mammoths at the gates
Aug. 6th, 2023 11:04 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ursulaNghi Vo, Mammoths at the Gates.
Chih is a cleric who travels the world collecting stories with a startlingly intelligent bird for a companion. At the beginning of this novella, Chih returns home to the Singing Hills Abbey--but the abbey is strangely empty, and there are, as you might have guessed, war-mammoths at the gates.
All of Vo's books about Chih are built around the ways the same story can be told. They're always fascinating on an intellectual level, but some stories will inevitably lie closer to the heart than others. This one lies close to mine.
Returning to a place you used to call home and finding both you and it has changed is a theme that has obvious autobiographical resonance for me. But I'm also interested in the facets of this specific story, which involves memories of a person who was a beloved leader to the clerics and an honored grandfather to a pair of warriors, and the way Vo refuses to let the messages resolve into anything as simple as "This person was good" or "This person was bad" (OK, maybe there's some autobiographically resonant grief there, too). I also enjoyed learning more about those long-remembering birds, the neixin, who have been a matter-of-fact background element in many of the Chih stories, but now come to the fore.
Though many of the novellas in this series could be read in whatever order you joyfully stumbled upon them, this one does assume some existing curiosity about Chih and their world, so it might not be the right place to start. It's definitely one to look forward to, though!
(I read this book as a Netgalley ARC. In the US, it comes out in September.)
Chih is a cleric who travels the world collecting stories with a startlingly intelligent bird for a companion. At the beginning of this novella, Chih returns home to the Singing Hills Abbey--but the abbey is strangely empty, and there are, as you might have guessed, war-mammoths at the gates.
All of Vo's books about Chih are built around the ways the same story can be told. They're always fascinating on an intellectual level, but some stories will inevitably lie closer to the heart than others. This one lies close to mine.
Returning to a place you used to call home and finding both you and it has changed is a theme that has obvious autobiographical resonance for me. But I'm also interested in the facets of this specific story, which involves memories of a person who was a beloved leader to the clerics and an honored grandfather to a pair of warriors, and the way Vo refuses to let the messages resolve into anything as simple as "This person was good" or "This person was bad" (OK, maybe there's some autobiographically resonant grief there, too). I also enjoyed learning more about those long-remembering birds, the neixin, who have been a matter-of-fact background element in many of the Chih stories, but now come to the fore.
Though many of the novellas in this series could be read in whatever order you joyfully stumbled upon them, this one does assume some existing curiosity about Chih and their world, so it might not be the right place to start. It's definitely one to look forward to, though!
(I read this book as a Netgalley ARC. In the US, it comes out in September.)
(no subject)
Date: 2023-08-06 06:17 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2023-08-06 10:09 pm (UTC)This sounds wonderful! Would you propose a favorite place to begin with this series?
(no subject)
Date: 2023-08-06 11:31 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2023-08-07 01:13 am (UTC)See above! I also absolutely loved Siren Queen, which is a stand-alone novel about early Hollywood (but with very matter-of-fact numinous elements).
(no subject)
Date: 2023-08-07 09:09 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2023-08-07 01:11 am (UTC)I think either Empress of Salt and Fortune or When the Tiger Came Down the Mountain would work. I read Empress first, which is publication order, but Tiger was my favorite until now.
(no subject)
Date: 2023-08-07 05:20 am (UTC)Thank you!
(no subject)
Date: 2023-08-07 01:06 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2023-08-07 03:20 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2023-08-09 02:12 pm (UTC)Hanging out for this one. I think I pre-ordered it as soon as I was able, and I keep getting (possibly monthly) emails that tell me that it hasn't been forgotten, it just isn't out yet.