Mammoths at the Gates
Nghi Vo
Home and a funeral
Mammoths at the Gates is the fourth book in Nghi Vo's Singing Hills cycle. By now I have it down to a routine. I preorder the book as soon as that becomes possible. Shortly after midnight Eastern Time on a Tuesday morning it appears on my kindle. I read it -- this takes less than two hours. Then I write a quick review and am ready to post it when Amazon is ready to accept reviews at 3:00 Eastern.
Mammoths felt different. Chih and Almost Brilliant (she's back, and we meet her cute new chick Chiep) are not just recorders. They are participants in the story. The story begins when Chih returns home to Singing Hills Abbey to find, you guessed it -- Mammoths at the Gates. It transpires that one of the elder clerics has died, and since they were a prominent man before becoming a cleric of Singing Hills, there is some dispute about the disposition of the body.
There is a funeral and stories are told about the cleric who is gone. The question of how his remains are to be handled is resolved in an unusual way.
This story is less fun and more affecting than the previous entries in the Singing Hills cycle. And when it's done we understand much better what Singing Hills is, how it works, and who Chih is and where they came from.