Is The Bastard Son & the Devil Himself based on a book?

The Bastard Son & the Devil himself is a new violent YA TV show on Netflix, but was it originally based on a book?

Netflix‘s new series The Bastard Son and the Devil Himself is the most recent addition to the supernatural YA TV show genre.

A lot of this genre was popular in the early 2010s, and many shows and films were adapted from books that had been published around that same time.

So, can the same be said for The Bastard Son & the Devil Himself? Is the series based on a book? Well, let us explain…

The Bastard Son & the Devil Himself is based on the Half Bad book series

Yes, The Bastard Son & the Devil Himself is based on a book.

More specifically, it’s from the 2014 young adult fantasy novel Half Bad, which was written by debut English author Sally Green.

The official plot is as thus:

Sixteen-year-old Nathan lives in a cage: beaten, shackled, trained to kill. In a modern-day England where two warring factions of witches live amongst humans, Nathan is an abomination, the illegitimate son of the world’s most terrifying and violent witch, Marcus. Nathan’s only hope for survival is to escape his captors, track down Marcus, and receive the three gifts that will bring him into his own magical powers—before it’s too late. But how can Nathan find his father when there is no one safe to trust, not even family, not even the girl he loves?

Half Bad is an international sensation and the start of a brilliant trilogy: a gripping tale of alienation and the indomitable will to survive.

One notable thing about the book is its use of second person narrative, and how in 2014, it set the Guinness World Record of being the Most Translated Book by a Debut Author, Pre-publication, having sold in 45 languages prior to its UK publication.

Half Bad drew comparisons to other young adult novels, such as The Hunger Games and Harry Potter, but it has also been likely to Nineteen Eighty-Four by George Orwell. It also won the 2015 Waterstones Teen Book Prize, and continued with two similarly popular books in the trilogy, Half Wild in 2015, and Half Lost in 2016.

Is the Bastard Son & the Devil Himself the same as Half Bad?

In an interview with the cast of the show, Dexerto was told that the show was very much intending to be its own thing, with many members of the main cast having not read the book before filming.

As Jay Lycurgo, who plays main character Nathan, put it, “We didn’t have to read the books, actually it was encouraged to not just because [Joe Barton, the series creator] was doing something completely different. He had the foundations of the character, but we wanted to make it our own and modernise it.

“When I read the book and when I see Nathan in this show, I think it’s aged more, I think it’s for an older audience, and it just feels more real when you get to see his perspective.”

“Joe kind of calls it a spiritual adaptation of the novels,” explained Nadia Parkes, who plays Annalise, “so I didn’t really wanna read something that took me down a wrong path.”

The show also focuses more on other characters’ perspectives, such as Nathan’s villainous sister Jessica. Jessica’s actor, Isobel Jesper Jones, said, “In the books, it doesn’t follow Jess as she goes off into the hunters,” whereas in the series the plot does.

This means that while fans may be getting something different, they will also be getting to see more of the characters and scenarios that the book hinted at.

The Bastard Son & the Devil Himself will be available to stream on Netflix on October 28.