The Knight and the Butcherbird - Alix E. Harrow - ★★★★.¼

AUTHOR: Alix E. Harrow

GENRE: Short story, Dystopian Fantasy.

PUBLICATION DATE: March 11, 2025

RATING: 4.25 stars.

In a Nutshell: A dystopian-fantasy short story about love, trust, fate, hope and courage. Imaginative plot, well-sketched characters, lyrical prose, unexpected twists, apt ending that left me wanting more. After a long while, I read a story without any distractions or pauses. Much recommended!

Plot Preview:

In a post-apocalyptic world, a small outland town named Iron Hollow, set along the Red River in the Appalachian mountains, finds itself facing many challenges, but none like the demons rising from its own people. When the leader summon a legendary knight for help in hunting the latest monster, seventeen-year-old Shrike is not happy. The knight is just as determined to do his job and kill the demon as Shrike is to get rid of the knight. Why? Read and find out.

The story comes to us in Shrike’s first-person perspective.

PSA: The Goodreads blurb reveals way too much. (I am glad I didn’t go through it before I read this story. I grabbed this book as soon as I saw the author’s name without checking anything else.)

I have been a fan of Alix E. Harrow ever since I read ‘The Ten Thousand Doors of January’. While ‘Starling House’ left me with mixed feelings, her prose was still as strong as ever. ‘The Six Deaths of the Saint’ proved that she was as adept at writing short fiction, and this story further confirms the same. I read plenty of short stories, and I have rarely found a writer who can carve worlds and characters as intricately and successfully within a constrained word count as Harrow can.

If you have yet not experienced the magic of Alix E. Harrow’s writing, this story would make a good starting point to sample her beautiful prose. Of course, it would help if you like dystopian fantasy-horror.

Woohoos:

🌲 The imaginative concept.

🌲 The setting and the atmosphere. The author puts the wildness and remoteness of the location to great use.

🌲 The descriptive prose – vivid and lyrical! A treat for the soul.

🌲 The names of the Iron Hollow residents – every first name pays an ode to nature.

🌲 The mind-boggling vocabulary! Harrow is the only author for whom I necessarily need to use my dictionary multiple times. I love it!

🌲 Shrike Secretary, our young narrator. A good complex lead for the story, she acts her age, which obviously means that she takes some silly decisions at times. But this behaviour adds to the unpredictability of the narrative.

🌲 The Knight and his avian companion. Loved the personality of the character and also his backstory.

🌲 The strange mix of historical and futuristic, real and fantastical, apocalyptic and present-day. Not many authors would be able to pull off this strange world convincingly, all the more impressive when you remember that this story is just 36 pages long.

🌲 The comment on the difference between the haves and the have-nots, the attitudes of the privileged towards those who don’t think/look like them, and the resistance to change. Some references reminded me of a certain currently-ruling government who seems to be adopting a similar attitude towards outsiders.

🌲 Didn’t expect to find twisty surprises in a short tale, but I did.

🌲 The teeny bookish Easter eggs in one scene – I got a pleasant thrill when I recognised all the references.

Hmmms:

🍁 The pacing is slightly on the slower side, even for such a short tale. I was captivated enough by the rest so the slowburn didn’t bother me. Might not make all readers happy, though.

🍁 Shrike often muses about the past in her narration. These stream-of-consciousness style interludes do add depth to her POV, but they also feel a bit too intricate for short fiction.

🍁 The theme of how far you would go for love. Certainly some grey areas in this, especially considering the identities of the people in the relationship.

🍁 The ending – amazing but also a tad too hurried.

All in all, I am mighty impressed with this work. Despite certain minor things that could have turned this into a 5-star read, I still loved the eccentricity of the storyline, the characters, and the world. It’s the brainchild of a truly creative and talented writer, and I’d have gladly read a novella or even a novel set in this world.

Definitely recommended to those readers of dystopian fantasy who like short fiction.

My thanks to Amazon Original Stories for providing the DRC of “The Knight and the Butcherbird” via NetGalley. This review is voluntary and contains my honest opinion about the book.

The digital version of this book is currently available on Amazon Prime.