The Tangleroot Palace by Marjorie M. Liu
I enjoyed Liu's Monstress but somehow a lot of these short stories didn't quite work as well for me, giving me the feeling of something I need missing.
The stories I experienced that feeling of something missing most were "The Briar and the Rose" and "After the Blood." "The Briar and the Rose" spends a lot of its time with two characters wondering how they can do a certain, difficult thing. Then there's a time skip where the thing already happened and I couldn't figure out how from the writing. With "After the Blood," it was a worldbuilding failure for me: what is this world and why, who are these people and why are they together... and why should I care? The author's note says it takes place in the world of her Dirk & Steele series, so maybe it would've worked better for me if I'd read any of that. Yet "Where the Heart Lives," which also takes place in that world, worked much better for me. I rather liked the end of "After the Blood" but felt it took too long to get there.
In "Tangleroot Palace," I'm not sure if the reader is supposed to realize so quickly who Mickel is, and it was a "twist" that made me groan. I appreciated the flashes of humor in the story, though.
Of the stories, I liked "Sympathy for the Bones," "The Light and the Fury," and "Where the Heart Lives" best.
The stories I experienced that feeling of something missing most were "The Briar and the Rose" and "After the Blood." "The Briar and the Rose" spends a lot of its time with two characters wondering how they can do a certain, difficult thing. Then there's a time skip where the thing already happened and I couldn't figure out how from the writing. With "After the Blood," it was a worldbuilding failure for me: what is this world and why, who are these people and why are they together... and why should I care? The author's note says it takes place in the world of her Dirk & Steele series, so maybe it would've worked better for me if I'd read any of that. Yet "Where the Heart Lives," which also takes place in that world, worked much better for me. I rather liked the end of "After the Blood" but felt it took too long to get there.
In "Tangleroot Palace," I'm not sure if the reader is supposed to realize so quickly who Mickel is, and it was a "twist" that made me groan. I appreciated the flashes of humor in the story, though.
Of the stories, I liked "Sympathy for the Bones," "The Light and the Fury," and "Where the Heart Lives" best.