into the Riverlands
Aug. 14th, 2022 09:45 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ursulaInto the Riverlands is the third in Nghi Vo's series of novellas about Chih, a cleric who wanders the world with their highly intelligent not-quite-bird companion, collecting stories and histories for their monastery. Each of the novellas experiments with genre, contrasting the shape of the way a story is told with the ways people frame their own experiences. The Riverlands genre is wuxia: the Riverlands are beset by bandits, but they also provide a place where weird, stubborn people with startling martial talents can find a way to flourish.
Into the Riverlands pairs well with Zen Cho's Order of the Pure Moon Reflected in Water, another novella influenced by both wuxia and queer American fantasy. Both stories feature members of religious orders who aren't saintly in the ways one might expect. Chih is polite, but not always socially deft, despite their skill at extracting stories. They have no trace of martial skill, and are unnerved by death the way ordinary people often are and fantasy protagonists often aren't. But they take their new and strange traveling companions in stride, and their companions return the favor, protecting them with casual grace.
(I read this book as a Netgalley ARC.)
Into the Riverlands pairs well with Zen Cho's Order of the Pure Moon Reflected in Water, another novella influenced by both wuxia and queer American fantasy. Both stories feature members of religious orders who aren't saintly in the ways one might expect. Chih is polite, but not always socially deft, despite their skill at extracting stories. They have no trace of martial skill, and are unnerved by death the way ordinary people often are and fantasy protagonists often aren't. But they take their new and strange traveling companions in stride, and their companions return the favor, protecting them with casual grace.
(I read this book as a Netgalley ARC.)
(no subject)
Date: 2022-08-15 05:54 pm (UTC)Great review and it's made me want to go pick up the first novella and give it a whirl. Thanks!
(no subject)
Date: 2022-08-16 11:39 pm (UTC)