Oh. I think I have just read the best story in The Singing Hills series. Lovely! I am sorry to have read it so fast, too fast.

Yes, please, give me even more focus on Chih as a protagonist – thank you. They are coming home.
(And there are indeed mammoths at the gates. This is not a story about mammoths.)

Coming home is hard. Some things stay the same. Some things don’t. Your friends change. And some people are gone forever.

“The Divine says people change, remember? No one is as they were five years ago, or two years ago, or a week ago, or a moment ago. If you love somebody, you must let them change.”

“...growing up, growing older, was always a kind of loss, even if what was gained repaid it all and then some.”

How are we transformed by grief and loss? What form can justice take? What stories do we tell about each other, what stories do we know?

I loved the twist at the end – strange, poignant, and unexpected, but so right. ( )

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. ( )

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. ( )

Finally seeing Chih’s home felt so cozy and wholesome. This continues to be one of my favourite series. Always manages to pack such a punch in so few pages. ( )

Having reached the fourth iteration of the adventures of Cleric Chih and their companion Almost Brilliant, this time the story is personal, as Chih returns to their monastery to discover that it's under siege by two disgruntled sisters with war mammoths at their command, that their best friend at said monastery is in charge, that their mentor has passed on, and there's a lot of messy emotional business to sort out. Frankly, this is now my second favorite story in this series, only after "The Empress of Salt and Fortune," if only because it really advances the character development of Chih. ( )