Posts Tagged ‘Jonathan French’

This is kind of a hard review to write, just because I’ve already written it once already, so now I have to try not to repeat myself. Part of me just wants to drop a link here to my review of the first book in the series, The Grey Bastards, and leave it at that. And while I won’t actually be that lazy, I will go ahead and link that first review — check it out here, if you’ve a mind.

The True Bastards

Honestly, I’m not sure at first what to say here besides: Did you read The Grey Bastards? Did you like it? Because this is more The Grey Bastards: more sprawling storylines weaving together in unexpected ways; more tough-as-nails, foul-mouthed, badass characters with flexible moral compasses; more unapologetic grit and grime and gut-strewing; more peeks into the nooks and crannies of a unique and beautifully built but cruelly unforgiving world; more sex; more violence; and more robust bacon flavor.

Also, to lift another similarity from the first review, more quick notes worth disclosing. First off, spoilers for the first Bastards book, obviously, so go read that if you haven’t yet before you read this. Second, for the sake of transparency, Jonathan French is still a friend of ours — someone we thanked as a mentor figure in our own debut self-published novel, and someone whose work we’ve been promoting at conventions and on social media and such as Bastards ambassadors (aka “ambastards”). We got advanced reader copies of The True Bastards about a month before the book goes/went on sale to the public, depending on when you’re reading this.

Take all of that into consideration if you want — but also know that, like The Grey Bastards before it, we don’t need no incentives to tell people that this book is damn good. This shit is my jam, and I was gonna read it and love it whether or not the author knows what my face looks like. The fact that I got to do it a month ahead of most other people was just a nice bonus and an incidental early birthday present.

Got all that? Cool, back the fun part.

Read to the end, ya bastard!

Hot take: Orcs are bitchin’.

Big, tough, ripped, brutal badasses, for years they’ve been the go-to choice in fantasy for evil power players in need of intimidating mooks. More recently, modern fantasy has granted them a PR boost, both in reimaginings and in original stories. Black-and-white morality is out of fashion, shades of gray are in, and this gives orcs the opportunity to take the powerful, intimidating, dangerous image they’ve cultivated through decades of villain status and turn it toward nobler (or at least more sympathetic) pursuits.

No character is more interesting than the reformed villain. Put simply, orcs are the bad boys of the fantasy world.

The Grey Bastards by Jonathan FrenchAnd the warhog-riding half-orc bikers of The Grey Bastards are the bad boys (and girl) of the orc world.

Mix Sons of Anarchy with Shadow of Mordor and you’ll get a world similar to the Lot Lands of Jonathan French’s The Grey Bastards, where gangs of orc-human hybrids ride monstrous swine called barbarians as they patrol their anarchic wasteland, keeping the humans of Hispartha safe on one side by fending off the raiding parties of full-blooded orcs that routinely probe their lands from the other.

Although, confession, I don’t know how accurate this analogy still is when it comes to quality, because I’ve never actually seen Sons of Anarchy or played Shadow of Mordor. I’ve heard pretty good things about both, though, which makes me think the comparison still holds up. Because I have read The Grey Bastards, and yeah, it’s good. It’s really, really good.

Read in the saddle, continue on the hog!