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.