SL Huang

Speculative fiction author. Mathematician. Gunslinger.

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THE WATER OUTLAWS is out!

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The Water Outlaws book cover shows a woman with a weapon on a rearing horse, martial arts bandits in the background

Buy links in the US * Buy links in the UK

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.

“S.L. Huang’s new epic fantasy is a battle cry of a book. . . . A glorious, wuxia-inspired saga of femme and queer resistance in the face of oppression.”―BookPage, 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.

Buy it now in the US!

Buy it now in the UK!

CRITICAL POINT is almost here! And you can get the paperback of NULL SET

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Null Set cover

Woop woop I’m way late on updating my news feed again. The big stuff is that Null Set came out in paperback a few months ago — heck yeah! In this time of pandemic you can order it from your favorite online retailer or get your local indie to ship it to you. (I love local indies so much… I hope they all come through this okay.)

Next, coming this week — Tuesday, in fact! — the third book, Critical Point, is hitting internet shopping portals everywhere! (Doesn’t have the same ring as “stores”, does it?) Preorders are on! Critical Point is a brand new book, never before seen ever. That means if you read Zero Sum Game and Null Set, this is the next adventure in the series, but if you were reading the self-published versions of the books a thousand years ago (oh god what is time, March was about three millennia long), this is ALSO the next book in the series for you. For more details, see this page.

But the main point is — Critical Point! Brand new! Totally awesome! I’m excited!

In my head, I like to call this one either “the one with all the explosions” or “the one that is (finally) super gay.” Both of these descriptions make me very happy.

I’ll be updating this news feed over the weekend with a bunch of virtual events I’m doing next week to promote Critical Point. If you’ve wanted to come to an event or signing with me and have never been able to because geography, virtual events at least have the upside of not being pinned down to anywhere in the world… so that’s a plus side. I’ll also be sending out more details in my newsletter, which you can sign up for here!

I hope everyone is doing as okay as possible. Stay safe, stay well.

The Publication of NULL SET

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Null Set cover

So this is what happens when you come home from a month of book promotion travel to a deadline on the third book and subsequently bury yourself in meeting said deadline — you completely forget to post the ACTUALFAX ACTUALNEWS of Book 2’s publication on your website!

NULL SET came out on July 9. Here’s the blurb:

Math-genius mercenary Cas Russell has decided to Fight Crime(tm). After all, with her extraordinary mathematical ability, she can neuter bombs or out-shoot an army. And the recent outbreak of violence in the world’s cities is Cas’s own fault—she’s the one who crushed the organization of telepaths keeping the world’s worst offenders under control.

But Cas’s own power also has a history, one she can’t remember—or control. One that’s creeping into her mind and fracturing her sanity…just when she’s gotten herself on the hit list of every crime lord on the West Coast. And her best, only, sociopathic friend. Cas won’t be able to save the world. She might not even be able to save herself.

You can buy it today in hardcover, ebook, or audio!

Book 2 of the Cas Russell Series: NULL SET

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Null Set cover

As announced at Barnes and Noble…

I realized that in the midst of all the Zero Sum Game publicity, I neglected to post this Very Important Bit of Amazing: the sequel has a cover!

And a TITLE!

Wot wot.

Null Set is coming to both stores and internets near you in the summer of 2019!

Oh, and for those of you who were following the series when it was self-published, this is a very significant rewrite of what was Plastic Smile (book 4 of the original editions). You may notice that there’s some reshuffling and reordering happening. If you read the self-published versions of any of books 1-3, you can jump straight to Null Set. Any more questions? Check out the FAQ or The Cas Russell Series Explained, which I’ve updated to try to make sure everyone feels clear!

And if you didn’t read any of the self-published versions, you can safely ignore all this and look forward to Null Set as book 2 after Zero Sum Game. Woohoo!

ZERO SUM GAME is Out in the World!

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* SOUNDS KLAXONS *

The Tor re-release of Zero Sum Game is OUT OUT OUT OUT today! today! today!

You can get it in hardcover! Ebook! Audio read by Lauren Fortgang! It’s a “book of the month” at both Barnes and Noble and Amazon! GO GO GO LITTLE BOOK GO!

What Other People Say…

“The best novel I’ve read this year; a heroine I fell in love with.”—Eric Van Lustbader, #1 New York Timesbestselling author

“Cas Russell is who I want to be when I grow up. She kicks ass with her fists and her brain—a true twenty-first century action hero. I loved this book.”—Richard Kadrey

“This book lines up like a perfect, elegant equation — it’s fast, furious, and adds up to one of the coolest, most crackin’ reads this year. ”—Chuck Wendig, NYT bestselling author of Invasive and Star Wars: Aftermath

“The smartest and thrillingest book you’ll read all year.”—Ken Liu, author of The Grace of Kings and The Paper Menagerie and Other Stories

“Paced at a flat out sprint, Zero Sum Game deploys an astonishing array of weapons together with the prickly charms of its math genius protagonist on her turbulent journey toward trust and connection.”—Kate Elliott

“Intense, vivid, and insanely clever, with a great heroine—I couldn’t put it down. If only more authors with math degrees used them like this!”—Yoon Ha Lee

“A fast-paced, darkly humorous read with a lot of heart for fans of action and urban fantasy, as well as lovers of Wolverine and other morally ambiguous, gritty superheroes with a mysterious past.”—Booklist, Starred Review

“This hard-to-put-down, action-packed sf debut is intelligent and entertaining. With Cas, Huang has created an indelible, flawed character who makes mathematics seem almost magical.”—Library Journal, Starred Review

“A paranormal thriller in which both the action and the questions don’t stop….Cas is an awesome antiheroine…exciting, nasty fun…an excellent harbinger for books to come.”—Kirkus

The blurb…

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.

And HERE BE ALL THE BUY LINKS! Wheeeeeeeee BOOK!