Mammoths at the Gates

The Singing Hills Cycle #4

by Nghi Vo, Cindy Kay (Narrator)

The Hugo and Crawford Award-Winning Series!

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. . .

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.

Genres: Fantasy, Novella, Fiction, Audiobook, Queer, LGBT, Adult

Audiobook

First published September 12, 2023

About the author

Nghi Vo is the author of the acclaimed novellas The Empress of Salt and Fortune and When the Tiger Came Down the Mountain. Born in Illinois, she now lives on the shores of Lake Michigan. She believes in the ritual of lipstick, the power of stories, and the right to change your mind. The Chosen and the Beautiful is her debut novel.

Reviews

[Nataliya · Rating 4 out of 5]

It surprises me how much I like these quiet novellas by Nghi Vo. They are very subdued, and little exciting happens, and yet they leave me quite entranced.

“Sometimes, you cannot survive and still be who you were.”

This one is a story of returning home after a long absence as cleric Chih makes their way back to the Singing Hills Abbey after years of traveling and collecting stories. Here we get to see the beauty of some things remaining constant and yet the inevitability of other things changing and the need to adapt to this flux. Old friends growing into new people. The power of memory and grief in shaping the person you are and will be.

“They were changing, and Cleric Thien had always said that change hurt, but it was bearable if you watched it, if you accepted it and knew that it was always coming.”

It’s more melancholic than the other novellas, and with simple structure, not relying on the story-within-story framework but instead centering Chih as more than just the story recipient. Vo sketches out the setting in the way that makes it easy for my mind to fill in the sketch into something more, follow the threads to where they lead and come out of it feeling that it was longer than just a hundred pages.

It’s subtly beautiful, and that’s just lovely.

“In that moment, they were and weren’t the cleric Chih had grown up with. This was someone new, and something in Chih ached, because growing up, growing older, was always a kind of loss, even if what was gained repaid it all and then some.”

4.5 stars.

——————

Also posted on my blog.

[carol. · Rating 4 out of 5]

"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 someone, you must let them change."

Lovingly written, painfully short, and with a gorgeous cover that deserves to be made into wall art, Mammoth is the fourth book in the Cleric Chih series. After four years collecting stories on the road, Cleric Chih has come home to the Singing Hills abbey only to find two war mammoths parked at the gate. Though the modern reader may think, 'elephants in fur coats, how charming!' Chih knows that these are the tanks of the Empire.

"It was the royal mammoths that were the line breakers, the ones that would shake the earth and break down iron gates and stone walls."

There's been other significant changes as well, pushing Chih off-balance when they apparently expected to come home to a static place. At only 118 pages, it goes quickly, which is both a strength and weakness. For such a brief work, it misleads the reader, perhaps, with multiple plot elements in the beginning. Is this a tale about the mammoths and the threat from the riders? Is it a story about homecoming? Is it a story about our lives and the stories others tell about us? Is it a chance to enlarge on Chih's background and the world of the hoopoes?

I don't think the story quite pulled off the attempt to bring all these things together; fat in parts, thin in others, the foundation was an unevenly rolled dough that didn't quite pull it off in the end. Still, very beautiful on many levels and undoubtedly a story worth revisiting.

[emma · Rating 3 out of 5]

this is a story about grief and mourning, about what purpose means and how to carry it, about the specific sadness of coming home and discovering the ways it's changed and hasn't in your absence, about carrying loved ones through your life and the hardship and beauty of changing alongside them, and also a sometimes funny sometimes action-packed narrative featuring mammoths and smoke bombs made out of horse sh*t and spicy peppers and talking birds.

also it's 100 pages long.

sure, the tradeoff was that it felt shallow at some points, and i wish it spent more doing all of it, but it still did more than a lot of books that are twice as long.

which is nothing to sneeze at.

bottom line: 1.5 thumbs up!

(thanks to the publisher for the e-arc / 3.5)

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tbr review

every time i'm like "i wish i had another installment of this series to read," boom. it's there.

maybe that's why they call it fantasy.

[Melanie (meltotheany) · Rating 4 out of 5]

♡ thank you so much, tor, for sending me a finished copy!

1.) The Empress of Salt and Fortune ★★★★★
2.) When the Tiger Came Down the Mountain ★★★★★
3.) Into the Riverlands ★★★★

“I would be honored to hear your story [...] Whether it is long or short, broken or whole, sad or joyful or angry or strange, I want to hear”

this series is so important to me and the amount of beauty i am able to find on every one of these pages is just immeasurable. I truly hope we get to see chih traveling and learning stories forever and ever. this fourth installment felt a little extra powerful because we get to see chih make their way back to singing hills abbey after four long years of adventures. and when returning to the monastery, there are two royal mammoths at the gate, with two people chih does not recognize, and the new story (filled with old stories) unfolds.

this really is a tale told in only 100 pages, and is filled with powerful themes of going back home after you’ve been away for a long while, old dreams and old friends, change and the inevitability of it, new generations growing up, the importance of honoring your elders and respecting traditions, being there for your family, and above all else - the importance of memories, story telling, and records of love that are given to you throughout your life.

because truly, futures and dreams can change constantly, sometimes because of you, and sometimes despite you. i really recommend this series with the sum of my heart. lastly - new favorite character unlocked: chiep 💗

trigger + content warnings: talk of battle, talk of war, loss of a loved one, grief depiction, weight loss mentions, blood, mention of getting blood for a ritual, misgendering, mention of assault in past (physically pushing someone resulting in serious injury)

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[EveStar91 · Rating 3 out of 5]

Suddenly, Chih found themself resentful of the mammoths at the gate in a way they hadn’t been before. Before, they were alarmed and afraid. Now they were almost angry that something had broken the pattern of home, let alone something as unnerving as war mammoths.

Chih returns home to the Singing Hills after four years to find several startling changes - royal mammoths at the gate, the death of the head of their clergy, unrest at the aviary of the neixin as they didn't know how to deal with the severe grief of the nexin grieving this Divine, and the growth of their childhood friend Ru as they want to take up the duties of the Divine. Mammoths at the Gates has multiple arcs woven together as Nghi Vo looks at different expressions of grief, how people seem to focus on only one aspect of the departed as they mourn them, how childhood friends can grow up to want different lives, and how the neixin came to be in this world. The clerics and the neixin are seen as people dealing with events happening to them which is an interesting change from unbiased recorders of history.

“For sorrow,” she said. “For grief, and for remembrance. Humans don’t understand grief, not like a neixin does.”

The writing is as beautiful as can be expected from this series for which the lyrical story telling acts as the foundation. This book was more about exploring several aspects of grief and what makes someone a person through short snippets of stories rather than one cohesive storyline to be recorded in history. The stories of the origins of the neixin, with hints of magical realism enriched the world-building of this series. The concepts are food for thought even after the end of the book, but I missed the overarching story that I enjoyed in other books. On the whole recommended to anyone who enjoys Nghi Vo's writing.

[Mara · Rating 5 out of 5]

Definitely my favorite book in the series so far... such a beautiful story about grief, time, and friendship. Chih just has my whole heart

[Isabel · Rating 4 out of 5]

get in loser, we're going to the singing hills

[Ricarda · Rating 5 out of 5]

Such a beautiful volume with Chih returning home and meeting all their loved ones. ❤️

[Megan · Rating 4 out of 5]

reading vlog: https://youtu.be/b82234AUi40

a lovely novella about grief, loss and finding oneself after trauma

[Bethany (Beautifully Bookish Bethany) · Rating 5 out of 5]

I think this is my favorite book in the series! Mammoths at the Gates is an exquisite novella about grief and the discomfort of returning home when you and others have changed since you last met. It was beautiful.

Cleric Chih is returning to the Singing Hills Abbey for the first time in 3 years, only to find that their childhood mentor has passed away and there is conflict about the burial of their body. Things are not as they remember and there is grief to process. I won't say more because it's a short volume, but this was SO good and I think any fans of the series will love it. And very possibly cry. I received a copy of this book for review from the publisher, all opinions are my own.

[hiba · Rating 4 out of 5]

"sometimes, you cannot survive and still be who you were."

this was such a beautiful story about how deeply grief and loss can change you, how memories and stories shape a person, how many unknown sides there can be to people you love. i really liked seeing chih return to their home after years and coping with the inevitability of change and unfamiliarity. they may be a side character in other people's stories but i loved that their feelings were so present here. nghi vo refuses to miss with this series.

[Elle (ellexamines on TT & Substack) · Rating 4 out of 5]

Lovely as always. This installment of the Singing Hells novella series sees Cleric Chih returning home, giving us better backstory on our darling cleric. It plays with their complicated homecoming in a way that I enjoyed, and gives us significantly more lore on the clerics’ history. This wasn’t my favorite of the novellas, but it was still a lovely one!

[Trish · Rating 4 out of 5]

After all the adventures in the previous volumes, Cleric Chih is going home to Singing Hills Abbey. When arriving there, there are literal mammoths at the gates. Why? Well, they are at the abbey to kinda stop a funeral. Sounds weird? Well, as is pretty normal for almost every family everywhere, there are fights about the dead person's last will and Chih needs to play mediator.

I have to say, the most impactful element in this installment (apart from being reminded of a funeral or two in my own family with "warring factions") was the dead cleric's hoopoe companion's grief. That hit hard.

Finally seeing Singing Hills was pretty cool though. I hadn't expect that to happen so soon in the series, to be honest. And, as usual with these books, it was different from how I thought it would be - which is fun because one of the elements I like best about this series is the changed perspective.

As we've come accustomed to, this 4th volume, too, had the stories-within-the-story element. I've come to really looking forward to that trope as I love the layered way a story is thereby told (it's like playing chess but on 3 stacked and yet connected boards).

The writing style was as wonderful as in the other books. Simultaneously pretty and no-nonsense and nicely identifying as Chih's own narration style.

Grief, respect for people as well as their wishes, and memories being the foremost topics here made this one the darkest/saddest entry in the series thus far. But it was beautifully done.

[Ellie · Rating 5 out of 5]

A story about who we are and who we can be, coming home and making a place your home and grief, so much grief. It's a really captivating story, much like the previous in the series. Chih is the Chih we have come to know and love from the previous books. We see a new side of them - who they are when they are at home among people who know and love them.
I want to talk a bit about what this story does with the topic of grief - it's outstanding! Very emotional, going from full stupor and depression to a miraculous transformation and rebirth. There is no glossing over over the hurt and pain but ultimately there is hope and this is what matters the most.

I have nothing new to say about the writing - Nghi Vo is a master of words and her storytelling is pure magic.

CW: death, grief, violence

[Maia · Rating 5 out of 5]

Cleric Chih returns home to the Singing Hills Abbey after years of wandering and collecting stories. They are shocked to see two war mammoths and a squad of soldiers at the gates, camped out and demanding something. But the Abbey is nearly empty- almost all clerics left on a mission to preserve the history of a nearby destroyed town. And the title of Acting Divine has fallen on unlikely shoulders- one of Chih's childhood friends. Now a difficult decision will be left in under-prepared hands. This might be my favorite installment of the series yet!

[laurel [the suspected bibliophile] · Rating 5 out of 5]

This entire series is part of a band of comfort reads.

I love them so much, and this exploration of coming home and growing up, mixed with a gorgeous combination of grief for the past and those lost to time (but never memory), is so so perfect.

The amount of times I almost sobbed.

I received an ARC from NetGalley

[captain raccoon. · Rating 5 out of 5]

i asked a friend if they wanted to write this review for me because i’m still having a lot of feelings but they laughed and said no so now here i am with all my feelings and a review that won’t write itself.

mammoths at the gates is the fourth instalment in nghi vo’s utterly glorious singing hills cycle and my most favourite one yet. while these novellas can be read in any order, with the theme of stories and who gets to tell them being the golden thread that connects them all, i do feel that maybe this one benefits a smidge from being read after the others. if only to experience maximum impact when it comes to a particular reunion. but, ultimately, it doesn’t really matter where you start, just make sure that you do.

anyways. this entry sees our narrator, cleric chih, finally returning to singing hills abbey after several years away adventuring and collecting stories, only to find literal mammoths at the gates who are ready to start a war, news about the passing of a beloved mentor, and old friends. what follows is a gorgeous tale about grief, grieving, love, history, friendship, how we’re remembered, and returning home and realising/recognising that you and others have changed.

central to everything is the death of cleric thein (the aforementioned beloved mentor of chih). we learn that the mammoths belong to the family cleric thein had before they joined singing hills—and they’re willing to use them to start a war unless they can have the cleric’s body. (as an aside: i know war is terrible but there’s a part of me that’s secretly thrilled about the prospective use of mammoths here hashtag teammammoths.) as you’d expect from the death of an elder, grief becomes its own tangible thing whose ripples are felt in multiple directions. chih has to contend with the knowledge that what they knew of singing hills abbey no longer is; their reconnection with their dear childhood friend, ru, shows all the ways that time and distance can make us familiar and yet unfamiliar with someone we’ve long known. other clerics are also having to adapt to the new reality of singing hills abbey without their cleric thein.

Sometimes, you cannot survive and still be who you were.

but the biggest ripple is arguably felt in the shape of myriad virtues, a neixin and cleric thein’s companion. (neixins in this series are talking hoopoes and recorders of stories and history as they remember everything.) i somehow made it to 20% before i started crying. was perma-sniffly after that. but i lost it so fully and uncontrollably when it came to myriad virtues’ grief particularly when she said this:

We are not beasts, and I know this because no goat grieves as I do. No raven will have her own wings cut so she can no longer fly. No crocodile will bear a wound because it is better than forgetting.
I wish I were a beast.

and yeah. still not okay, in all honesty. i’m aware that it probably sounds bananas talking about how much i cried over a talking bird’s grief, but that simplifies the undeniable truth that grief is a great leveller that spares nothing or no one. hate is often considered the other side of the love coin but i remain steadfast in my belief that grief is really the opposite. how do you grieve without love? grief is, after all, love but with nowhere else to go. now imagine being myriad virtues, always remembering and never forgetting. i, too, would wish (and do wish) i were a beast.

the ending sees everything coming together for the funeral of cleric thein, and the looping back to that golden thread from this series about stories and who gets to tell them, as we learn more about them through the eyes of people who knew them at different times in their life and in different capacities. i found this section incredibly beautiful. there’s also a huge ohmigoshahhhh moment that i’m not going to spoil but just know that it’s purposeful. cathartic. symbolic. full of meaning. hopeful. unbearably right.

i do want to touch on a couple of things that i particularly loved. chih reuniting with their own neixin, almost brilliant, after a period of separation so almost brilliant could have a little bebe was just… it was everything, okay? and with that reunion brought the introduction of said bebe, chiep, who is an adorable little scene stealer. another new neixin we meet is cleverness himself, who is exactly like how you’d imagine a talking bird called cleverness himself would be. also, the scream i scrumpt at a revelation to do with him. you can’t see my face but know i’m grinning so widely thinking about it again. neixins just generally, though, play a larger role in this novella, something which i was very, very here for.

the other thing i loved is how gender is treated in this series. it’s at once not a big deal but also something which is hugely respected. like, all the clerics use they/them/their pronouns and apart from cleric thein—who from stories we learn that prior to becoming a cleric was a prominent man, husband, and father—we don’t know about assigned anything at birth and it doesn’t matter that we don’t know. ymmv, of course, about that but i found it deeply moving. there’s also a quote from ru i need to share. in asking these questions, i think they do a powerful job of quietly highlighting the fucking idiocy from anyone who thinks they have any right to question the choices of others when it comes to gender and personhood:

“Will I dishonor Cleric Thien’s memory, their chosen life and their work, and allow them to be buried under a name that is no longer their own? Is that what you are asking me?”

i’ll wrap this up by saying: to read nghi vo is to read someone at the very top of her game (seriously, everything of hers i’ve read has been all hits no misses). to read mammoths at the gates is to realise you’ve also experienced the feeling of returning home and learning things have changed. but this time you know it’s definitely you. it’s definitely okay that it’s you. because that means you’ve become a slightly different person for having been told this story. and who wouldn’t want that?

No one is as they were five years ago, or two years ago, or a week ago, or a moment ago. If you love someone, you must let them change.

[Tijana]

Čita čovek tako fentezi novelicu s mamutima pa mu krene suza usred gradskog prevoza.

U pitanju jeste standardna fentezi priča izgrađena oko jednog konkretnog sukoba dva sistema - grubo rečeno, svetovnog i manastirskog - ali i pripovetka o tome šta ostane od čoveka nakon smrti, ako ne naše uspomene i ono što o njemu pričamo i prenosimo jedni drugima, višeglasno i često protivrečno. I taj deo je istinit i životan kao što bi i najzadrtiji realist samo poželeti mogao.

[Boston · Rating 5 out of 5]

Every time a new story in this series is released, I’m convinced it’s my favorite. I think this one is actually my favorite, though.

[Raquel Flockhart · Rating 3 out of 5]

1. The Empress of Salt and Fortune ★★★★
2. When the Tiger Came Down the Mountain ★★★
3. Into the Riverlands ★★★

“It was a lesson in the purpose that Singing Hills serves, and how memory is greater than death.”

This new installment follows Chih returning to the Singing Hills Abbey after three years, where they discover their mentor has died and two sisters with royal mammoths are at the gates demanding the body. I was excited when I found out that this novella would take place in the abbey, as it’s a place that has been mentioned since The Empress of Salt and Fortune. I really liked getting to explore the aviary and the introduction of Cleverness Himself and Chiep.

This novella is a little bit different from the previous ones, as it focuses more on the present conflict rather than the story-within-a-story, with the latter element not being included until the final third. But despite that, I liked it quite a bit, especially the overall themes of grief and memories, and how the author pinpoints the fact that we may only know one version of a person. And I loved the bickering between Almost Brilliant and Cleverness Himself.

“On the border between the north and the south, the nights cast long shadows, and sometimes, the only thing you can do to drive back the things that live in darkness is to tell stories.”

ARC provided by the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

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[Carrot :3 (on a hiatus) · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 stars.

It felt good to be back in this world. The world building was excellent. Loved the sections with Almost Brilliant. The focus in this one, is on grief, changes and returning home.

The plot kinda felt like a breather/filler section in a bigger fantasy plot. I just expected a little more action to keep it more interesting.

Nonetheless, fans of the series will surely enjoy this.

[Beth · Rating 4 out of 5]

I realized I'd skipped the third of this series of short novellas about 30 pages in, but this series is meant to be read as standalones, and no direct reference is made to any of the events in the other books.

In a story about memories, maybe that's a little strange, but you could also argue that not every event in our own lives has structural, thematic or sequential elements that connect to every other one. In any case, this one's about a loss at the Singing Hills abbey, and about the neixin (therefore their predominance on the cover), and our becoming memories for others as we go through our lives, and how those memories can vary from each other so much as to be unrecognizable to different people we've known. How home, and its residents, can move on and change after we're gone for a while, and how conflict can start when our perceptions of them haven't changed yet.

It's also about grief, and dealing with the physical objects the dead leave behind. Anyone who's experienced either will likely find some points of recognition here, even if they don't have a magical hoopoe around to remember every family story word for word.

[Hannah (hngisreading) · Rating 4 out of 5]

Definitely the best of this series so far! I was riveted.

[Tammie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Thank you to the publisher for providing me with an e-ARC in exchange for an honest review!

Nghi Vo has done it again. I think this may be my second favourite entry in the series (a very close second to The Empress of Salt and Fortune). Unlike the previous three books in the series, we are not following Chih as they travel the lands in search for stories. Instead, they find themselves back home at the Singing Hills Abbey for the first time in years, and we get a glimpse into their past.

This novella deals with themes of grief, change, friendship, and as always, the role of storytelling in all of this. I've loved every entry in this series, but I think this is the only one that gives me the same feeling that I felt when I read Empress for the first time. It's emotional and heartfelt, but there's also a sense of melancholy and nostalgia that I can't quite put my finger on.

I won't say too much since it is only a short novella, and the fourth in the series, but I cannot stress enough how incredible this series is as a whole. Each entry is a standalone of sorts, but they all work together to create this beautiful and lush world, and I am so grateful to be able to spend more time in this world. I've said before that I think the first three books can all be entry points into the series (though I do still recommend reading Empress first), but I would say that this is the first book in the series that truly feels like a sequel that you can't really just go into without having read the previous entries. Another absolutely stunning entry into The Singing Hills Cycle, and one that I think will resonate with anyone who has ever had to deal with loss and grief.

[CaseyTheCanadianLesbrarian · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was a welcome change from Cleric Chih's wandering adventures, as this time the adventure comes home with them as they return to Singing Hills abbey. A lot here about memory, story, and grief. Beautiful and oddly soothing, for a book about returning home to find your mentor has died and their grandkids are beating down the gates with mammoths.

Great audiobook performance by Cindy Kay!

[Zala · Rating 3 out of 5]

gotta reread this one sometime. wasn't in the right mood for this kind of read.

[jagodasbooks · Rating 3 out of 5]

nice

[PlotTrysts · Rating 5 out of 5]

Mammoths at the Gates is a part of the Singing Hills Cycle, a series of interconnected novellas about the cleric Chih. Chih travels the world gathering stories to add to their abbey's archives along with their "neixin," a sentient bird (hoopoe) who forgets nothing. In this entry, Chih has returned to the abbey only to find it threatened by war mammoths, whose riders are there to take the body of their grandfather home with them. Like all of the books in the series, it investigates narrative and perspective: for Chih, the dead person is an honored cleric whose body should not leave the abbey. To the warriors, who never met their grandfather, he is a man who should be laid to rest near their grandmother And for the dead cleric's neixin, they are something else entirely. It's a story about grief, change, and the complexity of humanity.

[Rian *fire and books* · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was unequivocally the funniest installment yet. Sure, it’s melancholic and dealing with grief in the classic Nghi Vo way… but my god this is hysterical.

I am in love with every new character we met - except that one sister.

This was a joy to read and I hope it won’t be the last book. I will hope that we get a book every year for how lovely and brilliant they are.

[Danny_reads · Rating 5 out of 5]

This series just gets better and better with each installment. I think I finally understand why so many people fawn over this series.

I absolutely adored this novella - I love how it explored grief and memory, and I also loved that we got to learn a bit more about Cleric Chih and the neixin.

This was so good and I can't wait for the 5th book!