So far, we’re five books into the literary fantasy novella series, The Singing Hills Cycle, by Nghi Vo. They are linked stories, but not by a through storyline, so you can read them in any order–though I recommend reading them in order anyway. I also highly recommend listening to the audiobooks, read by Cindy Kay, because these really make me feel like I’m part of the oral storytelling that humans have been doing for hundreds and thousands of years.
We follow Cleric Chih, a nonbinary cleric from the Singing Hills Abbey, who travels around the world recording folklore and stories to archive at the monastery. They seek stories from folks they meet in their travels and then record them for the monastery, along with Almost Brilliant, their talking bird with an indelible memory.
Remember when I said these were a series made up of novellas? That means they’re all pretty short, typically falling between 100-130 pages. That’s not a lot of space to fill, but in my opinion the fact that Vo can make the worldbuilding feel so expansive and solid in my mind in those few pages really showcases why she’s one of my favorite living authors.
The format of The Empress of Salt and Fortune is really interesting: we are brought through stories within stories, flashbacks, meditations, and dreams. It’s really quite lyrical and almost hypnotic at times (again, plugging the audiobook version here). The second book, When the Tiger Came Down the Mountain, is written in a more straightforward manner as Chih is one of the folks telling us this particular story, but they might not know it accurately and may need help with the details.
Into the Riverlands is a delicious slow burn. My favorite in the series so far, Mammoths at the Gates, finds Cleric Chih returning to Singing Hills Abbey for the first time in several years, to find that their mentor has passed away while they were gone. This one is a great exploration of the process of grief and how sometimes it feels weird to come home again when you and they have changed. The most recently published entry, The Brides of High Hill, dips a little bit into gothic horror elements, which I love to see.
Nghi Vo is definitely an auto-buy author for me at this point; I love her prose and her casual queerness. These books are about stories. She explores how and why stories are told, and how the truth varies depending on who is doing the telling. One culture will always tell the same story different from another.
The Singing Hills Cycle includes:
- The Empress of Salt and Fortune (4.5/5 stars)
- When the Tiger Came Down the Mountain (4/5 stars)
- Into the Riverlands (4/5 stars)
- Mammoths at the Gates (5/5 stars)
- The Brides of High Hill (4/5 stars)
(average of 4.3/5 stars)
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