Review - The True Bastards by Jonathan French

Cover by Duncan Spilling

The True Bastards (The Lot Lands, 2)
Jonathan French
Orbit, 10 October 2019
PB, e, 577pp

I'm grateful to Nazia at Orbit for an advance copy of The True Bastards. Like its predecessor, The Gray Bastards, which I reviewed here, I actually "consumed" this book as audio. That worked very well for me before and hearing both book read aloud actually added to the experience - notably, Book 1, which follows the adventures of half-orc Jackal, is narrated (excellently) by Will Damron while this instalment features Lisa Flanagan, reflecting the fact that this time the lead, Fetch, is a female half-orc. (Jackal does feature but he is much less central to this book).

Both narrators are excellent but the gender difference makes the role of Fetching, as leader of the True Bastards half-orc hoof, clear from the outset in a way that might not be so plain in the written book. It's done from her perspective reflecting her priorities and her problems. Things have changed. Jackal, with his god-granted wonder working arm, the price set on his head by Hispartha, his debt to Zirco, the halfling priest, is gone. Instead, Fetch leads the Hoof, is responsible for keeping them alive - as well as the humans who depend on them - in the harsh environment of Ul Wundulas, without the Kiln, their fortress,  destroyed by a hostile sorcerer at the end of the previous book.

Fetch is strained to her limits for most of this book, hunted by a devilish and mysterious foe somewhere out in the wastes, as well as by the haughty Cavaleros of Hispartha. She also has to face off to rival half-orc Hoofs who resent the leadership of a woman and procure the support of the Elves, who alone have knowledge Fetch realises she needs about her own past.

It is an action filled, combat filled book in which Fetch confronts difficulty after difficulty. The Lots seem determined to kill her and those around her, and she has few resources to draw on. Mere survival looks a daunting goal, with every day that she can hold together the increasingly frayed band a triumph in its self - and she begins to have a greater understanding for the achievement of the Claymaster, villain though he was.

Bawdy, strewn with profanity but relentlessly readable, this is a magnificent followup to The Grey Bastards, indeed I think possibly a better book and one I enjoyed even more because - despite the eruption of internal threats - the action is much tighter, much more focussed on Fetch and the Hoof, with fewer side-quests and less hierarchy and formality (necessarily, given the changed circumstances of the half-orcs). It's less about "What is being done to us?" (though there is some of that) than "What am I? What can I be?"

Altogether a satisfying, exciting and compulsive experience for this reader who is slightly wary of fantasy.

Content warning: As with The Grey Bastards, this is not a "nice" book. As well as the crude language of the half-orcs themselves, the potential reader should be aware that the idea of rape is very much ingrained into the background of this world. The rape of human or elven women by Orcs is a key plot point both in the creation of the half-orcs and (we learn here) the history of the elves. It's an ingrained concept and fundamental to the book (yes of course you could have fantasy without it, but you couldn't have this story about these characters and this world) so if you think this would be difficult for you, there it is.

For more about The True Bastards, see the publisher's website here.

Review - The Grey Bastards by Jonathan French

The Grey Bastards
Jonathan French
Orbit, 21 June 2018
PB, 420pp

I'm grateful to Nazia at Orbit for an advance copy of The Grey Bastards.

Live on the Saddle, Die on the Hog

Back in the Summer, the ever generous Nazia recruited me into the Grey Bastards through the ingenious ruse of sending me commissioning papers. (Blogger tip: be VERY CAREFUL when opening any package from Nazia. I wouldn't put it past her to use runes if you upset her.)

I've been worried ever since that Jackal, Fetch and the rest of the Hoof would turn up to ensure I delivered my pledged service - the more so as time drew on. There have been so many great books this year, and they all take time to read properly and digest, so I have deferred my attendance rather, but not wanting to end up at the wrong end of a tulwar or even a stockbow, I am relieved to say that I have now completed my review of The Grey Bastards.

This is a tale of half-orcs, battle and sex. (I'm going to have trouble cross-posting this to Amazon, I can tell already). The titular Bastards are a band ("hoof") of half-orcs, one of a number pledged to defend from the Orcs the land of Ul wundulas, the ruined country knows as the Lot Lands because it's parcelled out among the various hoofs. The land may be home to some, but it's primary important to because the defence of Ul wundulas is the defence of Hispartha, the fertile northern kingdom which the Orcs ultimately covet.

I am summoned!

I loved French's description of the Bastards, their organisation and their world. Roving their Lot on mighty fighting hogs, they are well able to ride down stray Orcs or even small raiding parties - but all dread a new incursion, as happened thirty years before leaving Ul wundulas ruined. Against that day, the leader of the Gray Bastards, the disease raddled Claymaster, seeks a wizard to bolster the Hoof, whose glory days are long gone.

Also featuring elves and halflings, the territory here might seem pretty familiar but French makes it convincing and new, not least through the idiosyncratic language he creates: humans are "frails", Orcs, "thicks", the Elves of Dog Fall, "Tines" and so on. Soon the scrubby, barren land that Jackal and his Hoof shed blood for becomes so, so real, as does the grim reality of the life there.

Because it is grim. Jackals's story begins as one of rivalries within the Hoof - the young bloods are restless under the failing rule of the Claymaster and a lot of time is spent on plots and alliances to replace him. This may seem like a squabble over a very small prize - wouldn't you just want to get out of Ul wundulas? - but an answer to that does emerges, if slowly, and it has to do with loyalty to the Hoof and a curious, perverse love of the land itself. To see that we will have to ride many miles, as French skilfully expands his story to take in the history of the Hoof, wider plots for power and the truly awful reality of what Hispartha's rulers have done in the past. And the seeds are clearly sown for Jackal's role to broaden still further.

It makes for an exciting, engaging story, never far from action and peril which I'd recommend to lovers of fantasy. And this is also very much "history from below". The rulers are definitely the humans of Hispartha, often presented as aristocratic, privileged and hierarchical, dominating the land from their Castile and treating the half-Orcs (and other outcast inhabitants of Ul Wundulas with disdain.

I do have one caveat, though, or perhaps a content warning. The concept of rape is very much ingrained into the background of this world. Not in the events we see - but the very existence of the Bastards, or most of them, derives from the rape of human women by Orcs (the Hoof defends, and recruits from, an orphanage where many of the resulting kids end up). The idea also comes up as a prominent subplot involving the creature known as the Sludge Man and it's used metaphorically too, in the sense of how Ul wundulas has been treated by the Orcs (thereby saving the blushes of dainty Hispartha beyond).

I should stress none of this happens in action that we see in the story, it's more of an underlying reality in the construction of the world.

This is, I know, something that has divided fantasy readers and authors (and bloggers!) and it's not a debate I'm going to rehearse now - but it is a facet of this book that the reader, or some readers, may wish to take into account.

So - am I glad I accepted that commissions and rode with the Bastards? On the whole, yes. Not every facet of their world attracts but there is a power and a flow to this writing that makes me look forward to French's next instalment (obviously this is a series!)