Story-gatherer Chih returns to the Singing Hills in this fourth volume in the series, Mammoths at the Gates, by Nghi Vo. We previously visited Chih and their neixin companion Almost Brilliant on their adventures around the empire. Their mission was to gather as many stories and as much information as they could to bring back to the Singing Hills, to save for posterity. But every journey has to end someday and it’s been years since Chih was home.

Chih no doubt thought that a few things would change in their time away but they never would have pictured returning home only to find a pair of mammoths and representatives of the Empire at the monastery’s gates. Once they sneak make their way through the gates, with no little trouble, they learn why the Singing Hills has been graced with a visit. The imperial officials are on a family errand: to collect the body of their grandfather before Chih’s order inters him in the monastery. Years prior, this grandfather absconded from his family and joined the Singing Hills. Everywhere this elder went, they made an impression. Unfortunately, those impressions—and the elder’s long life—mean that both parties have a good claim to be his resting place.

Chih plays peacemaker for the acting head of the monastery (the official head and most of the rest of the order have taken off on a rare archaeological opportunity) and the imperial visitors, while grieving the beloved elder and also trying to figure out what is going on with the elder’s neixin and the fractious colony of birds. It’s a lot but Chih is no stranger to either diplomacy or dealing with emotions and mysteries.

Mammoths at the Gates is brief (like all the books in this series) and (also like all the other books in this series) packs a big emotional wallop along with a rich history and culture inspired by medieval China and southeastern Asia. I’ve really enjoyed this series; my only complaint is that I want more of everything! Each book makes me wish that I could sequester myself in the Singing Hills archive and read anything I could get my hands on. I very much appreciate the order’s philosophy that all knowledge is worth having.

I don't want to say too much as this is the fourth installment and a novella- but this is probably my favorite yet! It was so beautiful I can't promise it won't have you in tears. How accurately Vo captures the feelings of grief, and change, and friendships, and the effects of time in such a short amount of pages is absolutely remarkable. Chih has literally my whole freaking heart.

Mammoths at the Gates is the fourth novella in Nghi Vo's "Singing Hills" cycle of Novellas. The Singing Hills novellas all follow Cleric Chih and their neixin (a talking intelligent hoopoe bird who never forgets) named Almost Brilliant as they go around this fantasy world and collect and tell stories, whether they be tales or histories. So the first novella (The Empress of Salt and Fortune) dealt with the story of the rise of an outsider Empress through the telling of her companion; the second novella (When the Tiger Came down the Mountain) tells a romance between a tiger woman and a human...but has the story told from both the perspective of humans and from the perspective of tigers; the third novella (Into the Riverlands) was a wuxia tale of martial artists and kung fu tales seeming in the past...but maybe in the present as well? Each tale was really well done, often very fun, and award worthy, as Cleric Chih's encounters with stories allowed Vo to touch serious and fun themes in different genres.

Mammoths at the Gates flips things a little - where Cleric Chih is usually a passive observer, here the novella focuses on events and people Chih actually has experienced: mainly the life of one of their mentors at the Singing Hills Monastery, who has now passed away, and whose body is now wanted by the mentor's blood relatives, who are threatening to storm the monastery with the titular mammoths. But the focus flip doesn't prevent this novella from being a tale about stories, and about a number of fascinating things - grief, how we see people from different (good and bad) lights, and how people change over time in ways others never could have anticipated. It isn't my favorite novella in the series, but it's another very effective one.



Quick Plot Summary:

For the first time in a long time Cleric Chih has come home - to the monastery at Singing Hills. After years of traveling, Chih has returned to record the tales they have gathered...and to reunite with their Neixin, Almost Brilliant, who had returned to the monastery to have a child.

But to Chih's surprise, they find the monastery besieged by a pair of women soldiers armed with a squad of combat Mammoths. The monastery's neutrality and Imperial charter should prevent it from being the subject of such an attack, but the women are here for a personal reason: their grandfather was Chih's mentor and has now passed away, and they demand to take his body back for burial, rather than to leave it in the custody of the monastery. And to make matters stranger, the Monastery is mostly deserted due to the scholars all being away to investigate a once in a lifetime find and Chih's childhood friend Ru is the only one left to be in charge.

To prevent rash actions from leading to disaster, Chih will have to find a middle road between a stubborn young cleric who isn't who Chih remembers, a greiving older Neixin, and a pair of young women with their own memories of a person Chih once considered their cherished mentor....


Thoughts: Usually, Singing Hills novellas deal with the stories people tell in places Chih visits, and the way stories conflict and interact with each other is a center of the novella. Here, in this novella, we see not only stories interacting with each other - as Chih, Ru, the two young women Vi In Yee and Tui In Hao, and the Neixin Myriad Virtues all have their own stories (good and bad) about the late Cleric Thien - but also how the images people have themselves and others interact with those stories.

So for Ru, Chih finds that the cleric who wanted to adventure with them has become a person who wants to be a leader of the monastery in the vein of Thien while in the two young women, one of them wants to honor the grandfather she only knew through a glorious story of triumphant justice, while the other has heard negative things about that grandfather and mostly wants to prevent her sister from doing rash things. In Myriad Virtues, we see how grief has made a neixin wish to stop being who she is, and how to stop remembering...requiring a transformation of her own. And then in Almost Brilliant and her baby daughter, the incredibly cute and excitable Chiep, we see how Chih's own story has impacted others in ways Chih couldn't have expected.

All of this combines to a fascinating story I don't want to spoil or go too deep into about how life events shape people, how grief affects us all in different ways, and how people grow and change in ways both good and bad. This is a story about life and growing up to impact others, and it's very good. Recommended, as usual for this series.

In Mammoths and the Gate, Nghi Vo turns the readers attention to the stories of the clerics themselves. This shift came as a surprise to me. I was prepared to be told a story alongside Chih that would later be entered into the Singing Hills archive; instead, I read a story about the archives as it happened around Chih. While unexpected, the story was incredibly compelling. Vo gave insight into where Chih has come from and why they do what they do. I especially appreciated learning more about the birds of Singing Hills. These "people but not humans" teach the clerics and Interlopers a lesson about grief that they could not have learned on their own.

While the other books in the Singing Hills Cycle spoke more to me, this fourth installment added a depth I didn't know was missing. I look forward to seeing where Chih travels next!

I was very excited to be approved for an ARC of Nghi Vo’s latest installment in The Singing Hills Cycle. This adventure sees the traveling cleric, Chih, return to Singing Hills abbey, and I was all for the change of scenery. It meant getting back to one of my favorite characters, the neixin named Almost Brilliant. And, while the world at large in this series is fascinating, I’ve always kind of wanted a story set at the abbey—since it was a pivotal part of Chih’s background.

This novella was everything I was hoping it would be. It still had the nested story format, but I liked how Chih was far closer to this conflict and some of the history—rather than only an observer—since the focus was on a fellow cleric who they were once close to (who had passed away). It was a messy and sensitive situation, especially where tempers and mammoths are involved. In spite of its short length, I appreciated the emotional depth that was present in the story. It’s one of the aspects that the series has excelled at since its beginning. Again, there weren’t the most pages here. But it wasn’t necessary, since, like the other novellas in The Singing Hills Cycle series, it was easy to care about and understand the perspective of even the new characters that were introduced.

Mammoths at the Gate, has reaffirmed my love for this series, its characters, and the stories within the story.

Disclaimer: this copy of the book was provided by the publisher (Tordotcom Publishing) via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review, thank you!

Thank you to NetGalley and Tordotcom for an advanced readers copy in exchange for an honest review!

In this fourth installment of the novella series, The Singing Hills Cycle, Cleric Chih takes a break from wandering and collecting stories to instead return home to the Singing Hills Abbey. When they arrive they learn that their mentor, Cleric Thien, has died and their granddaughters have arrived seeking to claim the body to bury themselves.

All of the entries in The Singing Hills Cycle have come with a distinct feel to them, influenced by the people Chih meets and the kinds of stories they share. While there are still stories to be shared in Mammoths at the Gates, what sets this entry apart is how much we learn about The Singing Hills Abbey, Cleric Chih’s order, and the neixin, the birds who partner and travel with clerics and have perfect memories. As a fan of the series, this made Mammoths at the Gates a particularly compelling read for me. I think it also makes this volume a particularly good starting point for the series as well, especially for readers who might be uncomfortable with how some novellas throw you into complex worlds with less explanations than they are used to.

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**TL;DR:** While not my favorite in the Singing Hills Cycle I still think this is a valuable story in the series, giving us a closer look at the order and it's inner workings

I'm a big fan of the Singing Hills cycle featuring Cleric Chi and their travels gathering stories. The Tiger Came Down the Mountain is one of my favorite novellas I've read in a long time, and the stories are so vibrant that I was super excited to get to Mammoths at the Gates. Perhaps that excitement was a little too much, my expectations too high for this installment as it is definitely the weakest I've read so far in the series.

This is a story about grief in a way. But a removed kind of grief. Chi returns in time to witness the funeral rights of a teacher from the monastery and the family that want their remains returned. The conflict arises in the shared grief, but differing stories the two groups have of the deceased individual. We get snippets of history with Chi and their old friend who is the acting leader. We also see grief over the loss of childhood and the friendships that change and evolve as we age. All this was obvious but it simply didn't click for me. Perhaps a longer story would have carried these themes better? More of the story telling aspect (as we only got that briefly at the end)?

The ending did little to help the story, feeling as if the author had written themselves in a corner. Magic was used as the 'get out of jail free card' solving everyone's problems. Simply not my favorite. I still enjoyed my time with the Cleric, I still loved seeing more of Singing Hills. I think perhaps go into this one prepared more for a quieter, slower, and darker version of these novellas and you'll have better expectations

Mammoth at the Gates is the fourth entry in the world of the Singing Hills by Nghi Vo. Although I have read them in publication order, you can pick up any of the books out of order as they can stand on their own. In this instalment, we follow our main character Cleric Chih as they return to their home of Singing Hills Abbey to find one of their old mentors, Cleric Thien, has passed away. However, more heartache ensues as there are two mammoths outside the gates of Singing Hills Abbey with two riders claming they are the granddaughters of Cleric Thien - and that his body is for them to take away and bury.

This was a strong story about grief, friendship and coming home after a long time to find it completely different. The discussions about grief and mourning were so powerful and unlike anything I’ve ever read before.

This novella stands apart from the others because we aren’t travelling - we have returned back to where Chih came from and we’ve heard about Singing Hills Abbey so much from the previous stories and we finally get to see it here. We learn so much more about the world and in particular about the fantastical birds in the Abbey that record memories; neixins.

I really love this series and I love our gender non-conforming main character Chih and their avian companion. The writing was compelling and magic with a poignant story.

This novella is just as intriguing as the title suggests! It's too lyrical to be adorable, too smooth to be heart-pounding, too richly layered to be easily dismissed. It's a cup of warm tea with a lingering kick of ginger.

What's it about? Doesn't matter. It's so much more than the story.

My new favorite book in the singing hills cycle!

I LOVED this one. We get to follow our favorite cleric as they return home to the singing hills abbey, only to find that there are mammoths at the gates!

Every book in this series has something poignant to say about storytelling, and this book was no different. One of the central themes of this novella is the role that storytelling has in grief. Because our cleric is returning home and we are hearing stories told about their mentor, this book has a very nostalgic feel to it. I loved a lot of things about this book, but mostly I loved how much more we got to know our cleric and the people who are important to them. It really is an intimate understanding of our main character through their relationships with others and the stories and memories that are told to remember one life.

I read this one on a plane and it made the time absolutely fly by. A lot of emotional impact for such a short book in the best way. Can't wait to see what this author does next.

Nghi Vo does it again! Beautifully crafted representation of a gender non conforming lead who is just themselves, living their life. It's not often that we get such simplicity in queer representation, but the fourth installment in this series of novellas is just perfect. You definitely don't have to read them in order either. This is not a coming out story or a face all the -phobias or the -isms. We just have Cleric Chih (they/them) and their avian companion Almost Brilliant in their ventures to witness and record history through collecting and recording stories from those they meet out in the world. Exploring memory, identity, power, cultural diversity, and perspective, these novellas capture the beauty and complexity of oral traditions.

For fans of Psalm for the Wild Built (Becky Chambers) or What Moves The Dead (T. Kingfisher), who write similarly sweet and simple ungendered representation.

Great book. All the mystery surrounding archives in general is portrayed so well, along with all the culture, tradition, and history that surround the whole whole order dedicated to preservation. The niexen ( I hope I spelled that right) are my favorite and I really like Nghi Vo's writing a lot.

"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..."

If you've been dying for the next Nghi Vo book, you are in luck today!

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!

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the review copy!

I've never been much of a Doctor Who fan but I've been around the internet long enough to see how many people have taken Matt Smith's Doctor's "We are all stories in the end, just make it a good one eh?" to heart. The idea of who we are when we're gone is at the centre of Vo's latest instalment in The Singing Hills Cycle.

For the first time in the series so far, we follow Cleric Chih as they return to the Singing Hills Abbey for the first time in years. Upon arrival they learn that their beloved mentor, Cleric Thien, has died, and their granddaughters are waiting outside on the backs of mammoths, demanding their grandfather's body be buried with the rest of their family despite Thien's chosen life as a cleric. What ensues is a tale of balance, grief and change as Chih, their childhood friend Ru, Thien's granddaughters and Thien's neixin, Myriad Virtues, tell different stories to pay tribute to Thien's life.

I always fall in love with the ways in which Vo is able to explore a different theme in each of these novellas without making it obvious when you're reading that she's doing just that. Mammoths at the Gates isn't only a story about who Thien was, both before and after they became a cleric, but a story about reckoning with who they are, who they have been and who they might have been. Chih and Ru learn things about Thien's past they find difficult to reconcile with the person they knew, but Chih is also forced to confront how things at Singing Hills Abbey will change even when they aren't there to see them happening.

This is particularly true of their relationship with Ru, who hasn't been able to travel in the same way Chih has but is also no longer the troublemaker Chih knew when they were children together, dreaming of seeing mammoths in the flesh. I'd love to see more of Ru in future instalments of this series, as well as the new addition to Almost Brilliant's family.

I say this almost every time I talk about this series, but if you're a fan of Avatar: The Last Airbender - in particular, the many episodes where Aang and co. were travelling and met new people, such as "The Great Divide" - you'll love these books. Plot-wise they're very different, but they have that same vibe.

And if you haven't started this series yet, you're missing a real gem!

Mammoths at the Gate builds off the series to date by bringing the story closer to home for Cleric Chih, and that definitely allows for some new exploration of memory and grief. The central figure of Cleric Thien, and the question of how to remember them, is very compelling, and I honestly would have been happier with the storytelling segments that form the climax being more substantial and central. As with all these novellas, it goes by so quickly, in a way that doesn't work quite as well as instalment one (I can't help but feel the deeper the worldbuilding goes in this series, the more constrained the books are by their length), but these books are always a thoughtful look into storytelling that rewards consideration.

Mammoths at the Gates follow Chih as they return home to Singing Hills to find that a dear friend has passed away. This was beautifully written and is now my favorite book in this series. It is a beautiful look into grief and memories. I absolutely love the Cleric Chih, and Almost Brilliant and I am so glad that we got to meet more of the characters in this story. Nghi Vo's writing is spectacular and she is able to pack so much into the novellas. I look forward to continuing this series.

This is a translated version of the original review written in spanish and posted on Goodreads:

Scoring: 3 Stars

Before I start this review, I want to thank TOR for sending me an advanced copy of this novel. I appreciate your trust and support!

I want to start this review by commenting that I had no idea that this book was part of a series of short stories, so it is likely that my reading experience is biased by not having read the three previous installments. Now, before starting this reading, I discovered that this is the fourth installment of the "The Singing Hills" series, and after a quick research online, I found that it was not necessary to read the previous installments to understand this book. The first thing I will tell you is that, after reading it without having any idea about its predecessors, I have a feeling that you should read the previous installments before starting “Mammoths at the gates”.

Mammoths at the gates is a short story that I honestly didn't quite understand. I attribute this to what I mentioned in the previous paragraph. I really was very lost with everything that was happening. The author talked about clerics, mentors, patriarchs, mammoths, and birds, but I didn't understand how they were all related. It was noticeable that the narration already assumed a certain understanding on the part of the reader about the world in which this story takes place.

On the other hand, I really enjoyed Nghi Vo's writing. This is the first time I have read the author and I liked how she describes landscapes and introduces characters with an enveloping and calm narrative. I felt that this book transported me to the singing hills and that I could see first-hand everything that was happening.

The story also touches on the feelings of mourning and sorrow, which are transmitted to the reader in a masterful way. Also, the cover is simply a work of art. This is a common element in the books of the series "The Singing Hills" and one of the key deciding factors that made me request the advanced copy of this book. Wonderful illustrations!

Although this book did not receive a very high score, it is clear that I will read the first three installments of this series. I want to re-read this fourth book, since I feel that there are many things that I missed, thus affecting my experience. You know I'll be documenting my journey through the Singing Hills from start to finish!

I think this is tied with When the Tiger Came Down the Mountain as my favorite entry into this series. I loved seeing Chih back at home and seeing some of their background of where they came from and seeing them interact with people they grew up with. This novella also does a really good job addressing grief as a theme. And I liked seeing more of the neixins beyond just Almost Brilliant

In the fourth volume of the Singing Hills Cycle, Nghi Vo takes us to the Cleric Chih’s home, the Singing Hills Abbey. Chih returns to the Abbey only to discover that their mentor, Cleric Thien, has died. What’s more, Cleric Thien’s biological descendants are threatening the remaining clerics if they don’t provide the body for a burial. Tensions arise from both outside and within the Abbey as those who are left behind grapple with their grief. Once again, Vo utilizes her skills in framing a story within a story, this time in the form of a funeral service for the deceased cleric. The novella tenderly displays how we may honor someone's life by telling stories. To tell stories is to keep the memory alive and the love present. Needless to say, I was moved to tears.