The Free Bastards

This book was brilliant, and not just by itself. I mean brilliant when compared to the two already amazing books that proceeded it in The Lot Lands series. The Free Bastards had everything; amazing story, amazing characters, amazing settings, and, well, just amazing. It ticked every box I have to tick, which is why I’m giving it one of my extremely rare 5 stars. Now to explain this awesomeness in more detail.

Book 3 follows the last of our trifecta of half-orc heroes: Oats. Throughout the series, Oats has been more than the hulking thriceblood that his appearance belies, but never did I think his character could go so deep, become so truly real as he is shown to be in this book. And that’s just touching the surface of this book’s quality. So the story starts some months after the events of Book 2, with the Lot Lands in full rebellion against Hispartha. Fetching isn’t just fending off the human kingdom but actively attacking, as any half-orc would. Outnumbered, outgunned, and running out of time, the hoofs are fighting for their very survival, and Oats is the perfect perspective to view this struggle from.

In this book we finally get a good look at Hispartha itself, the anvil that has long loomed over half-orc’s freedom. The kingdom is fleshed out plenty for the story, but there are also so many aspects that are only mentioned in passing or shown very briefly that it leaves us gagging for ever-more information on this fantastic and novel fantasy universe. We are tickled with so many mountains of additional lore that I truly, TRULY, hope there will be another series set in this world. To not explore it further would be a crime against fantasy writing. 

As ever, this book is crammed with some of the best, bloodiest, and in my opinion most realistic combat I’ve ever found in fantasy. It’s not that every sweep of the sword is explained in vivid detail. It’s more that the fighting is portrayed in such a way that you truly believe you are seeing it through Oats’s eyes, that you are right there spitting and swearing as steel meets steel, your breath ragged and limbs bleeding. It’s fantastic. And as for realism in general, this book, like the two before it, does some of the best portrayals of how regular people would act in such situations. There’s no simple ‘we won a great victory, now on with the quest’ progression that the vast majority of fantasy novels fall into. People get hurt in these books, people bleed, people have to try and deal with the fallout of constantly battling for their lives in a hundred different ways that produces some of the most human (even when they’re half-orcs) characters I have ever had the pleasure to find in fantasy. Each loss of a friend, each cut of their flesh, each cry of pain, and each phycological scar that life and war in the Lot Lands can impart feels more real than in just about any other book I can think of, and it's not just for Oats. Every character in this book suffers, celebrates, loves, and hates with such realism that I am now sure that this is the bar against which I will measure such aspects in fantasy literature moving forward. This is masterful writing.

The story is one that is full of twists, turns, laughter, and lamentation. At all times you know what is going on, and then it will turn around and smash you with a gut punch of an emotional blow or mind-warping twist that has you reeling. We don’t just get a brilliant story as the Lot Lands try desperately to organise themselves, battle armies, and all-around struggle to survive. We get a brutally beautiful narrative that takes us to dizzying highs and sewer-drenching lows. I swear I nearly needed counselling myself after some of the ordeals Oats and co go through, and yet all of it is worth it because we are all as invested in the Bastards’ cause as the half-orcs themselves.

As for language, well, this is for me personally some of the very best. For anyone who has read any of my other reviews or even my own novel (The Sage’s Lot), you will know that above all I appreciate characters that speak like real people, not actors on some stage reading lines that have been masterfully crafted by some public speaking guru. Real people sputter, stutter, and swear, and this book has some of the best examples of such that I can think of. I am a sucker for wonderful, imaginative, beautiful swearing, and this series (and this book most of all) has some of the most delicious examples of foul mouths that I have ever come across. I was actively laughing my arse off on multiple occasion by the way the characters insult one another. Guttural, barbaric, and yet elegant in its accuracy and execution. It’s language you might not want to repeat in front of your mother, but language that I believe to be the most honest, building upon French’s capacity to craft such realistic characters.

In summation, this book is a masterpiece of gore, guts, fun, harsh language, and epic storytelling. It is a truly worthy ending to a magnificent trilogy. So please, PLEASE, Jonathan French, give us some more stories from this universe. My world at least will be poorer indeed if this is the end of this magnificent land that you have created.

As for narration, Will Damron once again does a hell of a job bringing this world to life. Whether its raging half-orcs and primping human nobles, this man has the range to bring an insanely wide variety of characters to life in a way few others could.

Personal Score: 5 stars

Professional Score: 5 stars

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Buy 'The Sage's Lot (Blood and Balance, Book 1)' here!