The Empress of Salt and Fortune
core novella 2020 The Singing Hills Cycle
Record
| First published | 2020 |
|---|---|
| Original language |  EN |
| Work type | novella |
| Canon status | core |
| Reader rating | 3.89 (48,067 ratings, collected 2026-09-14) |
| Page count | 119 |
| First-edition ISBN | 9781250750303 |
| Internal chronology | 1 |
Synopsis
The Empress of Salt and Fortune, first novella in Nghi Vo's Singing Hills Cycle, follows the traveling cleric Chih and their talking hoopoe companion, Almost Brilliant, as they arrive at Thriving Fortune, an abandoned palace, shortly after the death of Empress In-yo. There they meet Rabbit, an elderly former servant of the Empress, who begins recounting In-yo's history while the two catalogue the palace's remaining possessions. In-yo, once a princess from the north, had been married against her will to the Emperor of Pine and Steel; after bearing him an heir she was sterilized and confined in exile at the remote palace under constant surveillance. Despite her isolation, In-yo quietly built a network of allies and kin loyal to her northern homeland, gathering the means to resist her husband's court.
Where it sits
- Universe: The Singing Hills Cycle
- Series: The Singing Hills Cycle core; position 1 of 7 in the series' recorded order
- Author: Nghi Vo
Awards (verified)
- Hugo Award (Best Novella), 2021: won
- William L. Crawford Fantasy Award (Best First Fantasy Book), 2021: won
Notes
- From the series record (The Singing Hills Cycle): Ongoing connected-novella cycle following the wandering cleric Chih and their hoopoe companion Almost Brilliant, collecting oral histories across the world of Anh. A seventh entry, A Long and Speaking Silence, has been announced but not yet published as of this record.
Neighbouring works
Publication order and internal chronology are tracked as two separate orderings and are never conflated: a book's place in one says nothing about its place in the other.
- Publication order, within the series The Singing Hills Cycle: position 1 of 7: next When the Tiger Came Down the Mountain (2020)
- Internal chronology, within The Singing Hills Cycle: position 1 of 6: next When the Tiger Came Down the Mountain (2020)
Sources
- The Hugo Awards: 2021 Hugo Awards
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Empress_of_Salt_and_Fortune
- IAFA Crawford Award Winners List
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