My thanks to Forest Avenue Press for an ARC via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

A fisherman receives a letter telling of the death of his lost love and then travels Orpheus-like to the Isle of the Dead to find her. There he encounters a group of avian shape-shifting demigods and a fertility goddess. Adventures follow, including a fair few erotic encounters. There’s also an adversary in the form of a crow, a petty tyrant living up to the crow’s archetypical role of trickster.

While I loved the concept I have to admit that I struggled for a time to engage with the narrative, though this improved as I continued and became more invested in the characters.

I appreciated that Allred was creating a fable or myth-like story combining strands from Eastern and Western traditions with original ideas. Given its structure and the rich descriptions I feel it would have worked better for me as an audiobook. Brought to mind sitting around a (metaphoric) campfire while a storyteller weaves this strange tale.

The cover and illustrations are stunning and there is a rather hallucinatory feel to the story. Early on the delightful frigate bird (my favourite among the bird characters) offers the fisherman some hashish and I felt that summed up the ambiance of the story. Weird, witty and certainly bawdy.

I feel it’s the type of novel that will polarise readers. I tried to weigh up what appealed to me against times I just felt disconnected, so decided on 3 stars. I would suggest potential readers sample it to see if the style is a good fit for them.

Once again I am confused by publishing dates but hey ho. Netgalley tells me this is released on the 16th November but Goodreads tells me its 11th November so I’ll go with that.

I am also confused by this book. Sorry.

I picked it up because something about it seemed very Terry Pratchett esque and from what I’ve read since, I am not the only person who got that vibe. I think it’s something to do with the merging of fables/ Shakespeare/ comedy and human foibles which is something that Terry Pratchett did amazingly well at.

Now don’t get me wrong, Terry Pratchett is inimitable and to be fair, The Alehouse at the End of the World doesn’t advertise itself as being like Terry Pratchett in any way. But it’s interesting that I wasn’t the only person who was thinking along the Pratchett lines.

It’s nothing like a Terry Pratchett book. Maybe that’s where I went wrong. Thinking it would vibe the same. In some ways yes, it did. It’s quirky and highly imaginative and if you took a bunch of LSD and went to an aviary I’m sure the experience you would have there is similar to the experience you would have reading this book.

A trippy head funk involving a lot of birds.

This is billed (no pun intended, ok maybe a little pun intended) as a bawdy comedy. Now comedy is hard and very subjective. If you found this book funny than you will rate it higher than what I am rating. Unfortunately I didn’t find it funny. When something is a comedy that’s a problem and it’s a problem that I couldn’t overcome.

I wasn’t too sure where the humour was supposed to be derived from – was it the excessive mentions of the crow eating up body parts of dead humans and his obsession with the nipples and scrota? Was it how drunk they all got when an alehouse was finally built? Was it the constant references to the bird god’s bulging loincloths?!

That is the other thing I just couldn’t gel with. There was so much crudity. This is coming from someone who has written smut in fiction. Ahem. But I swear I am no prude. I just didn’t enjoy the over sexualisation of the female characters and the constant mention of their breasts. I counted how many times the word ‘breast’ featured in one paragraph and it was five. Five.

Boobs. This book was about boobs. And worse… it was about boobs on bird women. Maybe I’m missing something here but I guess I just didn’t need descriptions of sexy bird women or the explanation that bird men have massive penises. Am I allowed to say penis in a review? Am I allowed to say it in an ARC review?!

The sex scenes were plentiful and uncomfortable and unfortunately this book used one of the tropes that I hate the most in the world and used it for humour. We are talking ‘The Bed Trick’ where someone pretends to be someone else in order to bed a person. I don’t like it when it’s used flippantly and for ‘fun’. It’s personal preference but I don’t. Sorry.

A male character beats a female character. This same male character spews some nasty things about women. I understand that this character is not nice and his actions and viewpoints are not presented as a good thing but the female characters desire, admire and love him all the same and again…. I didn’t like it. I understand the message is, ‘you can’t help who you desire or love’, but there was almost a vibe of, ‘oh well, you know what he’s like,’ about it.

For me the plot was a little on the slow side and the big battle didn’t really have much in the way of build up. It was definitely more of a sexy, bed swapping tale between bird people and reanimated souls than a fight to see who would control the Isle of the Dead and who would save the world from being swallowed up.

I’ll stop now because I feel like I’m beating a dead corvid with a stick and they don’t deserve that because corvid’s are awesome.

The authors imagination is boundless and I’m sure that more inventive and quirky stories will present themselves but sadly this one just wasn’t for me.

I thought this was an interesting take on the Shakespearean comedy. Readers who are unfamiliar with the difference between a Shakespearean comedy and a modern comedy should know that this book is not going to be funny in the way you’re looking for. Shakespearean comedies pertain more to struggling lovers, love triangles, deception, and reunification. They are light hearted but not necessarily funny. This book has all of the above in spades and I found it highly entertaining.

I also enjoyed the way the author portrayed the afterlife. I’m not going to discuss details so as not to spoil anything but I haven’t seen life after death quite like this before. I’m always interested in new takes on old tropes, there are so many books and movies out there today that are just remakes of an older work or ideas that have already been done to death it’s refreshing to read something that feels new and different.

I will say that it took me a little while to get into the book. I picked it up and put it down a couple of times. The beginning sort of dragged on a little for me. Once you get to the second book things get much more interesting and I found it to be an enjoyable read from there. I will say that there are some sexually explicit scenes so be forewarned if that makes you uncomfortable this may not be the book for you.

This is a very strange book, well written, and engaging, and beautifully weird. Unfortunately, it's not quite a good fit for our magazine. But thank you very much for letting me check it out. I hope to finish it after I find an appropriate fit to meat the deadline for our magazine, and will definitely review it on goodreads and amazon.

I thought I'd give this book a read as part of the challenge I set myself to try different genres. I could tell from the back cover that I would have to suspend disbelief...something I usually struggle with!

I found it quite a slow read and I'm not sure if that's because of the storylines or because I was making an effort with a type of novel that isn't really my style.

The story is a tricky one to explain but it centres around a fisherman who wants to be reunited with his deceased partner and travels to the Isle of the Dead to find her. We follow our hero through his trials on the Isle and his interactions with the other characters...all of whom are types of birds. Not ideal for a reader with a bird phobia...

This book did remind me a bit of a cross between Animal Farm and Shakespeare. The Isle is ruled by birds who can shapeshift and are viewed as deities. The power struggles, and how some elements were relatable to every day human behaviour, reminded me of Animal Farm. The romantic storyline however did remind me of Shakespeare, certainly there were elements of 'Much Ado about Nothing' with the plotting and comical scheming amongst the characters.

Overall, I think this is one of those stories that you either love or you don't really get. I think I'm in the latter but can certainly see what others readers may enjoy and would recommend to those who like mythical type storylines.

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Let me give an admission here - I very rarely read sci-fi/fantasy books so faced this with less than enthusiasm.
However it is well written and flows really well with a flurry of characters - both human and animal (or in this case birds) based on the lonely fisherman (never named) who sets out to seek his lost love and heads into danger, strange worlds and total suspension of disbelief.
There was an element of some classic novels - Moby Dick when the fisherman is eaten by a whale early in the story and then the Rhyme of the Ancient Mariner as we hear tales of travelling the seas and then a comparison with the Wizard of Oz as the fisherman lands on the Island of the Dead where the place is the resting place of dead people and is run by the weird Kiamah Beast.
It's also funny with characters that seem to shout Captain Sparrow as the three central birds in the story the frigate, cormorant and above all the evil crow who has usurped the Raven and is planning to take over the Island for his own evil purposes. He's the bad guy - or bird- but does he have his redeeming features?
There are some gruesome scenes but then also some magical moments and the mysticism continues with the female Dewi Sri like an Indian goddess whose beauty attracts all. The links with fables and myths is very evident and there are moments of deep and moving emotion as the sailor tries to find his beloved lost wife and how her transition keeps them apart with tragic consequences.
I did find it a bit long but realised there had to be detailed twists and turns explained in some detail but overall I commend the author for capturing me into the fantasy world that attracts so many.

There's a lot of world building and creativity in this book even if it sometimes fails to deliver.
i loved the concept, the characters and it was like travelling in a fantastic surrealistic world.
It was fun to read and entertaining.
Recommended!
Many thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for this ARC

It was difficult to download this book as it was not the Epub we expected to find, but a PDF file, and I had to be instructed in how to manage that on the kindle.

I was not able to continue the book beyond 27%. At approximately location 1065 in the PDF file the sequence of pages went haywire: jumped ahead fifteen or twenty digits in the sequence and back again, I was unable to determine a pattern and eventually gave up.

I wrote to netgalley, since they had helped me to download the PDF, but no one from responded to my request for help, nor have I received any explanation of what may have caused the file to goof up. I'm not sure quite what to tell you, and it is difficult to assign a star rating to but one quarter of the novel. It would be easy enough to rate netgalley, but there is no facility for that.

JG

On paper I felt I should have loved this book. Unfortunately, it didn’t come together for me. Steven Allred is an excellent writer and there are some incredibly creative, as well as original, ideas in this novel. The story has a very mythological feel which is something I ordinarily love, but there was a huge disconnect between the tone of the story and the coarse humour that ran throughout. The characters also fell a bit flat to say the least, particularly of the female ones.

I do think others may get a lot out of it. Just wasn't for me.

This was an ARC in exchange for an honest review. With thanks to Netgalley and Forest Avenue Press

Although wildly inventive and unique, enjoyment is not a term I'd associate with this book. I like weird books, I like crazy ideas, I like things that diverge as far as possible from the norm with unabashed confidence—but this book was somehow still a struggle for me despite how open I was to it.

To start with the good, Stevan Allred is a tremendously skilled writer when it comes to his prose. The writing is pinpoint precise, and he has an obvious knack for words, producing a style I did like reading—clear and concise, without being simple or generic or filtered down to cater to the lowest common denominator. Along with that, he fused together some unique ideas in this book, and I did particularly appreciate the addition of South East Asian myths and legends.

However, the other aspects of the book failed to deliver. The book had a grand, mythic atmosphere to it, but the bawdy humour injected throughout felt tonally dissonant. Although the description promised humour, every instance of it fell flat for me. The plot didn't quite grasp my attention, and the characters were severely lacking. As another reviewer mentioned, the way the female characters were handled in this book was off-putting. The overly frequent descriptions of their breasts and other physical attributes, the strangely sexual narration of even entirely banal activities—it all came together to make for a slightly uncomfortable read. And I'm not gonna lie, the whole woman/bird sex bits just weren't my thing (yes, yes, she's a winged goddess, so she's kind of half-bird in a way, but that doesn't change the fact her body is still mostly humanoid. The book lovingly describes it in detail, after all, with extensive consideration of her apparently fantastic chest).

If you want something entirely new and odd and creative, try this book. If you want something that's not typically found in the fantasy genre of late, give this a shot. It's not a bad book, it just wasn't for me. But if characters with depth and an engaging narrative are requirements for you, I wouldn't recommend this.

‘We are all of us but parts of a pattern not of our own making.’

Stevan Allred’s new book promises much, but does it deliver? This is the story of an unnamed fisherman who learns of his wife’s death and sets off to the Isle of the Dead to find her soul and bring her home. Here be shape-shifting bird deities, a usurping Crow who acts as despot, and as the tale develops we are bombarded by any amount of myths and allusions which direct the action. Eastern and Western mythologies combine: we have a ‘pilgrim’ descending into an underworld, tales of creation, goddesses, Edenic existence and a ‘fall’, a war to rival Milton’s War in Heaven or Tolkien’s great battle scenes… Into all of this mix Allred throws humorous footnotes and bawdy – even explicit – sexual encounters.

Does it all work? I’m so far out of my comfort zone with a book like this – it is not what I usually read, but isn’t it good to try something different? If you like fantasy novels I can see this appealing to you – although some reviews I have read said people were expecting a world like Terry Pratchett’s but were disappointed. There are plenty of references to other literatures and philosophies that it can be quite rewarding to recognise some as they come along. But, as a whole, I was left wondering if it all amounted to more or less of the sum of the parts and, to be honest, I thought it was OK, but just OK. I didn’t care enough for the central characters of the fisherman and his wife, and while it could be read as a novel reflecting some issues of our turbulent times I felt that the author perhaps tried too hard to throw everything but the kitchen sink to make his point.

I’m glad I read it, and I would encourage others to do so, but I can only rate it 3 stars I think, given my reservations.

(With thanks to the publisher and to NetGalley for an ARC in return for an honest and unbiased review.)

The premise of this novel immediately caught my attention on first inspection. It’s fable-esque narrative quickly turned out to appear rather academic in a sense I cannot explain beyond this. Mythology is an incredibly interesting topic for me but I feel as though this novel lacked the pace to keep me involved for very long. Very unfortunate but as I say, the premise is excellent, it just was not for me in the end.

Thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for providing an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

DNF at 43%

The premise of The Alehouse at the End of the World immediately caught my attention. Boasting the underworld (of a sorts), talking birds, and fate, I hoped this would be a sort of Terry Pratchett-esque romp full of funny asides and satire. There definitely are funny asides -- the footnotes were one of the elements of the story I found the most entertaining -- but Alehouse doesn't quite feel like a romp.

The story follows an unnamed fisherman who travels to the Isle of the Dead with the hopes of rescuing his beloved. Things do not go according to plan, partially because the Isle of the Dead has come under new leadership at the hands of the boasting crow. There are lots of references to myths and ancient civilizations that have informed the interesting underworld the author created in <i>Alehouse</i>. A lot of these references went right over my head, but someone who is well-versed in these texts would probably gain a lot more enjoyment from this book.

Perhaps the biggest thing I couldn't get beyond was the treatment of the female characters in this story. It's worth mentioning that things could get better, since I didn't finish the story, but the three female characters lacked the depth and autonomy given to the male characters. These females exist in the book primarily as objects to be coveted by the males. Two out of three perfectly fall into the tropes of doting caregiver and sex object. The fisherman's beloved does have a bit more nuance to her but (SPOILER) the fisherman's aggressive desire to win her back even though she keeps telling him no made me deeply uncomfortable. The male characters are given complex motivations and funny lines of dialogue. The females? Not so much. This only got worse as the book went on and was one of the largest reasons I quit reading.

The Alehouse at the End of the World is by no means a bad book, just one that wasn't for me. I would describe this more as a literary work than a fantastical one, as the fantasy elements don't play a huge role in the story and serve mainly to support the classical-feeling plot. If you really like descriptive writing and references to lesser-known mythology, Alehouse executes those elements well. Overall, this is a character-driven story that has the feel of a classic epic poem rather than a fantasy novel.

Allred has a terrific imagination. A fisherman marooned on an island is left a note his wife is dying. He builds a small sailboat and tries to escape. The fisherman runs into a storm and is shallowed by a whale. He ends up in the Isle of the Dead. And so the story takes off. Allred is a great storyteller.

Received ARC from Netgalley for honest read and review.

I could not get into this one,I did not really feel any of the characters,and I tried really hard to keep going,but I did not really like it

I had very high hopes for this one, but it reads so much more like a genre study and academic exercise than an engaging narrative.

Part Divine Comedy, part Orpheus in the Underworld, this novel told in the form of a fable never really gained any momentum for me; if the book were half as entertaining as the footnotes sprinkled throughout (which were a treat and a welcome distraction), I'd have had a much better time reading this.