A mouthful of dust

A mouthful of dust

Nghi Vo

Book - 2025

"Hunger makes monsters in this dark new tale in Nghi Vo's Hugo Award-winning Singing Hills Cycle. "Nghi Vo is so good."-NPR on The Brides of High Hill Wandering Cleric Chih of Singing Hills and their hoopoe companion Almost Brilliant come to the river town of Baolin chasing stories of a legendary famine. Amid tales of dishes served to royalty and desserts made of dust, they discover the secrets of what happens when hunger stalks the land and what the powerful will do to hide their crimes. Trapped in the mansion of a sinister magistrate, Chih and Almost Brilliant must learn what happened in Baolin when the famine came to call, and they must do so quickly...because the things in the shadows are only growing hungrier. The S...inging Hills Cycle has been shortlisted for the Lambda Literary Award, the Locus Award, and the Ignyte Award, and has won the Crawford Award and the Hugo Award. The novellas are standalone stories linked by the Cleric Chih, and may be read in any order. The Empress of Salt and Fortune When the Tiger Came Down the Mountain Into the Riverlands Mammoths at the Gates The Brides of High Hill A Mouthful of Dust"-- Provided by publisher.

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SCIENCE FICTION/Vo Nghi
0 / 1 copies available
Location Call Number   Status
1st Floor New Shelf SCIENCE FICTION/Vo Nghi (NEW SHELF) Due Dec 15, 2025
Subjects
Gender-nonconforming people > Fiction.
Martial artists > Fiction.
Storytelling > Fiction.
Famines > Fiction.
Hunger > Fiction.
Monsters > Fiction.
China > Fiction.
novellas.
Fantasy fiction.
Novellas.
Fiction.
Romans.
Genres
novellas
Fantasy fiction
Novellas
Fiction
Romans
Published
New York : Tordotcom/Tor Publishing Group 2025.
Language
English
Main Author
Nghi Vo (author)
Edition
First edition
Physical Description
97 pages ; 21 cm
ISBN
9781250386403
Contents unavailable.
Review by Booklist Review

In the next volume in Vo's Singing Hills cycle (following The Brides of High Hill, 2024), cleric Chih is on their way into a region famous for two things: the horrendous famine that hit back in the day, and the delicious pork. Chih quickly gets into hot water as people are reluctant to let them hear the true stories of the traumatic turns and interpersonal horrors that the famine caused. But accompanied by their neixin, Almost Brilliant, and a small, white kitten they found on the road, Chih pursues their vocation and attempts to dig out all the stories they can--true, false, and whatever comes in between. The Singing Hills cycle has been a marvelous way for Vo to showcase her rich myth building and storytelling; each volume is rooted in the same familiar protagonist while also exploring entirely new, fresh legends, histories, and settings. This novella is particularly successful, telling a dark, suspenseful story full of dread, where Chih and the reader both want to know and don't want to know the full truth, and where the wings of famine and its ghosts haunt dark corridors and too-full graveyards. A shivery, dark addition to a superb series.

From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.

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