100 pages
Published 2022
Read January 17
Rating: 4 out of 5
This is the third book in the Singing Hills series, after The Empress of Salt and Fortune and When the Tiger Came Down the Mountain. (Unrelated to anything, but this is the third time I’ve read the third installment in a series so far this month.)
We find historian cleric Chih and their hoopoe companion Almost Brilliant entering the riverlands, a region famed for its martial artistry. The two fall in with two pairs of fellow-travelers after an altercation, and Chih, naturally, collects the stories they all have to tell. Some of the tales are about a bygone bandit band, the Hollow Hand, who once counted necromantic sorcerers among their ranks. But perhaps the Hollow Hand isn’t finished in the Riverlands, after all. And of course Chih’s new companions are more than they seem.
Like every installment of the Singing Hills cycle so far, Riverlands is sumptuous and evocative, well worth savoring. I am continually impressed by Vo’s skill at establishing setting and character, creating vivid sketches of new characters and making it look effortless. The world feels simultaneously vast and intimate, every thread hitched together as if the stories could go on forever.
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