Review copy provided by the publisher.
This is another of the novellas featuring Cleric Chih and their astonishing memory bird Almost Brilliant, although Almost Brilliant does not get a lot of page time this go-round. This is mainly the story of hunger, desperation, shame, and unquiet ghosts. It’s about what depths people might sink to when famine comes–in this story, a famine demon, personified, but the shape of the story won’t be unfamiliar if you’ve read about more mundane famines.
The lines between horror and dark fantasy are as always unclear, but wherever you place A Mouthful of Dust, I recommend only reading it when you’re fully prepared for something unrelentingly bleak.