#The Singing Hills Cycle Series 5

[cathygeha]

REVIEW

The Brides of High Hill by Nghi Vo

The Singing Hills Cycle #5

Unsure what to expect, I stepped into the fifth story of this intriguing story that made me think of fairytales read when young or perhaps a darker more fantasy laden story than Wind in the Willows. It packs a punch and has a deadly bite that with a twist I wasn’t expecting.

The plot, pacing, setting, and writing gave a definite Asian feeling. The descriptions had me seeing the story in graphic detail. The characters came alive on the page making me think about and feel with them. The twist at the end, and I am one that reads the end first sometimes, was a complete surprise – so well done on that!

I can see this as a graphic novel, animated, or perhaps even in a movie. I would love to read more about Cleric Chih and wonder what I have missed not having read the first four novellas in the series.

Did I enjoy this story? Yes

Would I read more by this author? Yes

Thank you to NetGalley and TOR Publishing for the ARC – This is my honest review.

4.5 Stars

BLURB

The Hugo Award-Winning Series returns with its newest standalone entry: a gothic mystery involving a crumbling estate, a mysterious bride, and an extremely murderous teapot. The Cleric Chih accompanies a beautiful young bride to her wedding to an aging lord at a crumbling estate situated at the crossroads of dead empires. But they’re forgetting things they ought to remember, and the lord’s mad young son wanders the grounds at night like a hanged ghost. The Singing Hills Cycle has been shortlisted for the Lambda Literary Award, the Locus Award, the Ignyte Award, and has won the Hugo Award and the Crawford Award.

The novellas are standalone stories linked by the Cleric Chih, and may be read in any order.

The Empress of Salt and Fortune

When the Tiger Came Down the Mountain

Into the Riverlands

Mammoths at the Gates

The Brides of High Hill

About this Series

https://us.macmillan.com/series/thesinginghillscycle

Set in a gorgeously realized world inspired by East Asian and Southeast Asian history and mythology, Nghi Vo’s “remarkable” (NPR), award-winning Singing Hills Cycle follows the archivist and cleric Chih as they record the stories of empresses, handmaidens, cultivators, ghosts, bandits, and many more. The series begins with The Empress of Salt and Fortune, which won the Crawford Award and the Hugo Award, and was named one of the twenty best fantasy debuts of all time by Book Riot.

The novellas of The Singing Hills Cycle are linked by the cleric Chih, but may be read in any order, with each story serving as an entrypoint.

“A quiet, wrenching tale of resistance, resilience, and court intrigue.” —#1 New York Times bestselling author R. F. Kuang

“A stunning gem . . . celebrates the wonder of queer love. I could read about Chih recording tales forever.” —New York Times bestselling author Samantha Shannon

[lilibetbombshell]

[aroaessidhe]

2024 reads / storygraph

The Brides of High Hill

book 5 in the Singing Hills Cycle, a novella series about a cleric who travels the land recording stories

they accompany a young woman to her wedding, to an aging ruler in a crumbling estate

Chih and the bride-to-be quickly discover some unsettling and suspicious things going on, and try to investigate, as all is not as it seems

[souldagger]

5, 15, 25?

5. What genre did you read the most of?

science fiction :) to absolutely no one's surprise fkjngfk

15. Did you read any books that were nominated for or won awards this year (Booker, Women’s Prize, National Book Award, Pulitzer, Hugo, etc.)? What did you think of them?

i've read a couple of Hugo & nebula nominees/winners, yeah!

Even Though I Knew the End by CL clark (nominated for hugo, won nebula for best novella) was pretty good, but not super memorable for me? so i was a bit surprised at the nominations

Into the Riverlands by Nghi Vo (nominated for hugo) was alright, though not as good as the first two novellas in the singing hills cycle imo (When the Tiger Came Down the Mountain my BELOVED)

Children of Time trilogy by Adrian Tchaikovsky (won the Hugo for best series)... SO REAL AND TRUE it's a favourite of mine AND some of the genuinely most innovative scifi i've read in ages. mwah

(also i technically read Babel last year, but it was announced this yr that it won the nebula for best novel, and i wanna say. DESERVED.)

25. What reading goals do you have for next year?

setting the bar low. i just wanna finally finish this goddamn book i started in uhhhhh. february 😭

[nellie-elizabeth]

Book Tracking Check-In 7.30.24

GOAL 1 BOOKS: OWNED & NOT READ (9 as of 7.30.24, 1 is preordered)

Oathbringer - Brandon Sanderson

Dawnshard - Brandon Sanderson

The Sunlit Man - Brandon Sanderson

The Wee Free Men - Terry Pratchett

Nona the Ninth - Tamsyn Muir

Mammoths at the Gates - Nghi Vo

Morning Star - Pierce Brown

The Adventure Zone - Suffering Game

[What Doesn’t Break (Bells Hells)] - preordered

GOAL 2 BOOKS: BOOK CLUBS! (2 as of 7.30.24)

The One - Julia Argy

Greta & Valdin - Rebecca K. Reilly

GOAL 3 BOOKS: RE-READ OLD BOOKS (27 as of 7.30.24)

Peter and the Starcatchers

Peter and the Shadow Thieves

Peter and the Secret of Rundoon

In Cold Blood

The Wish List

Walk Two Moons

Bud, Not Buddy

The BFG

Adam Bede

The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down

The Princess Bride

Olive’s Ocean

Our Only May Amelia

The Valley of Secrets

The Girl Who Played with Fire

The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest

Gathering Blue

The Host

Beloved - Toni Morrison

Mama Day - Gloria Naylor

The Accursed - Joyce Carol Oates

Ivanhoe - Walter Scott

The Cricket in Times Square

The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn

Slaughterhouse-Five

Charlotte’s Web

The People in the Trees

GOAL 4 BOOKS: CONTINUING SERIES/AUTHORS [32]

Paladin's Grace

Discworld [11]

The Locked Tomb [1]

Gods of Blood and Powder [3]

The Singing Hills Cycle [1]

Red Rising [4]

Brandon Sanderson [8]

Kate Alice Marshall [1]

Critical Role [2]

---------------------------

My Reading Stats in 2024 So Far: 55 TOTAL

GOAL 1 BOOKS: OWNED & NOT READ [24]

Promise of Blood

The Mighty Nein Origins - Fjord Stone

Words of Radiance

The Last Hero

Harrow the Ninth

The Narrow

A Christmas Carol and Other Christmas Writings

Edgedancer

Red Rising

The Crimson Campaign

Lord Byron’s Novel: The Evening Land

Mistborn: Secret History

Night Watch

Arcanum Unbounded

Golden Son

Yumi and the Nightmare Painter

How Long 'Til Black Future Month

The Mighty Nein Origins - Beauregard Lionett

Into the Riverlands

The Autumn Republic

Apostles of Mercy

The Mighty Nein Origins - Caduceus Clay

No One Can Know

The Dispossessed

GOAL 2 BOOKS: BOOK CLUBS! [12]

The Robber Bride

The Glass Hotel

Wylding Hall

The Unsettled

Babel-17

When We Were Orphans

Trust

The Riddle-Master of Hed

The Emperor and the Endless Palace

Prep

Parasol Against the Axe

A Psalm for the Wild-Built

GOAL 3 BOOKS: RE-READ OLD BOOKS [14]

The Magicians Nephew

The Hobbit

The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe

Cages

The Horse and His Boy

Prince Caspian

Crime and Punishment

The Voyage of the Dawn Treader

The Blithedale Romance

The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo

The Silver Chair

The Last Battle

The Left Hand of Darkness

The School Story

GOAL 4 BOOKS: CONTINUING SERIES/AUTHORS [5] (Most included in Goal 1)

The Rise of Kyoshi

The Shadow of Kyoshi

Dark One

Dark One: Forgotten

Ninefox Gambit

[neixins]

mid-year reading wrap-up

most of what i’ve read so far this year’s been…aggressively fine, which is just not that fun or interesting to talk about tbh. however, there have been some delightfully high highs and atrociously low lows that i do wanna talk about!

but first, some stats for any mathematically-minded curious imps in the audience

average rating: 3.15 (i know i'm stingy with my ratings but yikes!)

number of books read: 27 -> 11 novellas, 10 novels, 5 short stories, and 1 nonfiction

i’ve also picked up 26 different manga series and oneshots. some i’ve read start to finish, some i’ve only read a few volumes of (and i plan to continue most).

highlights

mammoths at the gates by nghi vo: it’s no secret that i adore the singing hills cycle and this installment was a poignant tale of grief and memory and change, and it was just as brilliant as the rest of the series.

from far away, vol. 1-14 by hikawa kyoko: a wonderful, gentle story about the power of love, compassion, and community, featuring well-written protagonists who are full of love for each other and the world around them.

on the fox roads by nghi vo: this novelette is free to read on reactor mag (aka tor) so i’m not gonna say anything else except that nghi vo never, ever misses. go read it now!!

seven little sons of the dragon by kui ryoko: i don’t need to tell any of u how talented of a writer and artist kui is but this collection was truly one hit after another

two rogues make a right by cat sebastian: i’ve read only two cat sebastian books so far but she’s quickly become my go-to romance author. she just Delivers romances that will make u giggle and kick your feet! this one is about a guy who whisks his best friend away to the countryside after his chronic illness gets worse and they slowly realize that they’re in love <3

a little light mischief by cat sebastian: an absolutely delightful little novella about a lady’s companion who’s been disowned by her family and the pretty ex-thief maid who’s being very distracting!!

i decided not to include any manga series i’m still reading on the list but frequent visitors to neixins dot tumblr dot edu know how much i adore yona of the dawn, even when it’s trying its hardest to murder me. but u’ve probably heard me ramble about it enough already (and if u haven’t: my tag). and since i’m doing honorable mentions, i’d be remiss not to mention dungeon meshi (read vol 1-5 so far) and natsume’s book of friends (read vol 2).

and another honorable mention goes to the empress of salt and fortune by nghi vo which i’ve reread multiple times in the past few years and it never fails to dazzle me. this time around i listened to the audiobook (narrated by cindy kay, one of my favorite narrators).

boo tomato tomato

nothing but blackened teeth by cassandra khaw: this was more of a disappointment than a book i hated so i feel bad lumping it in with the rest of these but i did buy a physical copy at full price so it gets a mention. this novella’s biggest flaw was that it kept saying that the characters were part of a toxic codependent friend group but they just felt like strangers who didn’t like each other, which made it seem like they were staying in the creepy haunted house just because the plot needed them to, rather than for the reasons they claimed. khaw’s prose is quite unique though so i’m excited to check out the salt grows heavy despite not liking this one.

the woods all black by lee mandelo: i wanted to love this so badly because the themes were so up my alley and i love slowburn horror with an explosive final act. but unfortunately, it was so so bad

love on the other side by nagabe: literally half of this collection included relationships between adults and children (which definitely weren’t platonic/familial like the blurb led me to believe….) and the vileness of those stories was enough to drown out anything good in the rest of the collection. i actually also read two other nagabe works (before this one; if i’d read this first i wouldn’t have bothered). monotone blue would’ve been fine if there hadn’t been an assault scene that got brushed off way too quickly…and the wize wize beasts of the wizarding wizdoms was a mixed bag; some of the stories were just as terrible as love on the other side but “marley & collette” was very sweet, not gonna lie…..

i’ve also had many, many dnf’s which i don’t log, but i simply must give a shoutout (derogatory) to romancing the duke by tessa dare which i had high hopes for and which instead made me read this godawful sequence of words with my own two gay eyes (during pride month no less!): "He was just so near. And so tall. And so commanding. So male. Everything female in her was rallying to the challenge." thanks i hate it……

in conclusion, my hopes for the second half of the year can be boiled down to: save me nghi vo and cat sebastian save meee

[elliepassmore]

Mammoths at the Gates review

5/5 stars Recommended if you like: fantasy, novellas, grief stories, character driven stories, queer characters

Empress of Salt and Fortune review

When the Tiger Came Down the Mountain review

Into the Riverlands review Big thanks to Netgalley, Tordotcom, and the author for an ARC in exchange for an honest review! Another fantastic chronicle from the Singing Hills Cycle! I'm so hoping that the series expands beyond the 5 books that are currently planned because I love exploring Chih and Almost Brilliant's world! In this story, Chih returns home for the first time in several years and finds much changed. The old Divine has recently died and Chih arrives in enough time for the interment ceremony. The death of their old mentor and the new maturity in their friend Ru results in some growing pains for Chih as they come to realize that not even the Singing Hills Abbey is immutable in time. That realization and the feelings they grapple with over it are very relatable since it pertains so much to the way friendships change and grow (or even end) as people grow older and move into different phases of their lives. In a similar vein, Cleric Thien's (the previous Divine who died) neixin, Myriad Virtues, is grieving terribly as a result of her loss. While much of the story focuses on Chih and their relationships and feelings re: coming back to the abbey and seeing or not seeing old friends, a similar bulk of the story is dedicated to Myriad Virtues' grieving process. The way she grieves doesn't make sense to everyone around her, neixin and human alike, resulting in multiple discussions of how grief affects people differently and the strange things people do as they feel it. The mammoths are also a part of the grieving story as they belong to two young women who were Cleric Thien's granddaughters. In opposition of the traditional practices for clerics, they want Thien's body so the can bury them in their homeland. There's a lot of debate about this and the discussion of grief is brought in here as well. I liked getting to see the abbey and some of Chih's friends. I also liked that we get to see Almost Brilliant (she wasn't in Into the Riverlands) and that we get to meet Almost Brilliant's chick, Chiep. Chiep is definitely a personality and was quite funny, so she was an enjoyable addition to the book. This provided some nice insight into Chih's backstory and is a good addition to the series. Vo does a good job of mixing the heavy topics with lighter moments, and it's a bit more character-led than in previous books. I was quite invested in what the characters were experiencing and sped through the book.

[scifimagpie]

first lines meme!

The delightful @omokers tagged me, so I'm going to oblige with as many lines from my published works as I can. I put the first set in chronological order for the sake of ease.

And the Stars Will Sing - book 1 of The Meaning Wars. This short, friendly novella tells the story of a young wormhole engineer's first foray into deep space, clashes with her coworkers - and the escalating danger that descends on the ship.

Dear Sarah, So, I find myself preparing for my first job, and I should be excited, but I'm really just dithering. I hope you don't mind if I ramble at you.

2. The Stolen: Two Short Stories - book 2 of The Meaning Wars; this features a collection of short stories (though the old edition had only two) set through different periods of the Human Conglomerate, including one from before it all went wrong. The opening comes from "The Fields," the first story in the (now multi-story) collection.

It was a dry spring - that was one of my last memories before the reformatory. As I recall it now, it plays like one of the old films from the beginning of Earth cinema. Dry yellow-green fields, dusty roads whirring past.

3. The Meaning Wars - book 3 of the same series; this is a soft reboot that picks up a little while after book 2's ending. Crystal and Sarah finally catch up after a few years apart!

Crystal wiped her mouth and straightened. Space-sick again. It was one of the things she hated about small craft like these.

4. Poe's Outlaws - book 4 of The Meaning Wars, and the beach episode book.

As he leaned against Paulo's side, trying to get a good hold on his arms, Toby's face was turning red. Paulo twisted away, writhing with more agility than she expected from such a large man.

5. A Jade's Trick - book 5 of The Meaning Wars, the last one in the series; this sees Sarah, Crystal, Toby, Paulo, and Patience bring the fight against the Human Conglomerate back to the Solar System.

"We have a problem," said Paulo grimly, leaning against the ladder-side wall up to his loft bed. His glowing irises stood out sharply from his ceramic white sclera, but there was nothing unnatural about the scowl he was giving all of them.

6. The Underlighters - book 1 of the Nightmare Cycle, is told through journal entries written by Janelle, a scrappy young electrician living in Underlighter City - a bastion of civilization after the fall of the mysterious Dust killed much of humanity and forced the survivors deep underground. Janelle is starting to see things, and if that wasn't bad enough, her relationship with her girlfriend is on the rocks. And then the children start going missing...

The conversation went like this. "You seem tired, kiddo. And...uh, what happened to your shirt?" "Uh...I killed a dragon on my way home from work."

7. After the Garden - book 1 of the Memory Bearers Saga. Set in the same world as The Underlighters, though quite a bit later, this features the adventures of Ember - a young woman who's erased her own memory and left her secretive home village to search for the truth of her mysterious memories. Fortunately, she runs into some people like her along the way. Unfortunately, she also runs into a vicious cult that hunts those same people - Memory Bearers, individuals gifted (or cursed) with fragmented recollections of people from The Time Before the world broke.

The girl paused on the hill, shading her eyes from the sun. It had been a long journey, and she was getting tired of it - especially with the sun blazing down. Too exposed.

8. Bad Things That Happen to Girls - this standalone novella is a dive into literary fiction, featuring the disintegration of a family, fairy tale themes, and a queer awakening.

The day my sister fell in love was a gorgeous, sunny Tuesday afternoon in March. We were sitting on the roof of the shed behind our house when she told me about what had happened in school that day.

I'm not sure if there's a theme, but I'm tagging @pinkchaosart @dyrewrites @ventela1 @the-chiefster @jpohlmanwriting @the-chaotic-writer @careful-fear @thechaoscryptid and @palebdot anyway!

[godzilla-reads]

🐗 Into the Riverlands by Nghi Vo

Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️/5

“Sometimes, I think it’s a little sad that it’s impossible to know all of a person, no matter how long you’ve been together or how well you love them. That’s part of what INTO THE RIVERLANDS is about, I think, about how many loving parts go into making a person, and how the stories you’re told are only ever going to get you halfway there,” writes Nghi Vo in her Acknowledgements.

The third installment in the Singing Hills Cycle, cleric Chih travels to the riverlands to record tales of the near-immortal martial artists that haunt the region.

I’ve been waiting for this book for roughly a year and I am so happy to have read it and experience Nghi Vo’s master storytelling once again. I love this series and how it shows there’s more than just one side to every story. This book was a bit less dire, I think, than the prior books but I liked it all the same. It still had action and friendship, and a story to tell. By the end of it I felt like I had been holding my breath.

Well done, Nghi Vo!

[halfdeadfriedrice]

2022 Books in Review!

Some half-dead fried reflections about how my annual 100 books challenge went! With recs (a few)! Behind a cut because it's self-indulgently wordy.

This year I read:

32 manga

7 non-manga comics and graphic novels

11 audiobooks

2ish short stories (i'm SORRY i was SHORT this year and also I wanted to track them)

Which makes it 49 novel (-length, I am also counting the single prose biography here, - 39) /novellas and assorted (12) /poetry books (2) /short story (collections mostly - 5)

Things rec'd to me: 4-ish things! (one of the manga series counts)

I tried: 23 new authors!

Which does mean that traditional(ish) novel-length scifi/fantasy edged tied with graphic formats, except a bunch of them were audiobooks, so the majority (on this slightly wonky pie chart) of pages in front of my eyes this year were illustrated! Honestly a lot of this year was spent video gaming, and also; I didn't find a lot of books I liked!

My favorite books of the year: A lot of my favorite stuff this year were sequels I'd been awaiting!

The Oleander Sword - Tasha Suri Sequel to "The Jasmine Throne," it's some pragmatic, powerful, incredibly devoted queer ladies doing coups, seizing power, murdering their brothers, etc. Middle book in series, maybe I knew a bit more about how this one would go than The Jasmine Throne, which was absolutely ruthless, but I loved where it went as a sequel and I long for the third.

Into the Riverlands - Nghi Vo Technically the third in a series (The Singing Hills Cycle) about a wandering priest who collects stories for an archive - all sorts of stories, everyone's stories - but it stands alone, and it has the martial story flavor that unfortunately all the shonen anime and wuxia stories have given me a preference for. I like knight-errants and wandering samurai and People Who Punch For the Good Of Others, what can I say.

Only a Monster - Vanessa Lem Recommended in the back of CS Pacat's Dark Rise, a book I wanted to like more than I did and am hopeful about its sequel, Vanessa Lem's "Only A Monster" (first in its series?) is DOING enemies to lovers it is DOING it dark and scary and fun. Time travel but it's killing people? Can you save the people you love, and at what cost to the world? 10/10 would thrill again.

Nona the Ninth - Tamsyn Muir Third in the Locked Tomb series; it's a puzzle box unfolding, and while I love Nona, who is a perfect baby, and am obsessed with the Cam/Pal/Pyrrha dynamic, and of course the prose is wonderful and funny and scary, I am chomping at the bit for Alecto. I think, much like Gideon, which needed Harrow for me to start recommending it to people, but probably remains my favorite book in the series, I await Nona's echo. But also genuinely one of my favorite reads this year.

Undercover and Princess Floralinda and the Forty Flight Tower by Tamysn Muir Floralinda's a reread but Undercover is new; without reservation (I mean, unless you don't like dark things and a bit of gore) I recommend Muir's novellas, which are queer and loving exercises in genre and funny as hell

Flyaway - Kathleen Jennings A fairy tale sort of story, but one set in and pulling from Australian mythos; small town drama and generations of families issues and questions about personhood and all the fun things you can do with a myth. The beginning is confined - push on.

The Golden Enclaves - Naomi Novik I slipped and fell and am currently reading a slightly-more-than-mediocre HP longfic and it is making me crave a Scholomance reread, which has definitely been marketed as an HP read-instead but like, lets its characters experience challenges and narrative threats (also, the Golden Enclaves is an INCREDIBLY satisfying ending for a series. talk about sticking the landing. waow. also also, has a pragmatic manipulative ice queen playing a major role. i have a type and it's clever people who can more accurately be called 'a huge bitch'.)

Gonna throw Sas Milledge's "Mamo" in here, because the art is incredible and the story is sweet.

Manga I read:

Full Metal Alchemist - I finished this early in the year (it was my push to finish my challenge last year) early this year - I hadn't ever read it, it was a treat to see what all the fuss was about. It's genuinely such a good series, with complex moral/ethical questions and good suspense and humor.

Dungeon Meshi - Read this on slow days in the office and also while I had covid! It's a cooking manga - a party of adventurers needs to rescue one of their dead party members, and the only way to stay strong enough in the dungeon (and, they're broke, so the only way they can afford to delve) is to start cooking and eating what they see! The story is like, fine. The recipes and the focus on fictional beast cooking is the real treat here. There's also a cat girl later, which always makes me happy.

xxxHolic Rei - I figured out how to set up a manga reader on a borrowed ipad and finally finished out the xxxHolic series with its semi-sequel, Rei. I loved Rei - I like reading CLAMP stories but one of their stock main characters usually get to turn from "harassed and shouty" to "cool and mysterious" during the like, last 3 volumes, and so some more time with Cool Watanuki - this makes me feel like a jerk surely there's a better way to phrase this; Watanuki missing the No Homo character trait - whatever, it was good to see him, and it was good to get some good retconning and pursuit of a happier ending. Also, beautiful. CLAMP is always beautiful.

Tsubasa Reservoir Chronicles - inter-reads with xxxHolic, but the library didn't have all of them, so my initial reading of Holic mised a lot of references. This is good though, because Tsubasa is Incredibly Referential to all of CLAMP's other series, which by now I have at least a passing familiarity with. I just started this one, I'll see if I keep it up. I do feel like I'm finally in a place to appreciate it!

Boys Run The Riot - High schoolers trying to invent their own fashion brand - it's half fashion and half queer coming of age for our transman main character, as he makes friends and figures out how he can live in the world (and make his fashionable mark in it).

Also some yaoi, you know.

Books I will talk shit about (is this a real category? what are you doing. Look I don't finish a lot of books I don't like so there's definitely more in my "DNR" list but these I pressed through):

The Southern Book Club's Guide to Slaying Vampires Strange and Stubborn Endurance Hands of the Emperor

[bigcats-birds-and-books]

1, 7, and 8 please!

What’s something you read recently and enjoyed?

The last thing I rated 5 stars and Actually Wrote A Goodreads Review About was NOTHING BUT THE RAIN by Naomi Salman! What a fucked up, weird, funny little book.

7. What book do you love but usually not recommend because it’s weird or intense, etc?

LEECH by Hiron Ennes, hands down. I read it last year, and it Still Haunts My Brainpan™. Content warnings galore but. It was So Good and So Fascinating POV-wise and just. Excellent. (But holy crow mind the content warnings,,,)

8. What series has most pleased you?

Most recently? I really enjoyed THE SINGING HILLS CYCLE! Vo does a lot of really cool structural things in tiny novella packages, and honestly I love that for both of us. I just finished reading my ARC of MAMMOTHS AT THE GATES, which made me cry (twice). I haven't read RIVERLANDS yet but I'm looking forward to it!

thanks for asking, friend!! (referencing this post, btw, for those who are curious, because i didn't realize that if i started my numbered list i'd never be able to get back to the top for plain text again...)

[lilareviewsbooks]

A Low-Commitment Fantasy Read - Into The Riverlands - 5/5

5/5 stars

100 pages

Contains: a non-binary cleric; a talking bird; an old woman who bosses everyone around

I finally got to read Into The Riverlands! I've literally been clawing after this book for the longest time – and the journey involved my hold being ready for me at the library when I was fully in another country for the week. Last weekend, though, I finally got my hands on an electronic copy and the wonderful audiobook – which is just 2 hours long! Like watching a movie! And I had an amazing time!

Into The Riverlands is the third book in the Singing Hills Cycle, Nghi Vo’s series about wandering cleric Chih, who is on a mission to record the history of their China-inspired kingdom, accompanied by their talking bird, Almost Brilliant. However, as I mentioned before when I spoke about this series on here, this cycle does not need to be read in any particular order. Any book is a good starting point. So, if you’ve never heard of this series before and Into The Riverlands sounds appealing to you, go ahead and pick it up.

This one follows Chih as they walk into a tea-house, get into some trouble, and end up meeting the perfect travel companions. As always, we are treated to traditional stories from folklore or that are otherwise known by the people Chih is traveling with, as they continue in their mission to record all of those. Because of its focus on these stories, I can’t shake the cozy feeling this series gives me – like sitting around a fire and hearing someone tell you an old tale, or hearing about your ancestors from your family. Ms. Vo’s choice of such small windows into people’s lives, people Chih crosses once and then never again, and we as the audience only get to experience for one, short book, makes this coziness even more vivid. We are simply glancing at these people, at what’s important to them, at what stories they want to pass on to Chih.

And what stunners these passing characters are! This is true for every installment of the series, but particularly in this one – Ms. Vo builds beautiful secondary characters, whose witty dialogue brings liveliness to the book, making it a memorable, if quick, read. Chih is wonderful as always, and their relationship with Almost Brilliant is also highlighted by the great use of dialogue. Listening to it is an experience I recommend – Cindy Kay’s awesome voice work really brings these characters alive!

More than anything, though, I always get a little bit emotional over this series. Preserving culture, stories in specific, is a topic dear to my heart – and if we talk about it too much, I might cry on my keyboard.  There’s something so gorgeous about the human instinct to protect those things that are dear to us from the effects of time – to keep things. To retell stories a million times just to make sure they’re kept alive in someone else when we’re gone. And although the focus of this series isn’t exactly that, and it rarely touches on this topic, choosing rather to explore the stories themselves, and what they can teach us, I can’t help thinking about all of this. And it certainly helps with my experience of the series.

[muppeted]

3, 10 and 13 for the book asks!

ahhh tysm for asking! I’m putting this under a read more bc i got a lil out of control lmao

3. what are your top 5 books of the year?

ok I’m planning on making a separate post w my top 10 2022 releases so consider this list like. my top 5 books I read this year that were NOT released in 2022. if that makes sense. in no particular order:

-the inheritance trilogy by nk jemisin—putting an entire series as one book may be cheating BUT. also me recommending jemisin is very like. hey, did y’all know that one of the most acclaimed sf writers of our generation is uhhh….really fucking good? but oh my god she is.

-the book of atrix wolfe by patricia a mckillip—was reading this when I found out mckillip had passed away, which made for an extra emotional experience. her writing is so, so beautiful, and has had such an impact on the way I write (ok, try and mostly fail to write)/think about fantasy. this is a great standalone from her, about ghosts and curses and the magic of kitchens.

-the singing hills cycle by nghi vo—this is just like. everything I want from a series of linked fantasy novellas. if that makes sense. Like I’m such a sucker for books where the frame narrative is someone going around collecting stories, and the stories vo tells are so real, feel deeply embedded in history and mythology, love and rage. and, ofc, also very very queer and hot (who among us has not wanted to be semi-abducted by beautiful morally ambiguous tiger lady).

-ghost summer by tananarive due—one of the things I love abt due is her stories work SO well read aloud—levar burton’s podcast featured one of the stories from this book and it was such a good ep, I really recommend seeking it out. listening to her read at an event I attended a couple years ago was also amazing—the entire audience was like so tense and so with her for the entire story, it was great. another thing I love about this collection is that at the end of each story she gives some context around the writing of the story—it’s fun! I think more authors should do this w their short story collections!

-peter darling by sa chant—yes it is embarrassing that it’s taken me this long to read this. but I did! finally! and I did cry !

ok actually going through the list I cried while reading 4/5 of these despite the fact that none of them are like. stereotypical cry-y books. which could mean 1) i love books that make me cry or 2) i just cried a lot this year. probably both

10. what was your favorite new release of the year?

gonna say it’s a tie between the daughter of doctor moreau by silvia moreno-garcia and the hurting kind by ada limon. I just finished the hurting kind so that might make me a lil biased but limon is one of my all time favorite poets and this collection peeled me like an orange so ! (is that a phrase? is that something ppl say? icr)

And then the second daughter of dr Moreau was announced I was like I’m going to love this and then I did. reworking SF classics is just so completely my shit and moreno-garcia does it sososososo well. really recommend watching island of lost souls (the 1932 adaptation) right before watching this, they pair together perfectly (it;s like, one takes this base story and does something mostly shitty but still kind of fascinating/intriguing with it, and the other takes this base story and turns it into something incredible).

13. what were your least favorite books of the year?

Listen. I read so many bad romance novels this year. also a lot of really really good romance novels but. so many bad ones. i don’t want to like name names but here is a vague list:

-romance that was literally just ted lasso but ALSO the author was originally a het romance writer who had never written gay before so the sex scenes were like ‘he put his thingy in my thingy’ and it’s like maam. this is not my immortal. either say hole or leave.

-tiktok popular book that was EXTREMELY badly-written (yes this happened 3 times. it will probably happen again. I’m not even on tiktok--i’d see some non-tiktok person rec it also so i’d be like oh then it must be good ! and it never was. idk i am Charlie Brown and tiktok is lucy holding the football)

-started reading a fantasy romance and was intrigued by the premise and then they described the love interest and I was like ‘oh. this is just fantasy k*lo ren.’ i have like zero feelings on k*lo ren he just is not sexy to me so it always took me out of it and made me put the book down. also I don’t even think the books themselves were r*ylo or republished fanfic or anything I think the authors just think that character/actor is sexy. which is fine. i just am not personally into that. this also happened twice

[booksandwords]

When the Tiger Came Down the Mountain by Nghi Vo

Series: The Singing Hills Cycle, #2 Read time: 3 Days Rating: 5/5

The quote: She didn't know that was flirting with her! She was being so sweet and romantic, and Scholar Dieu didn't even appreciate it! — Ho Shih Loan

This will be a fairly quick review I'm writing it some 10 days after I read the book, very unlike me. But distractions got in the way, anyway. There are 5 characters in contemporary time. Our nb guide through the world Cleric Chih, Mammoth hiding scout (and Chih guide) Si-Yu and tigers Queen Ho Shih Loan and her sisters/handmaidens Sinh Hoa and Shih Cam. unlike The Empress of Salt and Fortune where it was primarily Rabbit telling the story When the Tiger Came Down the Mountain tells the story differently. Part of the story is told by Chih in a Scherezarde kinda situation the other part is Ho Shih Loan taking over where Chih and the records The Singing Hills end. Together they tell the story of Scholar Dieu and Ho Thi Thao. A tiger and a human and a complicated relationship. While Chih's story is undoubtedly more romantic Shih Loan's is more feministic and powerful. Feminism and female power seem to be the name of the game for The Singing Hills Saga.

When the Tiger Came Down the Mountain is a smart match for its predecessor The Empress of Salt and Fortune. It's less property or item-based, less dictation of the story and more banter, shared storytelling. While still keeping Chih slightly hands-off and objective/impartial as is right in her role as a recordkeeper/ storyteller. That said it does leave a reminder that stories are interpretations of events, not fact. How you and yours saw it may not be how the other side saw it. And the truth is likely somewhere in the middle. One slight issue maybe, that I wish we could see something of Chih and their personality. I understand the point, the idea of independent storytelling but I sometimes wish for them to be more than just our eyes and ears. It is well worth a read. Especially if you enjoyed the previous novella and like your women feisty and strong.

[grendels-mother]

reading mammoths at the gates (singing hills cycle 4) right now + excited to finally be caught up w/ the brides of high hill (singing hills cycle 5–out last month!!!)

1. has anyone else read this series? it has been there for me during many of my melancholic episodes/reading funks these past 2 years. highly recommend. the series so deftly focuses on memory and storytelling + those things get slightly different explorations in each novella.

2. mammoths is hitting me really hard irt its depiction of grief though; i can’t stop thinking about my grandfather. very bittersweet (but my favorite books usually are).

[neixins]

SCREAM!!!!!!!!!

[ID: screenshots of a book entry on macmillan’s website. the title is “The Brides of High Hill (The Singing Hills Cycle (Volume 5))” by Nghi Vo. the page count is 128, the genre is fantasy, and the release date is 05/07/2024. the synopsis reads as follows: “The Hugo Award-Winning Series returns with its newest standalone entry: a gothic mystery involving a crumbling estate, a mysterious bride, and an extremely murderous teapot. The Cleric Chih accompanies a beautiful young bride to her wedding to an aging lord at a crumbling estate situated at the crossroads of dead empires. But they’re forgetting things they ought to remember, and the lord’s mad young son wanders the grounds at night like a hanged ghost. The Singing Hills Cycle has been shortlisted for the Lambda Literary Award, the Locus Award, the Ignyte Award, and has won the Hugo Award and the Crawford Award.” end ID.]