Nghi Vo

Octavia E. Butler said, “There’s nothing new under the sun, but there are new suns.”New Suns 2 brings you fresh visions of the strange, the unexpected, the shocking—breakthrough stories, stories shining with emerging truths, stories that pierce stale preconceptions with their beauty and bravery. Like the first New Suns anthology (winner of the World Fantasy, Locus, IGNYTE, and British Fantasy awards), this book liberates writers of many races to tell us tales no one has ever told.Many things come in twos: dualities, binaries, halves, and alternates. Twos are found throughout New Suns 2, in eighteen science fiction, fantasy, and horror stories revealing daring futures, hidden pasts, and present-day worlds filled with unmapped wonders.Including stories by Daniel H. Wilson, K. Tempest Bradford, Darcie Little Badger, Geetanjali Vandemark, John Chu, Nghi Vo, Tananarive Due, Alex Jennings, Karin Lowachee, Saad Hossain, Hiromi Goto, Minsoo Kang, Tlotlo Tsamaase, Rochita Loenen-Ruiz, Malka Older, Kathleen Alcalá, Christopher Caldwell and Jaymee Goh with a foreword by Walter Mosley and an afterword by Dr. Grace Dillon.

A dark and magical tale of ballrooms and bloodshed in the Gilded Age, from multi-award winning fantasy author Nghi Vo. Judith Ban – convent girl, courtesan, and failed thief – is looking for her next identity. She’s no stranger to wealth or danger, but the glitter of New York’s Gilded Age hides a darkness even she has never imagined. Here, the city’s elite maintain their grip through opulent balls, whispered rituals, and marriages with demons hungry for human devotion. When she crosses paths with the formidable matriarch of the Howard family, Judith is offered an irresistible bargain: to take the place of a missing debutante in the coming season. With Miss Iphigenia Marshall’s face stitched over her own, Judith becomes white, rich, and ready to risk it all. If she can hold onto her charm, her wits, and her life, her reward will be a husband with undreamt-of power. But in a world ruled by appetite and ambition, the most dangerous hunger of all might be her own. -------- PRAISE FOR NGHI VO: 'Nghi Vo’s perfectly honed prose embodies the intoxicating, knife-sharp dazzle of cruel wealth and hollow people. This book is as sharp and strange as the taste of a licked silver spoon –it’s breathtaking.' – Shelley Parker-Chan (on The Chosen and the Beautiful) 'Searing and seductive... the kind of book that leaves you wrecked on its shores.' – Alix E. Harrow (on Siren Queen) 'Nghi Vo is one of the most original writers we have today.' – Taylor Jenkins Reid (on Siren Queen)

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 HillWandering 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 Singing 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 FortuneWhen the Tiger Came Down the MountainInto the RiverlandsMammoths at the GatesThe Brides of High HillA Mouthful of Dust

A USA Today bestseller From award-winning author Nghi Vo comes Don't Sleep with the Dead, a standalone companion novella to The Chosen and the Beautiful, her acclaimed reimagining of The Great Gatsby. "A vibrant and queer reinvention of F. Scott Fitzgerald's jazz age classic. . . . I was captivated from the first sentence."―NPR on The Chosen and the Beautiful Nick Carraway―paper soldier and novelist―has found a life and a living watching the mad magical spectacle of New York high society in the late thirties. He's good at watching, and he's even better at pretending: pretending to be straight, pretending to be human, pretending he's forgotten the events of that summer in 1922. On the eve of the second World War, however, Nick learns that someone's been watching him pretend and that memory goes both ways. When he sees a familiar face one very dark night, it quickly becomes clear that dead or not, damned or not, Jay Gatsby isn't done with him. In all paper there is memory, and Nick's ghost has come home.

In this new standalone novel, Hugo Award-winning author Nghi Vo introduces a beguiling fantasy city in the tradition of Calvino, Mieville, and Le Guin. An NPR Best Book of the Year An Amazon Best of the Month pick in SF&F A Publishers Weekly Top 10 Fall 2024 SF&F pick A demon. An angel. A city. The demon Vitrine--immortal, powerful, and capricious--loves the dazzling city of Azril. She has mothered, married, and maddened the city and its people for generations, and built it into a place of joy and desire, revelry and riot. And then the angels come, and the city falls. Vitrine is left with nothing but memories and a book containing the names of those she has lost--and an angel, now bound by her mad, grief-stricken curse to haunt the city he burned. She mourns her dead and rages against the angel she longs to destroy. Made to be each other's devastation, angel and demon are destined for eternal battle. Instead, they find themselves locked in a devouring fascination that will change them both forever. Together, they unearth the past of the lost city and begin to shape its future. But when war threatens Azril and everything they have built, Vitrine and her angel must decide whether they will let the city fall again. The City in Glass is both a brilliantly constructed history and an epic love story, of death and resurrection, memory and transformation, redemption and desire strong enough to reduce a world to ashes and remake it anew.

The Cleric Chih accompanies a beautiful young bride to her wedding to the aging ruler of a crumbling estate situated at the crossroads of dead empires. The bride's party is welcomed with elaborate courtesies and extravagant banquets, but between the frightened servants and the cryptic warnings of the lord's mad son, they quickly realise that something is haunting the shadowed halls. As Chih and the bride-to-be explore empty rooms and desolate courtyards, they are drawn into the mystery of what became of Lord Guo's previous wives and the dark history of Do Cao itself. But as the wedding night draws to its close, Chih will learn at their peril that not all monsters are to be found in the shadows; some monsters hide in plain sight. The Singing 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 wandering Cleric Chih returns home to the Singing Hills Abbey for the first time in almost three years, to be met with both joy and sorrow. Their mentor, Cleric Thien, has died, and rests among the archivists and storytellers of the storied abbey. But not everyone is prepared to leave them to their rest. Because Cleric Thien was once the patriarch of Coh clan of Northern Bell Pass - -and now their granddaughters have arrived on the backs of royal mammoths, demanding their grandfather’s body for burial. Chih must somehow balance honouring their mentor’s chosen life while keeping the sisters from the north from storming the gates and destroying the history the clerics have worked so hard to preserve. But as Chih and their neixin Almost Brilliant navigate the looming crisis, Myriad Virtues, Cleric Thien’s own beloved hoopoe companion, grieves her loss as only a being with perfect memory can, and her sorrow may be more powerful than anyone could anticipate. . .

"Lyrical, mesmerizing, and otherworldly. . . stunning proof that Nghi Vo is one of the most original writers we have today. A beautiful, brutal, monstrous Hollywood fantasy."--Taylor Jenkins Reid, New York Times bestselling author of The Seven Husbands of Evelyn HugoImmortality is just a casting call away. World Fantasy Award FinalistLocus Award FinalistIgnyte Award FinalistAn Amazon Best Book of 2022One of NPR's Best Books of 2022Vulture's #1 Fantasy Novel of 2022Indie Next List Reading Group Book of 2023 Best of Year Selections at Apple Books B&N Booksellers LibraryReads TIME Magazine Oprah Daily The Philadelphia Inquirer Publishers Weekly Buzzfeed Chicago Review of Books LitHub Book Riot Paste Magazine Geek Girl Authority Bookish The Mary Sue New York Public Library Vulture Locus Recommended Reading List Kobo The Quill to Live Goodreads L. A. Public Library Audible Amazon NPRAn Indie Next and LibraryReads PickA Brooklyn Library Prize FinalistIncludes a Reading Group Guide It was magic. In every world, it was a kind of magic. "No maids, no funny talking, no fainting flowers." Luli Wei is beautiful, talented, and desperate to be a star. Coming of age in pre-Code Hollywood, she knows how dangerous the movie business is and how limited the roles are for a Chinese American girl from Hungarian Hill--but she doesn't care. She'd rather play a monster than a maid. But in Luli's world, the worst monsters in Hollywood are not the ones on screen. The studios want to own everything from her face to her name to the women she loves, and they run on a system of bargains made in blood and ancient magic, powered by the endless sacrifice of unlucky starlets like her. For those who do survive to earn their fame, success comes with a steep price. Luli is willing to do whatever it takes--even if that means becoming the monster herself. Siren Queen offers up an enthralling exploration of an outsider achieving stardom on her own terms, in a fantastical Hollywood where the monsters are real and the magic of the silver screen illuminates every page.

The Ignyte and Locus Award finalist, and Crawford and Hugo Award-winning series continues as Chih finds themself in the riverlands, home to near-immortal warriors and ancient feuds. Wandering cleric Chih of the Singing Hills travels to the riverlands to record tales of the notorious near-immortal martial artists who haunt the region. On the road to Betony Docks, they fall in with a pair of young women far from home, and an older couple who are more than they seem. As Chih runs headlong into an ancient feud, they find themselves far more entangled in the history of the riverlands than they ever expected to be. Accompanied by Almost Brilliant, a talking bird with an indelible memory, Chih confronts old legends and new dangers alike as they learn that every story — beautiful, ugly, kind, or cruel — bears more than one face.

An Instant National Bestseller An Indie Next Pick A B&N Reads April Pick A Most Anticipated in 2021 Pick for Oprah Magazine USA Today Buzzfeed Greatist BookPage PopSugar Bustle The Nerd Daily Goodreads Literary Hub Ms. Magazine Library Journal Culturess Book Riot Parade Magazine Kirkus The Week Book Bub OverDrive The Portalist Publishers Weekly A Best of Summer Pick for TIME Magazine CNN NBC News CBS News Book Riot The Daily Beast Lambda Literary The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel Goodreads Bustle Veranda Magazine The Week Bookish St. Louis Post-Dispatch Den of Geek LGBTQ Reads Pittsburgh City Paper Bookstr Tatler HKA Best Fantasy Novel from the Last 10 Years for Book RiotA Best of 2021 Pick for NPR"A vibrant and queer reinvention of F. Scott Fitzgerald's jazz age classic. . . . I was captivated from the first sentence."--NPR "Nghi Vo is one of the most original writers we have today."--Taylor Jenkins Reid on Siren Queen "A sumptuous, decadent read."--The New York Times "Vo has crafted a retelling that, in many ways, surpasses the original."--Kirkus Reviews, starred review Immigrant. Socialite. Magician.Jordan Baker grows up in the most rarefied circles of 1920s American society--she has money, education, a killer golf handicap, and invitations to some of the most exclusive parties of the Jazz Age. She's also queer and Asian, a Vietnamese adoptee treated as an exotic attraction by her peers, while the most important doors remain closed to her. But the world is full of wonders: infernal pacts and dazzling illusions, lost ghosts and elemental mysteries. In all paper is fire, and Jordan can burn the cut paper heart out of a man. She just has to learn how. Nghi Vo's debut novel, The Chosen and the Beautiful, reinvents this classic of the American canon as a coming-of-age story full of magic, mystery, and glittering excess, and introduces a major new literary voice.

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 this mesmerizing, lush standalone follow-up to The Empress of Salt and Fortune.

Winner of the 2020 Crawford Award Winner of the 2021 Hugo Award A Hugo Award-Winning Series A 2021 Locus Award FinalistA 2021 Ignyte Award FinalistA Goodreads Choice Award FinalistA Book Riot Best Debut Fantasy of All Time "Dangerous, subtle, unexpected and familiar, angry and ferocious and hopeful... The Empress of Salt and Fortune is a remarkable accomplishment of storytelling."--NPR "Nghi Vo is one of the most original writers we have today."--Taylor Jenkins Reid on Siren Queen A Book Riot Must Read Book of 2023 A 2020 ALA Booklist Top Ten SF/F Debut A Book Riot Must-Read Fantasy of 2020 A Paste Most Anticipated Novel of 2020 A Library Journal Debut of the Month A Buzzfeed Must-Read Fantasy Novel of Spring 2020 A Washington Post Best SFF of the Year So Far Pick Named Book Riot's Best Book Cover of 2020 Named a Best of 2020 Pick for NPR Library Journal NYPL Chicago Public Library The Austen Chronicle AutostraddleWith the heart of an Atwood tale and the visuals of a classic Asian period drama, Nghi Vo's The Empress of Salt and Fortune is a tightly and lushly written narrative about empire, storytelling, and the anger of women. A young royal from the far north, is sent south for a political marriage in an empire reminiscent of imperial China. Her brothers are dead, her armies and their war mammoths long defeated and caged behind their borders. Alone and sometimes reviled, she must choose her allies carefully. Rabbit, a handmaiden, sold by her parents to the palace for the lack of five baskets of dye, befriends the emperor's lonely new wife and gets more than she bargained for. At once feminist high fantasy and an indictment of monarchy, this evocative debut follows the rise of the empress In-yo, who has few resources and fewer friends. She's a northern daughter in a mage-made summer exile, but she will bend history to her will and bring down her enemies, piece by piece. The Hugo Award-winning Singing Hills Cycle The Empress of Salt and FortuneWhen the Tiger Came Down the MountainInto the RiverlandsMammoths at the GatesThe Brides of High HillThe 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. Praise for The Empress of Salt and Fortune "An elegant gut-punch, a puzzle box that unwinds itself in its own way and in its own time. I cannot recommend it highly enough. Gorgeous. Cruel. Perfect. I didn't know I needed to read this until I did."--Seanan McGuire "A tale of rebellion and fealty that feels both classic and fresh, The Empress of Salt and Fortune is elegantly told, strongly felt, and brimming with rich detail. An epic in miniature, beautifully realised."--Zen Cho "Nghi Vo's gracefully told debut . . . resides in the intimate margins of its (beautifully imagined) world's history, portraying how the marginalized may yet shape those narratives and harness the power of stories."--Indrapramit Das

Steampunk takes on Southeast Asia in this anthology The stories in this collection merge technological wonder with the everyday. Children upgrade their fighting spiders with armor, and toymakers create punchcard-driven marionettes. Large fish lumber across the skies, while boat people find a new home on the edge of a different dimension. Technology and tradition meld as the people adapt to the changing forces of their world. The Sea Is Ours is an exciting new anthology that features stories infused with the spirits of Southeast Asia's diverse peoples, legends, and geography.