Made up of three short novels: Empress of Salt and Fortune, When the Tiger Came Down the Mountain, and Into the Riverlands, this series celebrates great storytelling with some pretty good storytelling of its own. Along for the ride is a fantasy setting akin to ancient China, with talking tigers, spooky ghosts and war mammoths.
This series has a comforting feel to it – the writer has somehow captured the feeling despite the characters being in dangerous places and situations. Part of it is a sense of journey and exploration, and we follow the cleric Chih on their mission to chronicle the stories of the land on behalf of their temple. Chih is always on the move, hearing the stories of others and occasionally telling their own. This clever device maximizes the stories we get, and avoids what might be at first glance a more dramatic choice if Chih was a martial arts expert or something.
Of the three novels I preferred the first, Empress of Salt and Fortune but they were all quite good. Chih is an observer and because the stories are short there isn’t much development in them, but rather a revealing of something else entirely. I wonder if this kind of story could work in a longer novel, and hopefully the author is experimenting with that for the future. I am looking forward to reading more!
Next I am reading The Storied Life of A.J. Fikry by Gabrielle Zevin.
