Why read the Lot Lands?

While reading the series called The Lot Lands by Jonathan French, I felt I had something unique in my hands, in front of my eyes.

This is a completed trilogy, with The Grey Bastards, The True Bastards and The Free Bastards.

This is a relatively underrated series (I see that there is a little buzz on BookTube but there are only 10,000 reviews on Goodreads for the first book and the number of reviews drops drastically with the second and third book) and it is criminal that this story and this setting are not more familiar to fantasy readers.

Now, the pitch I head was: Sons of Anarchy meets fantasy. I have mixed feelings about Sons of Anarchy - as a series that spotlights a group of criminals (and not even for the right reasons, just as a way of being) who just consider women as accessories. So that is not the right way to sell it to me.

Yet, what is true about this story is that the main characters are outlaws (due to unjust laws) and they truly make a difference to the world they live in, albeit there are plenty of morally ambiguous and morally despicable characters in this story.

Another parallel to Sons of Anarchy is misogyny; yet the Lot Lands manages the topic in a more interesting way and truly gives visibility to women in this series. In fact, this series also covers an additional aspect, women in leadership and I enjoyed this analysis (and it had nothing to do with gender; better, it highlighted that women in leadership need to achieve higher results and this book also shares an inspired model of leadership!).

The world building in this series is quite remarkable, in my opinion. The world is essentially divided into the world of the humans in contrast to the uncivilized land of the orcs (considered brute primal beings that have little in terms of civilized society). In between, there are the Lot Lands, a desert that is used to keep the orcs away from humans; and who does that? The band of half-orc that incidentally are the main characters of the story.

And here is one of the unique elements here: while half-orcs are not necessarily a novel idea, it is original they way they are put front and center in the story and how they need to deal with their duality (or not really belonging to either race). They are not and will never be orcs (as the half-orcs understand humanity and what drives them) and they will always be considered slaves for the humans (unless they live in the Lot Lands where they can live a difficult yet free life). The fact that we are addressing a book that makes the half-orcs outlaws because they should be slaves instead is significantly more pregnant than the plot of Sons of Anarchy (where the summary of the story is: I have a cool motorcycle and I will use to to sell weapons and drugs). Furthermore, the story addresses another awful reality of human history: experimentation on races that are considered less than human. Truly, a difficult subject to tackle and I thought the series did a great job with that.

Also, I loved the use of centaurs in this story; there are dwarves / hobbit type characters with a mystical air around them. There are also elves and they are also introduced with a twist and I genuinely enjoyed all about them.

Next to addressing the outcasts, another pillar in this series is the exploration of the concept of loyalty: to be able to live in the Lot Lands one must have a group of people who can support you and, to this effect, loyalty is fundamental otherwise the system collapse (and by that, many lives are on the line). A loyalty that is not only between half-orcs and their allies; and loyalty also extends the pets. In fact, The Grey Bastards has one of the best scenes of sacrifice I have seen in a long time and I think I will cherish that moment for a long time (even if it makes me tear up every time). It truly spoke to me at least. Yet, the series offers several incredible moments of sacrifice, as people are loyal to each other.

So we covered outcasts and loyalty; the story is not done yet. One more key  theme in the story is the quest for freedom; partially associated with being considered a lesser race but mostly connected to the want to find a less brutal place to live and provide offspring with a much better world to grow up in (and this is a driver that has been shaped society for centuries).

In typical fantasy settings, there is magic; so, to some minor extent, this could be considered a sword and sorcery series but it would diminish the great exploration of important themes. So the author shares an important message, even when it comes to magic: magic is a tool and people can use it for good and for bad. Individuals have their own agenda, after all, have their own struggles, needs and potentially manipulative personalities.

One more thing that worked for me - and this is slightly spoiler-y yet another success factor of the series, in my opinion: the series is told from three different points of view. And that was, admittedly, initially confusing but it just gave an incredible boost to the series overall.

So why reading this series? It is a deeper analysis of many themes of humanity. From outcasts, to loyalty, to sacrifice, to brutality, there is a full dive into human behavior and human interaction. Done in a fantasy setting with a great deal of world building and unique tweaks on traditional fantasy tropes and themes.

Have you read this series? What are your thoughts about it? If you did not read the series, have this overview pushed you to read it? Comment down below (and if you read it, please also add a boar emoji!)!