Malcontents Books in Order

The Malcontents novels drop Larry Correia into the Iron Kingdoms, a magitech wargaming setting of steam-powered warjacks, gun mages, and clashing empires. Instead of monster-hunting contractors, these books follow a platoon of Cygnaran Storm Knights who are heroic mostly by accident.

Into the Storm introduces the Sixth Platoon, quickly dubbed “the Malcontents,” a dumping ground for troublemakers and misfits the army does not know what else to do with. Their new commander, Kelvan Cleasby, is a capable officer whose career has taken some bad turns, and now he has to weld a group of drunks, thieves, and barely controlled hotheads into something resembling a fighting unit.

The Iron Kingdoms are a dangerous place even for model soldiers. Trench warfare, arcane artillery, and lumbering lightning-wreathed warjacks turn every deployment into a potential massacre. Correia leans into that threat while keeping the focus tight on the squad level: each battle is seen from the muddy ground, not from maps in a warm war room. The technology may include storm glaives and cortex-driven machines, but the fears are familiar - cowardice, incompetence above you, and leaving friends behind.

Into the Wild sends the Malcontents on what is supposed to be a routine bodyguard mission, escorting an archaeological expedition into the Wyrmwall Mountains. The job quickly goes sideways. A seemingly abandoned fort hides the aftermath of something monstrous, a lone survivor is not telling everything he knows, and a feral local tribe has very strong opinions about trespassers. The platoon’s mix of bad attitudes and genuine courage is tested as the mission changes from escort duty to escape attempt.

Threaded through both books is a sense of hard-earned camaraderie. The Malcontents insult one another constantly, dodge regulations when they can, and still close ranks when the shooting starts. Cleasby’s struggle to be both their protector and their disciplinarian gives the series a human center amid all the lightning blasts and warjack duels.

You do not need to be familiar with the tabletop games to follow the Malcontents stories. The books explain what you need to know and focus on characters first, hardware second. If you like fantasy war fiction about reluctant heroes who curse their orders and then follow them anyway, this series scratches that itch.