A Long and Speaking Silence

by Nghi Vo

Genres: Fantasy
Pages: 128
Series: The Singing Hills Cycle #7
Rating:

Synopsis:

Every story begins somewhere.

On the banks of the Ya-lé River, the town of Luntien gathers to celebrate the start of the rainy season, but the celebration is marred by the arrival of refugees from the sea. Everyone has a story about the foreigners newly in their midst―lazy, violent, unwanted―while the refugees themselves grieve the loss of the home they loved.

Cleric Chih, very recently still Novice Chih, is also a stranger in Luntien. A moment of carelessness and bad luck leaves them waiting tables as they struggle to establish themself as a real cleric. A cleric’s job is to listen and record, but the stories emerging in Luntien are ugly and violent, as hard to predict as the river itself. With their hoopoe companion Almost Brilliant by their side, Chih must help the refugees while also unraveling a mystery that may have roots in their own faraway home in the abbey of Singing Hills.

In the seventh entry of the award-winning Singing Hills series, we meet Chih and Almost Brilliant just beginning their journey together as Chih assumes their place on the road and in the world.

The new book in Nghi Vo’s Singing Hills series, A Long and Speaking Silence, actually takes us to the very start of Chih’s work as a cleric. They’re uncertain, easily robbed, unsure of their place and their right to do what they’re doing, and even Almost Brilliant is a little bit green… but there are always stories to learn and stories to tell. I really like seeing the start of Chih’s work as a cleric: it makes it clear how much they’ve grown.

The fact that much of the story focuses on an influx of refugees into the city feels neverendingly topical these days, with Chih sympathetic and well meaning, yet sometimes still ignorant and unintentionally offensive. I wonder if maybe it feels a bit heavy-handed, even though it’s also giving us more of the world Chih lives in, more excuses for stories; I think on balance it worked for me, but I can see some people finding it bit too topical.

I do wish there were more stories being told to Chih, as in the first two books and (to some extent) A Mouthful of Dust; it feels like quite a few of the stories are Chih getting involved in events themselves, while I really liked the way the stories Chih was told did most of the worldbuilding and heavy lifting.

Still, I enjoyed A Long and Speaking Silence a lot, and enjoyed Chih putting the pieces of a particular story related to Singing Hills together (which I shan’t spoiler).

Rating: 4/5 (“really liked it”)