The Grey Bastards
core novel 2015 The Lot Lands
Record
| First published | 2015 |
|---|---|
| Original language |  EN |
| Work type | novel |
| Canon status | core |
| Reader rating | 4.05 (9,193 ratings, collected 2026-08-25) |
| First-edition ISBN | 9780525575832 |
Synopsis
Jackal and his fellow half-orcs of the Grey Bastards patrol the harsh badlands of the Lot Lands on their armored war pigs, protecting settled human folk from monstrous threats in exchange for tribute and trade. After a deadly confrontation among his own hoof shakes his certainty in the world he has always accepted, Jackal begins quietly investigating uncomfortable truths that others around him would rather leave buried. His questions draw him into an old feud tangled up with invading orcs pushing in from beyond the borderlands, the centaur clans who share the wastes with the half-orcs, and dark magic connected to the origins of his people. As Jackal digs deeper, his loyalty to his hoof and its aging chieftain is tested against what he is beginning to learn about the true nature of the threats gathering around the Lot Lands.
Where it sits
- Universe: The Lot Lands
- Series: The Lot Lands core; position 1 of 3 in the series' recorded order
- Author: Jonathan French
Awards (verified)
- Self-Published Fantasy Blog-Off (Grand Champion), 2016: won
Notes
- From the series record (The Lot Lands): Core = the 3-novel trilogy. The Grey Bastards was originally self-published in 2015, won that year's Self-Published Fantasy Blog-Off, and was substantially revised for its 2018 Crown/Penguin Random House edition; the original 2015 publication year is recorded here as first publication per this project's print-edition convention, with the revision noted rather than treated as a separate work.
Neighbouring works
Publication order and internal chronology are tracked as two separate orderings and are never conflated: a book's place in one says nothing about its place in the other.
- Publication order, within the series The Lot Lands: position 1 of 3: next The True Bastards (2019)
Sources
- Reader-rating platform series page: The Lot Lands
- Publisher listing: The Free Bastards (Penguin Random House)
- https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/564731/the-grey-bastards-by-jonathan-french/
- Mark Lawrence (SPFBO creator's own blog)
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