Savage Legion

Written by Matt Wallace

Narrated by Lameece Issaq

The acclaimed, epic, and spellbinding fantasy by Hugo Award–winning author Matt Wallace, about a utopian city with a dark secret…and the underdogs who will expose it, or die trying.

They call them Savages. Brutal. Efficient. Expendable.

The empire relies on them. The Savages are the greatest weapon they ever developed. Culled from the streets of their cities, they take the ones no one will miss and throw them, by the thousands, at the empire’s enemies. If they live, they fight again. If they die, there are always more to take their place.

Evie is not a Savage. She’s a warrior with a mission: to find the man she once loved, the man who holds the key to exposing the secret of the Savage Legion and ending the mass conscription of the empire’s poor and wretched.

But to find him, she must become one of them, to be marked in her blood, to fight in their wars, and to find her purpose. Evie will die a Savage if she has to, but not before showing the world who she really is and what the Savage Legion can really do.

This remarkable and captivating fantasy will take you on a journey into the heart of brutal battles, dire situations, and odds that seem too high to overcome.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Simon & Schuster Audio
• Release date: Jul 21, 2020
• ISBN: 9781797103501

Matt Wallace

Matt Wallace is the Hugo nominated author of Rencor: Life in Grudge City and the Sin du Jour series, and he won a Hugo Award alongside Mur Lafferty for the fancast Ditch Diggers. He’s also penned more than a hundred short stories in addition to writing for film and television. In his youth, he traveled the world as a professional wrestler and unarmed combat and self-defense instructor before retiring to write full time. He currently resides in Los Angeles with his wife, Nikki.

Reviews for Savage Legion

[Kevin Wilcox · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Really good story and the narrator did a good job too.

[Jasper Drury · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Genuinely amazing series so far but I wish they'd have picked a word besides s*vage considering this is a real world racial slur against Indigenous peoples

[Lee Tatum · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Great start to a series & wonderful cross between grimdark and epic fantasy! I enjoyed Savage Legion as much as Angus Watson's first trilogy and many of Joe Abercrombie's novels. Matt Wallace definitely has down the whole "life is short, brutish, and nasty" philosophy. It remains to be seen if any of Locke's optimism (we are all born tabula rasa, a blank slate with endless possibilities) will survive, triumph or wither in his series. Will Slider be a saviour of a new republic, or become like her sociopathic mentor Edgar? Will Lexi likewise retain her will to do good & save others? This novel is filled with some wonderful, memorable characters, both good and evil. I only paused in looking for the second book long enough to write my review, and it's been a while since I was this excited about a new author.

[Elizabeth Aislinn · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

This refreshing take on epic fantasy drew me in with the basic premise, including that the story would feature strong female leads.

Matt Wallace did not disappoint on that front. He writes women and girls who are well rounded, and he understands that a strong lead can be physically powerful, but can also be strong of mind, or strong of heart. Other things I appreciated: Evie, featured in the cover art, is a woman of color; Dyeawan, one of the other leads, is physically disabled; and Taru, a featured supporting character, is that world’s equivalent of what we might call a non-binary person.

Each of these characters in this well-paced plot finds themselves encountering, in different ways, the corruption that underpins their entire society, and facing hard choices — and often violent circumstances — because of what they know. In addition to a great plot with dips and twists, Wallace delivers fight scenes that are rousing, easy to follow, and genuinely suspenseful.

This is a great start to a trilogy that promises to keep surprising me until the end.