loppear reviewed Into the Riverlands by Nghi Vo
charming
4 stars
Continuing to walk and collect stories, more lovely weaving of perspectives in this one.
128 pages
English language
Published Dec. 1, 2022 by Doherty Associates, LLC, Tom.
Nghi Vo's Hugo and Crawford Award-winning series, The Singing Hills Cycle, continues...
Lambda Award Finalist Locus Award Finalist for Best Novella
A Most Anticipated Pick for Buzzfeed | BookBub | Bustle | LGBTQ Reads | Ms Magazine | Geek Tyrant | Arlington Magazine | Autostraddle | Lambda Literary | BookRiot | Transfer Orbit | LitHub
"A delicious bonbon of a novella about stories and their unreliable narrators, who wink at their listeners (or readers), fully expecting us to catch on."― The Wall Street Journal
"Nghi Vo is one of the most original writers we have today."―Taylor Jenkins Reid on Siren Queen
Wandering cleric Chih of the Singing Hills travels to the riverlands to record tales of the notorious near-immortal martial artists who haunt the region. On the road to Betony Docks, they fall in with a pair of young women far from home, and an older couple who are more …
Nghi Vo's Hugo and Crawford Award-winning series, The Singing Hills Cycle, continues...
Lambda Award Finalist Locus Award Finalist for Best Novella
A Most Anticipated Pick for Buzzfeed | BookBub | Bustle | LGBTQ Reads | Ms Magazine | Geek Tyrant | Arlington Magazine | Autostraddle | Lambda Literary | BookRiot | Transfer Orbit | LitHub
"A delicious bonbon of a novella about stories and their unreliable narrators, who wink at their listeners (or readers), fully expecting us to catch on."― The Wall Street Journal
"Nghi Vo is one of the most original writers we have today."―Taylor Jenkins Reid on Siren Queen
Wandering cleric Chih of the Singing Hills travels to the riverlands to record tales of the notorious near-immortal martial artists who haunt the region. On the road to Betony Docks, they fall in with a pair of young women far from home, and an older couple who are more than they seem. As Chih runs headlong into an ancient feud, they find themself far more entangled in the history of the riverlands than they ever expected to be.
Accompanied by Almost Brilliant, a talking bird with an indelible memory, Chih confronts old legends and new dangers alike as they learn that every story—beautiful, ugly, kind, or cruel—bears more than one face.
The Singing Hills Cycle
The Empress of Salt and Fortune When the Tiger Came Down the Mountain Into the Riverlands Mammoths at the Gates
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 entry point.
Continuing to walk and collect stories, more lovely weaving of perspectives in this one.
This is the second book I've read from the series and it's amazingly different from the first, rather quiet one. There's a lot of martial arts action! I liked how Chih (and by extension we) first heard the stories of various martial arts legends and then found themself in one. It was also interesting to see how those stories change during their retelling although that was only a small aspect of the book. Recommended. #2024reads