When I say this book is stunning, I am not exaggerating. I now want to check out the audiobook and experience it again. Getting to see the Singing Hills Abbey was so special, and this book was so special! It leaves a beautiful impact on you, just as the others in the series do. The grief and loss that are part of this novella truly blew me away, and the author is truly a master of their craft. I will read as many books in the series as they want to write!

Such an amazing book! Beautiful and about coming back home and nothing is as it seems. I loved every second of it.

Another excellent chapter in this series of novellas. If you liked the previous three, you will enjoy this one as well.

I love this series so much. Mammoths at the Gates was particularly impactful due to its focus on grief and remembrance of those who have died. My friends group and I have each lost an important family member over the past couple of years, so this really struck close to my heart for what we've been going through. Thank you for the advanced e-ARC!

I’ve said this before, but what I love about this series of novellas is that each installment is gradually building out the world and the characters in really compelling ways. Each one is a different take on the concept of stories-within-stories and also the different functions that storytelling can serve.

The first one is about storytelling as a means to combat erasure, the second one is about stories as cultural exchange, the third one is about storytelling as a means of understanding landscape, and this installment is about storytelling as memory and storytelling as ceremony in a lot of different ways.

Especially with that element of grief that’s overlaying everything in this installment, there really is that focus of stories as a means of remembering those who have passed, showing respect for them and their lives, and also understanding how the world reshapes itself around their loss. I think the story also about how the legacy of one person’s life can never be boiled down to a single story or a single narrative. It’s about how we contain multitudes and constantly change alongside an ever-changing world. So how do we honor that fluidity, that unending potential in our grief, which tends to flatten things?

Overall, I loved everything about this. I think it ties “When the Tiger Came Down the Mountain” for my favorite installment in this series so far. This story has homecoming, ghosts, political and cultural tension, and even some surprises as well. I loved it and can't wait to see where the next installment takes us.

Everything Nghi Vo writes just shines. Mammoths at the Gates is the latest installment of the Singing Hills Cycle, which is really just getting better and better with each story. I found myself tearing up more than once in this tale; it's short, but it packs a punch, exploring grief and nostalgia and memory, and, as always with this series, the stories we tell about ourselves and one another. A beautiful, warm, heartbreaking book.

Thank you to Tordotcom for the advance review copy!

Thank you to NetGalley and the publishers for providing me with a free copy of this book in exchange for an honest review!

Mammoths at the Gate is that latest in a series of fantasy novellas about a cleric who collects stories. In this book, Cleric Chih deals with grief, homecoming, and reckoning with the past. This installment is unique in that a lot of the action is happening in real time, rather than the usual story within a story framework. I absolutely love this series; I think it is atmospheric and original. With the premise of the series being a collector of stories, the author could take it anywhere, and I can’t wait to see where Cleric Chih will go next!

After being a little underwhelmed by the previous installment in this series, Mammoths hooked me right back in with all the charm of the first books and a heightened sense of investment in the characters and the world. Getting to see where Cleric Chih came from, in terms of the Abbey, their past, and their relationships, and getting to understand more about how the Abbey operated added a new dimension to the series, and the grief and conflict we experience through Chih make it all the more compelling and organic. I'm excited to head out into the world with Chih again after this novella, but it was a very welcome and necessary visit home.

Cleric Chih returns home for the first time in years only to discover their mentor has passed away and his granddaughters are threatening the safety of the Singing Hills Abbey to retrieve his body. Chih must work quickly to honour their mentor’s life while stopping the mammoths at the gates from destroying everything the clerics have worked for all these years.

While the author notes that the series may be read in any given order, each release can be considered its entry point; Mammoths at the Gate feels like such a brilliant story that fits easily as the middle story of Chih’s journey. (We are, thankfully, getting more from Cleric Chih. I don’t think I’m ready to let them go yet.)
Chih has turned home for the first time in almost three years. However, the Abbey is silent as ever, as most of the clerics are elsewhere, and the few left are undoubtedly incapable of handling the giant mammoths that could trample them in seconds.

Chih barely has time to truly mourn their mentor as they are spurned to stop war at their doorstep. But Chih isn’t the only one mourning. The mammoths are controlled by the granddaughters of their mentor, Cleric Thein, the family that he left behind once he joined the singing hills, the other clerics, some old friends of Chih, some new, and not to mention Cleric Thein’s hoopoe companion, Myriad Virtues.

Life and death and how it is passed through stories is the core element of this series, and Chih is now a character instead of a bystander this time around. This novella deals tightly with grief and change, and Mammoths at the Gate is emotional and heartfelt. Sure, Chih has shown emotions, but seeing them return to their home, to their familiar surroundings and realising how much has changed in the time they were gone felt so much more affecting.

As clerics, they understand how memory is a fickle thing, and how it used to remember the life of Cleric Thein before and after his time as a cleric was an excellent way to touch upon the topic of grief and the grieving process. His granddaughters recall a much different person than Chih, but it doesn’t mean their perspective is wrong; it reminds them that the world is constantly changing. The stories about you, too, can affect people differently. All in all, this is my favourite entry in the series so far. Simply well-done and beautiful.

*I received an ARC via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review. Thanks for the free book*

I think I maybe should've reread the previous books before reading this novella because I had a hard time getting into the story. I liked it, I liked how returning home changed and finding home changed too is depicted and how taking on new responsibilities when one's mentor leaves and yet I somehow expected more, which is why it is only a 3 star rating. I enjoyed the book and I like the writing style. So I guess it's me...

I have enjoyed all of the books within the Singing Hills Cycle. I found Chih's travels and the characters they encountered really intriguing, and loved how the stories from these characters unfolded. Although the books can be read in any order, it feels especially sweet to encounter Singing Hills Abbey after travelling with Chih through the previous books. I especially enjoyed the visits to the aviary, encountering older and younger neixin. We see them return to a home that has changed, as have they. Chih must reconcile their memories with what the place and people have become.

Mammoths at the Gates is the fourth installment of Nghi Vo's exceptional novella series 'The Singing Hills Cycle'. In this book we finally get to visit the eponymous abbey and explore a far more personal side of the protagonist Chih as they deal with the grief of returning home to find their mentor has passed. This is not made any easier by the presence of the deceased cleric's family demanding they be returned home.
This story was yet another wonderful exploration of oral history and perspectives on storytelling - possibly the most powerful of the books so far in terms of theme and personal connection. I never quite know where a Singing Hills book is going to take me and was surprised by how emotional this particular novella made me. Where I had felt that Into the Riverlands didn't hit quite so hard as the first two books in the serie - Mammoths at the Gates provides a firm punch to the gut - in the best way.
Fans of the series will no doubt love getting to learn more about Chih and the monastery while still appreciating the plot of the novellas. For those who have yet to pick up any of the books in this series I would highly recommend doing so (my personal favourite way to consume them is by audio) especially since we now know definitively that these four books together are truly fantastic.
Nghi Vo is a master of the novella format and I look forward to reading more in whatever worlds they are creating in at the moment. A firm auto-buy author for me for sure.
My rating: 5 stars
I received a free digital review copy of this book from the publisher via NetGalley - all opinions are my own.

As always, Nghi Vo delivers! As the fourth installment in The Singing Hills Cycle, we finally catch a glimpse of the Singing Hills Abbey; moreover, as someone who is fully immersed in this world, it was very interesting to see the customs and some more of Chih's past. It does read a bit differently than the first 3 books; however, the essence of storytelling still plays a major role in a way that is unique to the series.
Additionally, the reader sees more of the personalities and inner thoughts of the characters. Chih plays a more central role, where we see more of who they are. We also see the nexien, which has always intrigued me, and I hope to learn more about this world through more novellas.

Mammoths at the Gates

By: Nghi Vo

Publish Date: 12 September 2023

Publisher: Tor Publishing Group, Tordotcom

Sci Fi, Fantasy

100 Book ReviewsProfessional Reader

I would like to thank both NetGalley and Tor Publishing for allowing me to read and review this book.

Good Reads Synposis:

The wandering Cleric Chih returns home to the Singing Hills Abbey for the first time in almost three years, to be met with both joy and sorrow. Their mentor, Cleric Thien, has died, and rests among the archivists and storytellers of the storied abbey. But not everyone is prepared to leave them to their rest.

Because Cleric Thien was once the patriarch of Coh clan of Northern Bell Pass–and now their granddaughters have arrived on the backs of royal mammoths, demanding their grandfather’s body for burial. Chih must somehow balance honoring their mentor’s chosen life while keeping the sisters from the north from storming the gates and destroying the history the clerics have worked so hard to preserve.

But as Chih and their neixin Almost Brilliant navigate the looming crisis, Myriad Virtues, Cleric Thien’s own beloved hoopoe companion, grieves her loss as only a being with perfect memory can, and her sorrow may be more powerful than anyone could anticipate. . .

Book Review:

This is the fourth and final book in the series. I gave this book 3 stars. I wasn’t as invested in this book as the one before it. This story seemed to drag on for me. I did like that I could feel their pain of a lost one. I kept getting lost in the story and having to go back in the book to figure out what was going on and who was who. I really wish I could have given this last book a better rating and review, but the book was just ok for me.

4 stars!
I had to go back and read the Singing Hills Cycle series because I was like hold up wait what. I'm glad I did because I was able to understand the book even better and my favorite part was the friendship. Is it just me or does friendship in well written books just makes you emotional? I just love this and I thank the publisher and Netgalley for this e-ARC!

Thanks to NetGalley for an eARC edition of this book.

Mammoths at the Gates by Nghi Vo is another installment of the Singing Hills Cycle. These books are small but mighty, containing and entwining multiple tales into one. It is representative of Cleric Chih's experiences from the prior novels as Chih has come home at last from years of travel. Instead of the anticipated rest and filing of the stories into the archive, there are quite literally mammoths at the gate, and things are not quite as they recall them being when they left on their travels. This series is definitely one of my favorites and I always look forward to the next one. I loved getting the chance to finally arrive at the Singing Hills Abbey. These books are such a pleasure to read and Vo's ability to use the characters and their personal narratives to tell the tale is phenomenal.

Mammoths at the Gates by Nghi Vo is, as is usual for any entry in the Singing Hills Cycle, a lot of stories in one story. Usually the interwoven tales are the result of Cleric Chih’s journeys as they collect tales for their abbey, but for this fourth installment, Chih has finally returned home to recuperate from years on the road.

Only, as the title suggests, there are some mammoths at the gates. War mammoths specifically, which readers will recall from the first book, The Empress of Salt and Fortune, are powerful enough to topple empires. Yet there they stand, outside a humble monastery while their humans demand to take charge of a recently deceased cleric’s remains, Cleric Thien—their grandfather. And with their remains, the story of their life.

The stakes in Mammoths at the Gates were also a bit uneven for me. I never really believed that a military contingent was going to demolish the abbey, even if there were family troubles being aired. Maybe if it had been one sister, overrun with grief or blinded by tradition, but two? Somebody always has a wiser head or colder feet, and even from the very beginning Mammoth Corporal Vi In Yee seems to have both. She counsels Chih on defusing the situation, and then allows Chih to just…go into the abbey. Chih goes through the gate, says hi to everyone, even hands out candy to the novices. The threat stops being so threatening.

So too the threat of haunting: Rather unexpectedly, this is a ghost story. (Kind of. It’s complicated in a way I won’t spoil, but it’s great.) Thien may or may not be haunting the abbey, disquieted by the conflict or perhaps just eager to ameliorate it. Or—maybe it’s another entity masquerading as Thien?

Vo had a lot of good ideas in Mammoths at the Gates and a lot of threads. I don’t think she did a bad job in weaving them together, either; it’s more that the weft was too short. Vo put herself on a narrative clock, with an imminent interment and a literally and figuratively looming threat of violence via mammoth, but then needed time and space to explore the subtler themes of homecoming, evolving friendships, grief, responsibility, disability…and honestly, the list continues, but that’s a lot already. All of which are handled with grace and respect, but not a lot of room to breathe.

There were also layers of nixin politics I didn’t quite understand, resulting in scenes of high stakes and drama feeling a bit underwhelming. I really did care about Cleverness Himself and Myriad Virtues—but only insofar as Chih cared about them. There just wasn’t enough context for their personalities or relationships beyond that, so I kept waiting for more details, and didn’t always get them. It’s a fine line to present details of a world in which the reader and the protagonist have asymmetrical information: Chih knew every part of the abbey intimately and instinctively, but Mammoths at the Gates is our first visit. In trying to focus on the pressing issues of the present—Chih’s homecoming, the martial threat—Vo didn’t always provide quite enough details about the situations in which these conflicts existed.

This was not an issue of past/present. There are many affecting and complete anecdotes that do tremendous work in creating a complex narrative of both Chih’s childhood and Thien’s life.

How can a person do something terrible, but also repair the relationship he damaged? How can a person be manipulative to the point of terrifying a whole community, but do so in the name of a greater sense of justice? Mammoths at the Gates doesn’t have a single, pithy answer to that; it’s more concerned (and rightly so) with centering the ambiguity. Is Thien a good person who did a bad thing, a bad person who then did some good things, or is the entire idea of moral absolutes the wrong basis for evaluation? As always, I adore how Vo offers deep insight into both the matters at hand (who controls a legacy?) and into the art of storytelling (who controls a story?).

Overall, this is a good book and a solid continuation of the story of Cleric Chih and Almost Brilliant. But more than once I found myself missing their adventures on the road, which had clearer themes and both a cast and history that were as unfamiliar to Chih as they were to us. I hope that we get to visit the abbey under less pressing circumstances in the next volume, or that we can find ourselves once more on an adventure to elsewhere.

Chih is a wandering Cleric of the Singing Hills Abbey, journeying out to find stories, information, research, or gossip and jokes. Anything worth recording, anything worth remembering. Singing Hills, like its sister abbeys, collects this information in its vast archives, recording the history of the world, from the mating habits of finches to the rise and fall of kings. This time, though, the adventure seems to be waiting for them at home rather than something they find along the road.

There are two mammoths outside the gates of the abbey — royal mammoths — and their riders are demanding the body of Cleric Thien, Chih’s mentor. They hadn’t known about, and were certainly not prepared to come home to, the loss of their beloved teacher, a teacher who chose to make their home Singing Hills Abbey, a teacher whose body will be prepared and interred along with the bodies of other clerics as they deserve. But Thien’s granddaughters are insistent. They want the body, and they’ll bring down the walls of the abbey to get to it.

What is owed, and to whom? Thien’s life before they became a cleric is a life gone and put away. The wife they left behind and the children, the position in court. None of it has any place in the life they chose to make in the abbey. Cleric Ru, Chih’s dearest friend, is acting Divine and refuses to back down. Everything Chih does to help is met with anger, and Chih has no idea how to help, all while still grieving for their teacher.

But Chih isn’t the only one grieving. Myriad Virtues, an abbey neixin whose heart is broken by the loss of her human companion, has had her wing feathers cut. No longer able to fly, she now walks. Instead of making new memories, she is living in old ones. And Chih still has no idea how to help.

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. Chih, as a cleric, has no set gender. They — and their fellow clerics — are referred to as they/them, and each cleric seems to have a bond with one or several neixin, magical creatures in the form of birds who remember everything. Everything a foolish young novice did, every oath they took and the ones they broke, as well as the stories they are told. They’re fascinating and are one of the best parts of this book.

This is a lyrical story about loss and grief, about the difference between justice and morality, about the memories of people — the ones they leave behind, and the ones they make. It’s the love between friends, teachers, and students, and it’s beautiful and I love it. It’s the sort of book you start, thinking you’ll just read the first few pages, and look up some unknown time later, regretting that it’s over. The world building is lush, the writing is gorgeous, and I could easily devour an entire epic taking place in this world. This is the fourth book in the Singing Hills Cycle, though — as mentioned above — every book is a standalone. I am now off to go get the other three.

I really hope you take the chance to read this novella.

Thanks to NetGalley for an eARC edition of this book.

This series is definitely one of my favorites. I wasn't expecting to cry during reading this one, but there is just something about Vo's writing that brings subtle emotions to the forefront of my mind and cracks them open. Every time I pick these up I understand perfectly what critics mean when they say a writer uses a deft hand to create a masterpiece. This story was no different, and I loved getting the chance to see the Singing Hills Abbey, even under "unusual" circumstances. These books are literally such a gift.

Another great entry in The Singing Hills Cycle. Even though the first is still my favourite this was a close second (after book 3 which I found super refreshing). Mammoths at the Gates feels less of a standalone than the rest of the series, which is why I would definitely recommend you read them in order. This time around Cleric Chih is back in the temple just to find a dispute for the body of their mentor, Cleric Thein, who recently passed away.

This one was centred about grief and change and deeply melancholic yet still extremely easy to read. And while I find the story really good there was a hint of a story about a city that was flooded that just caught my eye and hope we see in later instalments.

Again, just another fantastic addition to this series and I just hope they keep coming.