When the Tiger Came Down the Mountain

By Nghi Vo

From Locus and Ignyte finalist, Crawford Award winner, and bestselling author Nghi Vo comes the second installment in a Hugo Award-winning series

"A stunning gem of a novella that explores the complexity and layers of storytelling and celebrates the wonder of queer love. I could read about Chih recording tales forever."—Samantha Shannon, New York Times bestselling author of The Priory of the Orange Tree

"Nghi Vo is one of the most original writers we have today."—Taylor Jenkins Reid on Siren Queen

The cleric Chih finds themself and their companions at the mercy of a band of fierce tigers who ache with hunger. To stay alive until the mammoths can save them, Chih must unwind the intricate, layered story of the tiger and her scholar lover—a woman of courage, intelligence, and beauty—and discover how truth can survive becoming history.

Nghi Vo returns to the empire of Ahn and The Singing Hills Cycle in When the Tiger Came Down the Mountain, a mesmerizing, lush standalone follow-up to The Empress of Salt and Fortune.

The Hugo Award-winning Singing Hills Cycle

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

The novellas of The Singing Hills Cycle are linked by the cleric Chih, but may be read in any order, with each story serving as an entry point.

At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Macmillan Publishers
• Release date: Dec 8, 2020
• ISBN: 9781250786166

Nghi Vo

Nghi Vo is the author of the novels Siren Queen and The Chosen and the Beautiful, as well as the acclaimed novellas of the Singing Hills Cycle, which began with The Empress of Salt and Fortune. The series entries have been finalists for the Nebula Award, the Locus Award, and the Lambda Literary Award, and have won the Crawford Award, the Ignyte Award, and the Hugo Award. Born in Illinois, she now lives on the shores of Lake Michigan. She believes in the ritual of lipstick, the power of stories, and the right to change your mind.

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Reviews for When the Tiger Came Down the Mountain

[Sheena Gurbakhash · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

beautiful and mysterious. We meet Chih the Cleric who wanders around collecting stories from the unlikeliest places and beings. Collecting stories is not for the faint of heart more so when there are tigers in the mix. Loved this and the Empress of Sea and Salt.

[gwendydd · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

A traveling historian is captured by creatures who can shape-shift between women and tigers. The historian and the tigers compare their versions of several stories of tiger history.Like the previous book in the series, the deceptively simple writing tells some very complex stories. The writing is beautiful and captivating.I listened to the audiobook, which was unfortunately a bit confusing because the narrator didn't always make it clear whether it was a human or a tiger speaking, and I got confused a few times.

[greeniezona · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

A sequel in that this story is another that the Cleric Chih must unravel -- so more a second story in a shared universe, as it does not follow most characters from the previous book. (Could easily be read as a stand-alone.)Listen, though. SHAPE SHIFTING TIGERS. Also, more war mammoths. Poetry, queer love, and the power of stores -- and how they shift and what is lost when they are told and retold, shaped by new tellers.The third novella comes out soon and I am impatient!

[glennis.leblanc · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

This novella is set in the same universe but stands alone and can be read without having read The Empress of Salt and Fortune. A cleric has taken a routine trip in the mountains and is trapped in a barn by three tigers. Chih only safety is under the legs of the mammoth they rode on with the mammoth rider. A bargain very much like Scheherazade’s of telling a tale in order to pass the time and hopefully escape becoming dinner for the three tiger ladies. The tale is told two ways first by Chih and then by the lead tiger lady correcting all the wrong ways the tale of scholar and her tiger lover has been told to the cleric. Chin dutifully writes down the corrections in order for the truth of the story to come out even if they do not make it out of the claws of the tiger ladies.


Digital review copy provided by the publisher through Netgalley

[niaomiya · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

This was a quick, enjoyable read -- a fable for adults. I have not read Nghi Vo's acclaimed novella "The Empress of Salt and Fortune" -- the 1st in the Singing Hills Cycle -- and I did not need to have done so in order to enjoy this follow-up novella. However, after reading this second novella in the cycle, I definitely want to go back and read #1. I rated this book 4 stars here, but it's really more like 4.5 stars. (I wish we could do 1/2 star increments!)Chih, a gender-nonspecific cleric who is described throughout the novella with the pronouns "them" and "they," hires a mammoth scout, Si-yu, to take them up Kihir Pass -- for what reason we never know, but along the way the party encounters a trio of hungry tigers. The only way for the party to stay alive is for Chih to tell the legendary story of the tiger Ho Thi Thao and her human scholar lover Dieu. If the tigers do not like the way Chih tells the story, the tigers will eat Chih and their companions."When the Tiger Came Down the Mountain" is a beautiful example of storytelling at its simplest and most captivating. Chih tells what they know from how the story was passed down to them through history, and the tigers tell their version of the same story. Which version is actually accurate? We don't know, and it doesn't matter, because we are entranced by all of it. This story-within-a-story was a fast read and an absolute delight. The only thing preventing me from giving it 5 stars was that there was never any explanation of the role that the character Bao-so plays; I felt I was missing something significant that was never revealed.

[wanderlustlover_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I continue to madly love everything in The Singing Hills Cycle. This time we came to the tales from the tigers, learning of love and loyalty and truth the way tiger's do, and it was so fascinating woven. I can't wait to dive into book 2.

[anniemod · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Chih, a cleric and a historian from the Singing Hills Monastery, is traveling around the country with Almost Brilliant, a talking neixin/hoopoe bird with perfect recall, collecting stories and memories. And one day, they get snowed in with shapeshifting tigers - and Chih gets to hear a story they think they know from a different perspective. While the first novella in the series was all about women empowerment and choices, this one is all about how stories and truth connect and what makes a story (of course, there is also the actual story under all of that and some not very comfortable moments for our travelers (hungry tigers can be a problem)). Looking back, the first novella touched on that as well - what is remembered vs. what really happened are different things and that is one of the reasons why the clerics of the Singing Hills Monastery travel and collect stories - multiple versions of the same stories because everyone has their own story even when they talk about the same events. Taken on its own, this novella is a reminder of how easy it is to blame and believe what other people tell you mixed together with a story of survival and grace. Taken together with the first novella, it is a chapter of the history of a magical land that draws you in and make you want to read more.

[xaverie_1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Nghi Vo can make you feel more for multiple characters in 100 pages than others authors can in a 1000.

[beserene · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

A companion novella; you don't have to read the first one, but I was glad I had... and just as impressed with the mythic storytelling here as in the first. These books have a measured pace and an ageless, even tone due to the elegant prose and the voice of the main character, an archivist of extraordinary fortitude, as well as the rich folklore from which the author draws inspiration. Gorgeous and a quick read -- the best of both worlds.

[fred_mouse · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Archivist Chih and their guide (whose name I should remember, and don't, because I'm writing this some time after reading the book) go in to the mountains, and get both snowed in, and captured by hungry shape-shifting tigers -- one who stays in human form most of the time, while the two (younger sisters) stay as tigers. In time-honoured tradition for trying to stay alive, Chih offers to tell a story, and the tigers request what is known of one of their ancestors. Quite a different story from the first, for all that they are both about stories told to (and by) the Chih. The story that Chih knows and tells is quite different from the version that the tigers wish to hear. There is much subtle commentary about what counts as the accepted version, and who gets to determine that -- and what causes there are for which story gets told.

[acdha-128111 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I want more in this world

[tornadox-962417 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Chih returns in a new tale. Threatened by tigers, they tell a story in an attempt to prolong their life (as well as the mammoth scout and her mount). Occasionally, the tigers provide commentary, giving Chih a fascinating glimpse into tiger culture.

It's all about storytelling- who tells the tales, what the audience is expected to understand, and how the same event can be interpreted very, very differently. It subtly builds the world introduced in The Empress of Salt and Fortune.

[inquisitrix · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

“The novelty wore off, but the wonder didn’t…”This paragraph opening on page 11 of Nghi Vo’s novella When the Tiger Came Down the Mountain, my #sfnovellaofthemonth for June 2021, describes its protagonist’s experience during a ride up a mountain on the back of a mammoth bedecked with iron bells. It equally describes the way this protagonist—a cleric named Chih who belongs to a monastic order concerned with the collection of stories—feels throughout the book. Chih’s open-eyed, open-minded, and open-hearted perspective, i.e., the perspective of someone whose work of collecting stories has inadvertently made them the stuff of stories in their own right, provides readers with a welcoming viewpoint from which to take in both Chih’s story and the story they must tell—correctly—to avoid being eaten by tigers.When the Tiger Came Down the Mountain, is, of course, a book about tigers. It is also a book about travellers, scholars, lovers, listeners, purpose, betrayal, and forgiveness. Above all, though, this book is concerned with stories. To whom do stories belong? How can a storyteller know that the version of a story they are telling is true? When a story is the product of more than one culture, how can a version told by only one of those cultures reflect the truth of the other? These questions, and more, are raised by the tigers’ frequent interruptions to point out where Chih’s rendition of the story is, by tiger standards, incorrect, unfair, or wrong.There are many things to love about this novella. Its language is elegant, its settings vivid, its characters spirited and engaging. Its brevity belies the complexity of its themes, but does not cheat them of due consideration. It is a book that will reward readers who return to it more than once.Delightfully, this novella is part of a cycle—along with The Empress of Salt and Fortune, the forthcoming Into the Riverlands, and two further novellas not yet publicly named—of books featuring Chih. While When the Tiger Came Down the Mountain was published second, the books in the cycle can be read in any order. It seems appropriate, and in keeping with Vo’s complex and subtle ideas about stories and storytelling, that these stories not be locked into serial order.I received a digital copy of this book for free, as Tor.com’s eBook of the Month Club selection for May 2021. I suspect I will snap up the other volumes in the Singing Hills Cycle as soon as possible—and will very much look forward to reading Nghi Vo’s full-length novels.

[shrike58 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

The second of Nghi Vo's stories of the Cleric Chih, and their mission to collect stories and history. Whereas the "The Empress of Salt and Fortune" was downright revelatory, this story, involving Chih having to talk their way out of an encounter with tigers is merely very, very, good. It'll be interesting to see where this cycle ultimately ends up.

[thedivineoomba · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

This is another fantastic story by Nghi Vo. This time, the story is smaller and includes Tigers! To save their lives, the cleric Chih finds herself telling a story Dieu and the Tiger Ho Thi Thao. Each culture has its own version, but telling the story incorrectly will mean death to the cleric.This story isn't as large as the author's previous one, but at the same time, it is told with the same amount of intricacy, and how the story is the same, but different, between the two cultures is handled beautifully. This story is told beautifully and with empathy, but manages to stay true the fear of being eaten by tigers.I think I like this one more than than Vo's first novel, the Empress of Salt and Fortune.

[crystalcarroll · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Really interesting method of examining how different peoples (or tigers and people in this case) tell different aspects and views of a story.

[liscarey · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Cleric Chih has set out on another mission to gather stories for the Singing Hills abbey, this time without Almost Brilliant, the talking bird who normally accompanies them. They are headed up and over the mountains, it's too cold, and Almost Brilliant is sitting a clutch of eggs. Chih misses the bird, but they have a job to do.However, along the way, they find a young mammoth scout and her mammoth to take them over the heights to enable them to reach their destination. Riding a mammoth is a learning experience for Chih, which, after all, is what they are out here for.It's unfortunate that even as the are getting close to the way station where they will spend the night, a group of three tigers finds their trail and hunts them the rest of the way to the station. The keeper of the way station, Bao-so, is nearly killed, but the skilled riding of the mammoth scout, Si-yu, and the steadiness and determination of the mammoth, Piluk make possible Bao-so's rescue and their entry into the barn. Piluk turns around to face the tigers, and they won't charge her, but they also won't leave. A temporary truce is negotiated, in which the tigers won't try to attack them as long as Chih keeps them properly entertained with telling a story about a tiger and her human lover. They might even let the three humans live, if the story is good enough.Which, in part, means not too far off the tigers' own version of the same story.The human story is focused on Dieu, the woman who is the tiger's lover. It leaves out things that are important to the tigers, and reflects the culture of the human empire of Anh, not the culture of the tigers.Chih tells the story they know, and accepts and writes down all the "corrections"--some corrections, and more expansion and addition of the tiger Ho Thi Thao's perspective and cultural viewpoint. We get the story of Dieu, a scholar on her way to the capital to take the exams that will enable her to become an imperial official, and of Ho Thi Thao, the tiger who might easily have decided to eat her--and does eat her favorite book. Instead, Dieu recites poetry, and Ho Thi Thao rescues her from a very sticky situation, and they become lovers. And then there is misunderstanding and betrayal, and the possibility of worse.We also get the story of Chih and Si-yu trying to keep the tigers sufficiently engaged in the story that the tigers don't decide to eat them before help can arrive.It's a rich, fascinating story, that deepens the world-building of the world of the Anh empire. We also learn more of Chih, seeing more of their personality--their intelligence, flexibility, and impulsivity. We get a fuller, better understanding of Chih.The tigers that might eat them are also entertaining characters, three sisters, opinionated, contentious, squabbling as siblings often do.I really enjoyed this. Highly recommended.I received this novella free as part of Tor's monthly free ebook program, and am reviewing it voluntarily.

[krau0098 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Series Info/Source: This is the second novella in the Singing Hill Cycle. I bought a copy of this for my Kindle.Story (4/5): This story continues to follow the cleric Chih on their journeys. This time they find themselves trapped by a fierce band of tigers and forced to tell stories until a mammoth tribe can come to save them. While this still employs a very clever method of telling stories within stories, I didn’t enjoy it quite as much as the first book in this series. I just didn’t find the story within the story quite as fascinating and in depth as it unraveled.Characters (4/5): The characters were all enjoyable. I really enjoyed the mammoth rider who accompanies Chih and the tiger women were well done too. This was more about the story and the method of delaying the tigers than the characters themselves this time.Setting (4/5): I enjoyed the frozen mountain setting and really liked the culture that was formed completely around the mammoths that live there. It was very well done. On a side note, I would have liked to be reading about a warmer setting given my current real life frozen setting!Writing Style (5/5): This was again beautifully written and I love the method of nesting stories within stories. I did feel like this book wasn’t quite as well done as the first one. However, I still really enjoyed it. It is a quick and beautiful read that conveys a wonderful story. Vo is definitely a wonderful storyteller that is focused on the art of telling a good story in an amazing format. My Summary (4/5): Overall I really enjoyed this but didn’t love it as much as the first book in the series. It was beautifully written and I loved the location that Chih journeys to. I love the concept of nesting stories as well, but just didn’t find the nested stories quite as fascinating in this case. I would definitely recommend to those who enjoy stories within stories, this is very well done.

[quondame · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

A story is told within the story, swapped back and forth between a cleric on a journey and a trio of tigers that has him, his guide, and the mammoth mount trapped at a way station with an injured keeper. Not quite Rashomon but tigers do see things differently.

[khimaera · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Zoom in on a lone way station in the northern mountains with a wintry storm on the way. The visitors, one Cleric Chih of the abbey of Singing Hills, the brash and bold Si-Yu of the Mammoth Corps, the mammoth Piluk, and injured Bao-so, caretaker of the way station didn’t make it as far as the main building. Look in on the barn and a blazing bonfire between the cold visitors and three hungry tiger sisters lazing at the open entrance with darkness descending behind them. Chih is quite glad her steadfast companion, the hoopoe/neixin Almost Brilliant is not here to mock them for talking to them, but what is one supposed to do when tigers start talking to you? Talk back respectfully as if your life depends upon it.In this second delightful volume of the Singing Hills Cycle, it has fallen upon Chih to play storyteller and convince the tiger sisters, who shift back and forth between human and feline at will, that they are people and valuable enough not to eat for a late-night snack. They settle on the tale of Ho Thi Thao, one of the greatest of tiger ancestors, and her adventurous, lustful courtship with Scholar Dieu who was on her way to the most important test of her life at the Hall of Ferocious Jade to become an imperial functionary. And so the cultural exchange begins.Along the journey, you’ll visit a legendary cave of relics, a haunted forest, the capital of the Ahn Empire, and maybe learn something about the marital rituals of tigers. This is a tale of how we tell stories to ourselves and share them with one another. How might our perspectives and desires warp the truth of an historical moment? We are given playful, dueling narratives between Chih and the elder tigress Sinh Loan with an undercurrent of menace. How do you find the balance between one side and another? In a particularly amusing moment, Chih’s answer to this conundrum is footnotes. If Chih and their companions manage to survive the night, maybe we’ll be lucky enough to visit with them again.

[midnightbex_1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

With enchanting lyrical prose, Nghi Vo weaves a new tale that lives up to the heights of “The Empress of Salt and Fortune”. This time we join Chih north of the snowline as they climb aboard the back of a lesser mammoth and head unknowingly into the jaws of danger. When the journey leads them directly into the path of three tiger sisters, Chih must keep their wits about them and transform from a recorder of tales into a storyteller. Their only hope lies in keeping the tigers enthralled long enough for rescue to arrive. “When the Tiger Came Down The Mountain” manages to be both a comfortingly familiar fireside tale and a transportive journey to a vibrant other world. While “Empress” showed that Vo was a talented wordsmith, “Tiger” proves that she is a master craftsman. Words in Vo’s hand transmute from the familiar into the magical. The simplest seeming turn of phrase leaps strikingly from the page and transforms into a marvel. Evocative and lushly written, this novella is, to put it simply, beautiful.An egalley of this book was provided by the publisher in exchange for an honest review