In Crache, you need to keep your enemies close and your friends closer. Not every ally is an advantage - some have their own agenda and their loyalty can spin on a penny!

Crache should be a paradise, no singular ruler, run by a bureaucracy. But every paradise has a seedy underbelly and in this one The Bottoms is that underbelly. Filled with the disenfranchised, the unwanted, the poor and criminals, the Bottoms is a place no one wants to venture. All except Lexi's husband Brio. He has been the pleader (kind of like an MP) for The Bottoms and now he has gone missing. Lexi is going to kick up a stink but those in power seem to have a vested interest in Brio staying missing!

Elsewhere Evie would appear to have some secrets to hide and an undercover mission of her own within the ranks of the Savages. Her ally from The Bottoms, Dyeawan aka Slider, has also managed to get herself entangled in the festering rebellion. She has caught the eye of the Planning Cadre. The Planning Cadre would appear to be trying to implement and invent new technologies to help Crache but are they as benign as they appear?

This is a story very much led by the female characters; Evie, Lexi and Slider. Don't get me wrong the males get involved too but this is very much a female led story for me. This entire world sucked me in. It's almost a fantasy version of real life with zealots, militarists, extreme disparity between rich and poor, disenfranchisement and the discarding of those deemed "unworthy".

Each FMC has a POV and it was a great way to see inside the workings of their minds and motivations. There was, to me, great diversity in ethnicities and abilities within the main characters. There are also some brilliant non-binary characters who get to shine, especially Taru, Lexi's retainer/friend. I loved watching allyships fall apart as agendas became known and former foes become allies! There is a lot going on in this book and I'm really invested in getting to read book 2!

It's hard for me to think of stories of Utopias and their dark underbellies without thinking of Ursula K. Le Guin's classic story "The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas." While reading Savage Legion, thoughts of that story were never far from my mind. Savage Legion is, to my mind, about Omelas as empire. Wallace has set out to examine and annihilate many of epic fantasy and military fantasy's tropes, with this story, while weaving a secondary story of political intrigue and a fascinating tertiary story which I will not elaborate on. He was, to my mind, entirely successful in this.