Matt Wallace

An epic fantasy by Hugo Award–winning author Matt Wallace about a utopian city with a dark secret…and the underdogs who will expose it, or die trying. They call them Savages. Brutal. Efficient. Expendable. The empire relies on them. The Savages are the greatest weapon they ever developed. Culled from the streets of their cities, they take the ones no one will miss and throw them, by the thousands, at the empire’s enemies. If they live, they fight again. If they die, there are always more to take their place. Evie is not a Savage. She’s a warrior with a mission: to find the man she once loved, the man who holds the key to exposing the secret of the Savage Legion and ending the mass conscription of the empire’s poor and wretched. But to find him, she must become one of them, to be marked in her blood, to fight in their wars, and to find her purpose. Evie will die a Savage if she has to, but not before showing the world who she really is and what the Savage Legion can really do.

Savage Legion

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!

Nicola Sarah Brooks

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!

Didi Chanoch

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.

Savage Legion

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