Book Summary:

After years of wandering the wilds and listening to stories, Cleric Chih is finally returning home. Home being the Singing Hills Abbey. Only things aren't how they used to be. Cleric Thien has passed away, and mammoths are at the front gates. No, that is not a figure of speech.

As it turns out, the Abbey isn't the only group of people to notice the passing of Cleric Thien. This sets off a series of events, which Chih and Almost Brilliant will have to help guide everyone through.

My Review:

As always, the latest addition to The Singing Hills Cycle was brilliant. In many ways, Mammoths at the Gates is the most emotional tale of the series – thus far. I feel like that is saying something!

This novella gives us insight into the Abbey, the neixins, and even a bit of neixin culture. In other words, it's fantastic. I would give anything to read more like this, and I am crossing my fingers that the series is far from over.

My heart broke for Cleric Chih in this novella. All the while, I was rejoicing over Almost Brilliant's news. It made for a strange mix of emotions, which I'm certain was the intention. This blended well with the story's main arc and the overall feeling of the series as a whole.

Highlights:
Award Winning Series
LGBTQ+
Storytelling Format

Trigger Warnings:
Character Death
Animal Injury (of a sort)
Grief

I feel like Nghi Vo's series of short novellas/stories about the monks of the Singing Hills and their talking birds started out strong but seems to lose their "oomph" as the series continues. I loved her prose in "The Siren Queen" and thought it was one of the most well-written novels I've read in ages. However, I feel like her writing in these don't quite measure up to the lofty expectations I got from "Siren Queen"

In this book, the monk Chih returns to the Singing Hills Abbey. They re-unite with their friend and familiar spirit Almost Brilliant and meet Almost Brilliant's child. They find that their old childhood friend is in temporary charge of the abbey while most of the monks are off trying to gather artifacts and documents from a recent find. And they also find mammoths at the abbey gate.

Chih's friend Thien is in temporary charge of the monastery because the old abbot recently died. The mammoths at the gate are there because relatives of the old abbot want to take his body and bury it with family. The monks feel that he should stay with them because most of his life was spent at the monastery. There is danger of violence.

Meanwhile, the hoopoe familiars are arguing about how to help the abbot's familiar, who is grieving deeply.

This is a story about returning home to find that things have changed. It's about how to discover your place at home once again. It's about finding out how to go on after a loss. And it's about how stories only can tell part of a truth, yet again. And yet stories are the best we can do.

This is a lovely, melancholy piece that manages to also be warm and even spooky in some places. Although this could be a good place to leave Chih and Almost Brilliant and all of their friends, I hope I'll be able to read more about them. These are sort of modern little fables about ways of knowing, and I've been enjoying them.

In Mammoths at the Gate, readers accompany Chih as they return to their monastery, the Singing Hills. Chih’s mentor and friend has recently passed away, most of the monks are away gathering stories from a recently uncovered ancient city (definitely hope one of the next instalments gives us more detail about this!), and Chih returns to find that their childhood friend has taken up the position as an acting authority figure.

I enjoyed getting to see Chih back at home instead of traveling. I also liked seeing their relationship with their friend Ru and learning a bit more about Chih’s childhood growing up at Singing Hills. In this novella, we also get to learn more about the history and social lives of nexin (the talking hoopee companions of the monks).

I loved this instalment in the Singing Hills Cycle. The themes of this novella are very rich: the effects of grief, honoring the complicated lives of our dead, what it means to be human, growing up, and the changes and cycles of life. I can easily see how this novella would be a great one to teach in the classroom. A really wonderful addition to the series.

Thank you to NetGalley and Tor Publishing Group for my advanced copy in exchange for my honest opinion.


"Mammoths at the Gates" is the fourth installment in Nghi Vo's Singing Hills Cycle series. They're all novellas that follow Cleric Chih who travels and collects histories and stories. In this fourth installment, Chih heads home to the Singing Hills Abbey where they are met with mammoths at the gates to the abbey and the news that a close mentor had passed. What begins is a poignant and vivid exploration of just how powerful grief is and how transformative it can be. Throughout the series, we've gotten glimpses into the relationship between Chih and the neixin, Absolute Brilliance, but in this one, that relationship between a cleric and the neixin is highlighted and emphasized. This installment is centered around grief and mourning and Vo connects all of this to stories beautifully.

I think this may be my favorite from the series. Vo's writing is lyrical and just beautiful. I would absolutely recommend this one. It's definitely different in tone and pacing compared to the previous three in the series but it's still a worthwhile read and one that I think even younger audiences can read. The way Vo handles the discussion of death and mourning is simple but well-done. If you haven't read any of the Singing Hills Cycle, please start!

Went into Mammoths at he Gates without reading the synopsis because I trust Nghi Vo's writing and that the individual storyline will be brilliant for this entire series. I've read three books and each time, I'm fascinated by the stories within.

I wasn't expecting this instalment to be filled with mourning and how powerful grief can be. Returning home, cleric Chih anticipated Singing Hills to be bustling and not empty and quiet. Ru told Chih that their mentor, cleric Thien, had died and that their granddaughters are at the gates with mammoths to bring their grandfather's body back to the Coh clan of Northern Bell Pass for burial. While they're trying to deal with this issue, cleric Thien's hoopoe grieved the loss of her cleric.

As they recorded down stories of cleric Thien, good and bad stories emerged. That's what the archivists would write. That's what the hoopoe would remember. Within Mammoths at the Gates, the bond between a hoopoe and a cleric is highlighted and extends past death.

As always, Nghi Vo tugged my heartstrings. to me, Vhih and the rest of the clerics would embrace the good, the bad, and the ugly and write the past, present, and future as it is. They are adamant that they would document stories as it is told. I loved that about the Singing Hills cycle series. They stayed true.

Another great installment in the Singing Hills books. I, as always, love the characters and I enjoyed that this installed was set at the Singing Hills Abbey.I enjoyed learning more about the abbey and other clerics, a bit more backstory on Chih, and more about the neixins.

It was so nice to enter back into the Singing Hills world. I really liked the previous instalments of this cycle, but I truly loved this one. I like it from beginning to end, starting from the characters who were only just named in passing in other books, and who finally took shape in these 84 pages, up to what I personally consider a full circle from my first Nghi Vo, When the Tiger Came Down the Mountain: Mammoths are back!

When I started reading this book, I was expecting something along the lines of Empress of Salt and Fortune, When the Tiger came down the Mountain, and Into the Riverlands. A story about stories, and about how we tell stories determines who we are, and who we are determines how we tell our stories. I did not get what I was expecting, but I got what I needed: a reflection on how telling stories about people who influenced us can help us keep these people alive through memory. I have a very complex relationship with grief, ever since the passing of my Grandma, and I have never felt so touched or seen by a book. It went and soothed places in my soul that were sore, raw, and exposed, and that I didn’t know needed to be cured.

The mental image that I have of Cleric Chih was made richer and more complex with this story, and the new characters were well rounded and deep. Cleric Thien, despite not being present in the story until the very end, jumped out of the page. Myriad Virtues embodied feelings more human than anyone can tell.

I wished, while I was reading, so very much that I was a good artist, that I could draw and paint the mental images this book elicited in me. I really really hope Nghi Vo will be writing, and Tor will be publishing, more of these stories.

I would recommend this book (together with all the other books in the cycle) to any teacher of younger kids – I am thinking primary school with guided reading, or lower secondary with a guided discussion. It touched deep themes and you will definitely need to hold your students by hand, but it will help you kick-start meaningful discussions on diplomacy, multiperspectivity (although, for this, I actually recommend When the Tiger came down the Mountain), and grief.

4.5 stars

*Thank you to Netgalley and Tordotcom for providing an eARC in exchange for an honest review.

Possibly my favourite of The Singing Hills stories so far; Mammoth at the Gates delves more in to the The Singing Hills abbey and Chih’s life there before their wonderings. I particularly loved learning more about the neixins in this story.

The story centres around grief and I found it much more emotional than the previous instalments. Nghi Vo has a lyrical writing style that makes for a beautiful and touching tale.

Thank you to Tor and NetGalley for giving me an eARC of this book in exchange for an honest review.

"Mammoths at the Gates" is another beautifully written installment in The Singing Hills Cycle. What's interesting about this series is that you can read it in any order. Each story flows like a river, the melody of the words smooth and comforting, and the tales themselves told in a cadence that feels almost meditative, despite whatever action may be happening.

It makes me wonder how it would be to start with this book first, since it is in this installment that Chih returns to Singing HIlls. Here we are faced with a story of grief, in all of its different forms. It's a quieter more somber story than some of the others have been, but it gives us a look about the other side of Chih's life that has only been in the background up until this point.

I know that this series is one I will return to in the future to read again. There's so much packed into each slim volume. Masterfully done.

With Mammoths at the Gates, I have to admit that this series peaked for me with the second novella. That’s not to say this wasn’t broadly enjoyable, but it was by far my least favourite of the four.

The novella takes a bit of a different format to the previous three and I think this partly explains my feelings for it. Instead of following Chih on their travels, picking up stories along the way, we follow them back to the Singing Hills monastery, where it transpires that their mentor has died and the monastery is under siege from their granddaughters, who want their grandparent’s body to bury with their grandmother. As such, the format of this one is primarily in the present, with a few stories thrown in at the end, unlike the previous three novellas, where the present narrative took a back seat.

Let me start with some positives: while the previous novellas were dedicated to expanding the world, here the focus is on the monastery and how it functions. In a way, I suppose this is expanding the world, but it felt like in a quieter way. What I’m trying to say, though, is that this was good. The monastery has only been at the periphery until now, but this novella put it front and centre.

The writing too was a positive: as ever with this series, it’s readable and creates an atmosphere which you can fully imagine. On the strength of the writing (and thus characters and worldbuilding) alone, this is a series I would recommend.

I think the sole reason I didn’t enjoy this one so much as the last came down only to the change in format. Simply put, it didn’t hold my interest so much as previous novellas. Whether that was relating to the plot or how the plot was framed? Who can say! Maybe a bit of both.

Overall though, I think if you enjoyed the rest of this series, you will enjoy this one too. It’s an interesting enough continuation of the Singing Hills Cycle, and does still leave me keen to read book five.

As ever, the latest entry in the Singing Hills Cycle is just breathtaking. This time, Nghi Vo goes in hard on grief, processing, and what we owe both future generations and the past. I was *sobbing* by the end. So, so good. Can't wait to buy a physical copy.

A lot more emotional than the other books in this series, this vivid story with themes of grief is a beautiful waxing moon of a story.

Mammoth at the Gates continues with the travelling of the Cleric Chich, though this time they come home to Singing Hills Abbey only to hear the news that one of the older clerics - Cleric Thien has died. And now the grandchildren of the Cleric want to take their body back to the Northern Bell Pass.
The book doesn't deal with a lot of emotions. With such a short book though it covered a lot of things, exploring different emotions is quite hard when you have a little more than 100 pages to do so. But still, it showed how different creatures and people deal with grief and other emotions when a close person dies. It also reminded me that the best thing that we get is our memories especially the good ones are worth remembering and cherishing more than physical things that we get as Cleric Thien told Ru. It is also about knowing the good and bad of people and being fair in judging. It gave me a lot to think about and to relearn too.

The Singing Hills Cycle is one of the most slept-on series in fantasy. I want these books to just keep coming forever and ever.

I love this series so much. The focus on multiple truths and multiple sides to every story makes for really tight thematic novellas. This installation's central themes include loss and grief, coming home, and the difficulty of telling the story of a life. I have some recency bias but I think Mammoths at the Gates might be one of my favorite stories from the Singing Hills series.

Cleric Chih returns to the Singing Hills abbey for the first time in this novella series, and finds things have changed: Cleric Thien, a beloved mentor, has died, and they’re just in time to participate in his memorial, and Almost Brilliant’s chick is growing fast and eager to meet them. Plus, there’s a pair of mammoths at the gates of the abbey, and some kind of quarrel growing up.

Homecoming can be strange, and Chih finds some of that difficult: a childhood friend is grown and even acting as the leader of the abbey, and the younger ones look up to them as an elder now. Almost Brilliant isn’t ready to travel with them again, and the abbey is strangely quiet (with everyone absent to go and record some fascinating uncovered previously-drowned ruins)… They have to navigate that and settle back down for a while, and try to figure out how to manage the whole mammoth situation (inasfar as that’s something they even ought to be managing).

It’s a lot, but as with the other novellas in this series, I loved it. We see a little more of the world, of all the stories those at the abbey gather and curate, and a little more now of where Chih comes from and what has shaped them. Especially fascinating to me, we learn a little more of the neixin, and meet several of them.

I loved Mammoths at the Gates just as much as all the previous novellas in the Singing Hill cycles (which is a lot). This book focuses more on Cleric Chih's perspective more, and I enjoyed getting a better look at Chih's personal history and relationships. I loved the reflections on grief and the different kinds of grief, and the different kinds of stories that are told about someone after they have gone, or after they have changed from how you remember them.

5/5 stars
Recommended if you like: fantasy, novellas, grief stories, character driven stories, queer characters

This review has been posted to Goodreads as of 5/5 and will be posted to Instagram on 5/23 and to my review blog on 5/24.

Another fantastic chronicle from the Singing Hills Cycle! I'm so hoping that the series expands beyond the 5 books that are currently planned because I love exploring Chih and Almost Brilliant's world!

In this story, Chih returns home for the first time in several years and finds much changed. The old Divine has recently died and Chih arrives in enough time for the interment ceremony. The death of their old mentor and the new maturity in their friend Ru results in some growing pains for Chih as they come to realize that not even the Singing Hills Abbey is immutable in time. That realization and the feelings they grapple with over it are very relatable since it pertains so much to the way friendships change and grow (or even end) as people grow older and move into different phases of their lives.

In a similar vein, Cleric Thien's (the previous Divine who died) neixin, Myriad Virtues, is grieving terribly as a result of her loss. While much of the story focuses on Chih and their relationships and feelings re: coming back to the abbey and seeing or not seeing old friends, a similar bulk of the story is dedicated to Myriad Virtues' grieving process. The way she grieves doesn't make sense to everyone around her, neixin and human alike, resulting in multiple discussions of how grief affects people differently and the strange things people do as they feel it.

The mammoths are also a part of the grieving story as they belong to two young women who were Cleric Thien's granddaughters. In opposition of the traditional practices for clerics, they want Thien's body so the can bury them in their homeland. There's a lot of debate about this and the discussion of grief is brought in here as well.

I liked getting to see the abbey and some of Chih's friends. I also liked that we get to see Almost Brilliant (she wasn't in Into the Riverlands) and that we get to meet Almost Brilliant's chick, Chiep. Chiep is definitely a personality and was quite funny, so she was an enjoyable addition to the book.

This provided some nice insight into Chih's backstory and is a good addition to the series. Vo does a good job of mixing the heavy topics with lighter moments, and it's a bit more character-led than in previous books. I was quite invested in what the characters were experiencing and sped through the book.

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for a free ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review.

I LOVED this book. I think this is my favorite installment of this series yet - I loved that it focused more on Chih, and that we finally got to learn more about their background at the Singing Hills Abbey and the other clerics. I really appreciated how this book dealt with grief. Chih finally returns to the Singing Hills Abbey after their travels, only to learn that one of their beloved elder clerics has passed away. The way Nghi Vo deals with the complexity of grief was very well done, and I loved that this book was more emotionally-driven rather than action-driven like the other installments of this series. I love the worldbuilding of the Abbey and the idea of the neixin birds who are the clerics' companions.

I will never stop recommending this series! 5 stars.