Thank you to the publishers and netgalley for an arc of this book.

As a fan of Monstress, this was a book I was looking forward to. Howeve, this collection of short stories was a mixed bag. Only a few of the stories really stood out to me. They were all written well but some just fell flat. The Briar and the Rose, and Tangleroot Palace were probably my favorite stories from the collection. It just felt like there was something missing from the rest of them. There was a sort of disconnect across all the stories and they felt odd to be grouped together. The collection was not as inventive as I felt it could have been or was trying to be. And although The Briar and the Rose was one of the stories that stood out, it felt too short. Its concept is one that I wish was expanded upon. The last story, Tangleroot Palace, was actually a novella and the length fit well. Overall, I would probably read other stories by Liu, but this collection just did not do it for me overall. ( )

Full review including spoiler-free thoughts on each story can be found over at Just Geeking By.

There are six short stories and one novella in The Tangleroot Palace and each one varies in theme and genre but a fairytale element runs through the entire anthology. It isn’t your typical fairytale though, it’s alternative and unique and if you’re at all familiar with Marjorie Liu’s work you’ll understand what I mean by that. If you’re not then you’re in for a treat because no one spins a tale quite like Liu.

At the end of each story, Liu discusses the origins and inspiration for each story, naming the anthology that each one originally appeared in and the premise she was given for each one. I really enjoyed these notes from her, the author, because it was so interesting to see what she had done with an idea and where she had pieced it together with something else she had seen/read/heard about.

The Tangleroot Palace was, as I expected, brilliant. Each story was unique, wonderful and magical, weaving fantasy and reality together to create stories that although set in fantastical worlds with monsters and fairytales at their core have something we all recognise; people. Even in the darkness of ‘Sympathy for the Bones’ we can recognise parts of ourselves, and that is what makes Liu’s writing so compelling.

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A collection of several short stories and a novella, many of them high fantasy/set in alternate universes and with female lead characters. There are some good story ideas here, and I appreciated that Marjorie Liu has middle-aged women as protagonists about as often as she does those in their late teens/early twenties. This was the case with Liu's queer retelling of "The Briar and the Rose", which was the strongest story of the collection for me. Others were less successful (the one featuring a gay tech billionaire called Alexander Lutheran who was bioengineering monstrous giant worms and was consciously modelling himself after the fictional character of Lex Luthor while also trying to find a Superman to save/fuck him was actually insufficiently campy and weird to work), and I wasn't as impressed with Liu's prose style as other people seem to be. ( )

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. ( )

3 and a half stars. Marjorie Liu is the writer of the awesome Monstress graphic novel series, and this collection of short stories based on reimagined fairy tales really brings them to life. ( )