As usual, before I get to why I loved and recommend Savage Legion I’ll point out that I have a little explainer of my approach to book and short fiction recommendations and you can find it here.

Next, let’s be clear here and get the bias out of the way: I am a Matt Wallace fan. I can not claim to have been a fan for his entire journey so far as a writer, but I’ve been a fan for quite awhile and have delved into the things that came before I was aware of him. There is nothing of his I’ve read I would say I haven’t enjoyed and quite a bit I’ve loved. In particular, one of the really fun things I’ve enjoyed about being a fan of Matt Wallace is that he is always doing interesting and frankly innovative things with his work.

To be really frank about it? I believe it is fair to say Matt Wallace tends to be cutting edge in the things he tries with his work and that has made being a fan delightful even as it has likely made it harder for him to break through to the wider audience that work deserves (it doesn’t always pay to be one of the first people with their foot through the door). Examples? He was one of the very early explorers of podcast fiction and his serial novella series SLINGERS was self-published (including exploring options for directly selling to fans outside of the Amazon option) a year before Tor.com announced the inaugural list of their very successful novella line and declared novellas the future of publishing (Wallace would be a part of that list, with another series of novellas that wasn’t afraid to be boldly, wonderfully gonzo in it’s combining urban fantasy with cooking and catering).

With that it in mind it really didn’t surprise me, though it did intrigue me, when I heard that his next works would be delving into all new territory for him as he would be branching into contemporary middle grade and into epic fantasy. It is that last, the recently released SAVAGE LEGION that I want to talk about more fully here.

With a build up like that it’d certainly be fair for you to be thinking there better be something pretty special about this book that makes it stand out from other epic fantasy offerings and I’m happy to report that there very much is. SAVAGE LEGION will be easily recognizable to fans of epic fantasy, but it should also delight those fans, and people less likely to turn to this particular sub-genre, with the things it does that feel new, or, at least, quite uncommon.

The familiar includes things like an empire (Crache) that has stretched across the land and a rebellion to it’s power. Multiple point of view characters. Violent action on both the individual and field-battle size scale. Political machinations. Secret histories and lost knowledge.

Evie finds herself conscripted into a brutal and brutally treated military force where she must survive battles against the enemy as well as the representatives of Crache itself that see her and her comrades as little more than useful fodder in its machine of war. Lexi faces political machinations, the courts, and the nation’s ministry in charge of police and security in an attempt to keep her Gen (her house whose particular task is to act as representation for the lowest members of Crache society in the courts) together in the face of her husband’s mysterious disappearance and accusations made against him. Dyaewan finds herself plucked from living on the streets to be presented with a magnificent new mobility device and brought to serve in the Planning Cadre: a place of luxury and secrets where Crache’s problems are considered and solutions, many technological, are developed. Obviously a more comfortable situation than living on the streets of the Bottoms, but from day one she knows her benefactor is not telling her whole truths.

The new, or at the very least uncommon, offered us in Savage Legion centers strongly around that nation, Crache, what it is, and what it isn’t. Unlike much of epic fantasy Wallace has chosen to move past a setting that models itself on classic, medieval or even a renaissance times of kings, queens, and emperors and instead takes the epic fantasy to a post-socialist (of a kind) revolution. Crache is the nation that was built after “The Renewal” that saw the overthrow of nobility and religion in favor of a more collectivist approach where people were valued not based on wealth or lineage but on functionality and contribution to the state.

It makes for a fascinating world and one I have personally never seen in the epic fantasy genre done quite this way. I suspect that many potential readers may find themselves initially either off-put or exceedingly happy by what may feel like a critique of socialist ideals, but I personally do not think that is the author’s goal. More fair to say it is a critique of power, imperialism, tyranny and corruption.

Actually, there were several times when reading SAVAGE LEGION I found myself fascinated by the storytelling choices Wallace makes and, to be honest, unsure if I liked where I thought they were going. Time and time again though, I found that Wallace brought the story and it’s wonderful characters through to something far better than I guessed it was going to. Call that another example of how my expectations for the genre were surprised by the different take on display here. There is so much interesting happening here that I want more people in my life to read it just so we can talk about it.

None of those interesting twists and new possibilities for the genre that Wallace explores though take away from the familiar that should leave genre fans very satisfied. In fact, in those areas the level of craft on display brings some real extra joy to the reading. The characters, both our three main POV characters and secondary ones, are unique, fleshed out and just people you want to see more of and spend more time with. Many multiple-point-of-view epics often develop a near-fatal flaw when some characters or story lines become more interesting to a reader than others. I can’t promise that won’t happen here to you, but it didn’t to me. I never felt disappointed by a shift in focus from one character to another. None of the story lines felt like something I was just reading to get through so I could go back to the character I really cared about, the real hero of the tale. It takes real skill to keep readers invested in multiple main characters but I think the fact that each here is facing a very different aspect of Crache and very different challenges makes the whole a greater sum than it’s parts.

The action, a staple of most epic fantasy is another area that shines. It may not be everyone’s cup of tea, but if you want your battles, brawls, and assassination attempts to have a little more flair Wallace has you covered. This didn’t surprise me in the least though. Before becoming a professional writer the author had a career as a professional wrestler and has studied and taught unarmed combat and self defense. Frankly much of the action is an entertaining combination of realistic and funky including one killing blow that is truly, truly unique.

For all that violence though one thing I feel this book is not, despite the fact I fully expect it to be considered or assumed to be by many, is grimdark. For one thing, none of the violence is sexual (though there is one off screen moment of a male sex worker being stabbed by a disturbed minor character). For another this is not exclusively a bleak and awful world of amoral and immoral people where might makes right (though parts of it may feel that way). Most (though surely not all) people are doing the things they truly believe are the right things to do. There are competing ideas about what is right and what is possible and where they meet. The is a lot of grim and there is darkness, but there is also love, relationships, loyalty, deeply moral and caring people, and for many, real and relatable responses to the violence, including the violence they commit themselves.

In the end? This is a really enjoyable book with a fresh take on epic fantasy crafted by a top notch storyteller at the top of his game. It should be well enjoyed by any even casual fans of the genre and it should absolutely appeal to many who aren’t. I literally went looking to see if I could already pre-order book 2 (I couldn’t that I could find) as soon as I finished, I’m that excited to read more of this. I was expecting something good that I would enjoy, given my aforementioned fan of Matt Wallace status, what I got was something that was great, that has my mind spinning with questions and ideas and an abundance of characters I want to spend more time with.

EDIT TO ADD: It occurred to me today that my tone in referencing grimdark books here may come off as needlessly condescending or insulting. I’m not saying that grimdark is universally bad or anything like that. I have read and enjoyed books likely to fit well into that mold. However, it is certainly not everyone’s cup of tea and I wanted to be clear that this book does not fit the mold of that subgenre as I (and I suspect others) think of it.