Into the Riverlands

They had been given to Singing Hills at the age of two. They didn’t remember a time when they hadn’t been asked to see and to remember, to recite back with accuracy and to ask for the truth in whatever form it came in. Along with the food they ate, they took in the knowledge of how important their work was.

This book certainly retains a lot of the charm of the previous two in the series. However, I'm sad to say it left me somewhat less engrossed. Perhaps even—*gasp*—a little detached. I appreciate how the author once again found a new way to play with the story-within-a-story structure and explore the nature of storytelling. However, in this case, I feel like the selected narrative devices and methods didn't fit the confines of a novella. With the narrative being less focused, it begged for some room to breathe, and 100 pages just can't deliver much of that. There were definitely parts of the book that I adored, the ones where the special essence of the Riverlands came to the forefront, and I would have so loved to spend more time journey through this region and getting to know the tapestry of stories it's made of. The lack of it feels almost like a missed opportunity.

On the other hand, it was lovely to see more of Chih and to witness them coming more into their own as an actual character and not just the one who records others' stories. I really liked seeing them contemplate the concepts the narrative is made of, question things that appeared unquestionable before, come to their own conclusion. And Almost Brilliant, the best bird, is back again here, too! Somehow, their interactions with Chih here were even more compelling to me than in the first novella. I also adore how the setting continues to be so vibrant and rich and layered. No matter how I felt about the plot in this book, I continue loving the series and am looking forward to further explorations of storyteling in the next installments.

The third book (out of four?) continues on the same storytelling vein as the first two, in that it's a standalone tale that thematically is about the nature of stories. All three of these first books could be read in any order, as the only continuity is the archivist monk Chih and their bird[*] friend Almost Brilliant.

What I most enjoyed about this novella was the strongly intertwined past and present stories (even more than the first book), and also the themes of how stories are distorted based on both what people want to hear and how people want their own stories to be told.

All three of these books have been enjoyable in their own different ways, but I feel like the story arc of this book had the most satisfying closure to it, such that I would probably recommend this one as the strongest one to start with if somebody was interested.

[*] disputed