary and Pilar is a delightful admin, this goes about how you'd expect.

Cas Russell has always used her superpowered mathematical skills to dodge snipers or take down enemies. Oh, yeah, and make as much money as possible on whatever unsavory gigs people will hire her for. But then one of her few friends asks a favor: help him track down a stolen math proof. One that, in the wrong hands, could crumble encryption protocols worldwide and utterly collapse global commerce. Cas is immediately ducking car bombs and men with AKs -- this is the type of math people are willing to kill for, and the U.S. government wants it as much as the bad guys do. But all that pales compared to what Cas learns from delving into the proof. Because the more she works on the case, the more she realizes something is very, very wrong . . . with her. For the first time, Cas questions her own bizarre mathematical abilities. How far they reach. How they tie into the pieces of herself that are broken -- or missing. How the new proof might knit her brain back together . . . while making her more powerful than she's ever imagined. Desperate to fix her fractured self, Cas dives into the tangled layers of higher mathematics, frantic for numerical power that might not even be possible -- and willing to do anything, betray anyone, to get it.

A puppy appears on Rio's doorstep. Fortunately, Rio is fully aware he's a sadistic psychopath utterly lacking in empathy, and thus does not hurt the puppy. But he also doesn't know what to do with it. This 4,000-word short story is a companion to the Russell's Attic series and takes place in parallel to book 2 (Half Life). The best time in the series to read it is directly following book 2.

The Earth is populated by two sentient species who share humans on the land’s crust, and the atargati in the deep abysses of the ocean. Dr. Cadence Mbella is the foremost human researcher studying the mysterious atargati, intent on proving to the rest of the human world that they are a complex society deserving of respect--not the overly-romanticized “mermaids” some would like to imagine. When Cadence discovers, to her horror, that her own superiors are conducting an unethical experiment on an atargati subject, she sacrifices everything to enact a rescue. Once the atargati is safe back in the deep sea, Cadence goes on the run, a fugitive from the law with her career burned behind her. But she can’t stop thinking about her lifelong research, and she yearns to find a way to return to the ocean’s abysses. Not to mention that the atargati she saved keeps haunting her dreams . . . Longlisted for the 2017 Tiptree award, “The Little Homo Sapiens Scientist” is a dark, queer science fiction retelling of “The Little Mermaid” about a human who gives up her voice to join the sea.