Nghi Vo

After 3 installments which saw Chih and Almost Brilliant collecting stories on the road, they finally head home. Except that things are never easy around those two and before long they end up dealing with a dead teacher, the granddaughters of the said teacher really wanting to get their beloved grandparent's body back and as the title implies, some mammoths.

The story could have been written in a much lighter manner, matching the tone of the series so far. Instead it leaned on the grief angle - both human and neixin (we already knew that these birds are special) - and the backstory of Chih and their friends. It is an exploration of families (both the ones you are born in and the ones you choose to be a part of) and loss. There are some bright moments so the story is not all dark and depressing and Chih shines without even trying - in the middle of personal grief, they somehow end up needing to safe the monastery and its way of life.

Almost Brilliant (and its baby!) provide the usual entertainment but even that is subdued. And of course there are the stories - for all in this world revolves around then so we get to see more of it.

The end may not have been surprising but it still manages to sound as if it may have been - there was really no other way to close that story without undoing all that was done and yet it feels like it only happened due to the stories who made it into people's heart and finally made them understand the others.

As with the rest of the series, it is a story of acceptance and of finding the way to understand the other. It probably won't work as a standalone (or it will lose a lot of its power without the rest of the series) but as a part of the cycle, it fits. And even if I appreciate the change of tone, I hope that we will be back on the road and in happier tales going forward.… (más)

Set in 1922 New York, it is an “alt-Gatsby” urban fantasy. The primary protagonist is a young, Louisiana woman who intersects with Jay Gatsby and others of that ilk at various points in her life.

It has an unusual writing rhythm and style that made it hard for me to follow, while the author sort of set the stage and didn’t explain the alt-world in the first three chapters.

I would have moved the first two chapters further into the novel, interleaved with chapters 6-8, since it is later in the book that you start to get an idea of what is really going on. After eight chapters, I still didn’t care about any of the main characters.

I re-read the goodreads blurb, which sounds like a great book right up my alley, and this book did not live up to that description.

Examples of the writing:
“The good I did piled up willy-nilly like a careless mound of coins close to the laundry bin.”

“I could still detect a shimmer of starlight in the corner of her mouth, tangled in the hair at the nape of her neck.”

Abandoned at chapter 9.
… (más)

I read this novella as part of the Nebula finalist packet.

I enjoyed the first two books in this series by Vo, and I remember them as lyrical and compelling, but I read them a few years ago and can't remember details. Therefore, I approached this novella as a fresh, stand-alone read--and I loved it. It's not as lyrical, but it's emotional and profound, following a nonbinary cleric who returns to their home monastery to find their mentor dead and the teacher's family demanding a return of the body, in a violation of the place's standards. The family's demand is reinforced by the presence of war mammoths. That use of an unusual animal with fantasy is interesting, but the true scene-stealers are the hoopoes, talking birds that are part of the clerics' work in preserving history and memory.… (más)

Ce roman court de Nghi Vo, le quatrième de la série des Archives des Collines-Chantantes, est certainement le plus réussi. Le retour après quatre années de voyage de l'adelphe Chi, l'archiviste non-binaire au centre de cette série, dans l'abbaye où il a passé toute son enfance, le place face au chagrin et à la tristesse car le vieil adelphe Thien, qui a assuré une partie de sa formation, est décédé depuis peu. Cette situation permet à l'auteur d'installer tout en finesse une atmosphère mélancolique, empreinte de poésie, ce qui donne un charme tout particulier à ce volume. Cet auteur s'améliore au fil de ses romans courts et cela donne envie de voir ce que peut donner son talent dans une œuvre plus longue.… (más)