Customer Reviews

Orcs: The Omnibus Edition (GollanczF.)

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

A standard orcs vs humans fantasy novel, except from the point of view of the orcs. This could be a great idea. It IS a great idea. This is NOT a great book.

the opening chapters of the book are great, very interesting to view the standard conflicts from a different angle. However, the book starts to fall down very quickly.

Its a pretty standard hero of a thousand faces tale, lowly grunt, on a quest to retrieve X sacred items and defeat the bad guy, after an old wise guy tells a story and then is killed.

The combat scenes are frequent, long, and repetitive, giving blow by blow accounts of the combat. Over and over. There is only so many times you can read about specific parry/doge/counter attack routines for 3 pages at a time and keep interested. There are MANY of these scenes in the book.

the book starts out with some decent standard fare sex stuff, but goes off the deep end with graphic descriptions of the lead villain-ess raping captives and when they orgasm (due to spells/aphrodisiacs) killing them and eating their hearts to regenerate her magic powers, including raping female elves by using unicorn horns as a strap-on. (Really, im not making this up)

Character descriptions are very two dimensional and repetitive. The exact same introductory descriptions about each character are repeated several times throughout the book, as though you didn't just read the exact same words about a character a few pages ago.

More importantly, this book is a VERY VERY thinly veiled analogy for the author's white christian male guilt. Humans are white settlers from europe. Orcs (and other various fantasy races) are the indians. The humans believe in a single god and (literally, by name) believe they came from adam and eve. They are all evil, and murdering and enslaving the native races, except for those humans who have converted to the local pagan religion.

The author falls for the classic "noble savage" myth, that all the indians were peace loving and had no conflicts with each other, until the humans showed up. (Except for how the orcs were a war race that sold themselves to the highest bidder. If everyone gets along, why would the orcs have a society like this?)


I'm all for moral analogies and learning lessons from a sotry, but at least make things be you know, actually separate and parallel, and not directly reference the things you are trying to talk about over and over.

I loved these books. The point of view was great and the story shifted enough to keep me engaged. I would recommend this to any fantasy reader. This book is very violent and has a bunch of "Adult Only" sections.

I wish the story would go on with another book or two.

I have always been a big fan of fantasy novels such as the lord of the rings trilogy and the inheritance cycle. but this is awful! yeah there is fantasy but its not what i would expect. Its completely wierd also. The evil queen does sex rituals on prisoners and she collects blood in a bath tub. Not the kind of book i like

Orcs, this book would have you believe, are a great auld bunch of lads, who enjoy a bit of fighting, a pint or 2 and some random stabbing. This book is pretty good, enjoyable, but I don't really see the Orcs as orcs in my minds eye, rather more just people or possible animated racoons, or something like that, because the author has gone so far to make the Orcs appear human, he has succeeded and they erm, appear human. Damn.

Loved it. Loved it. Loved it! My son picked this book up on vacation in England and insisted that I read it too. I found the first chapter quite disturbing, but once the characters began to resolve themselves - WOW. Great pacing and imagery. Well written. A new favorite. Oh yeah, one more thing ... it is bloody, there are graphic rape references, and the "f" word appears throughout. I wouldn't give this to an immature reader. Wait until they're at least teenagers! Now, how do I convince Nicholls to write more?

Orcs, the omnibus edition
Stan Nicholls

Orcs, the omnibus edition, contains all the four stories written by Stan Nicholls about his beloved Orcs.

In the first part of the omnibus, called Bodyguard of Lightning, we get introduced to the characters of the books. Stryke, captain of the orcish warband The Wolverines, is the main character. He's the leader of the group. For those of you who have read the Sharpe books by Bernard Cornwall, Stryke can be compared with Richard Sharpe. He's a great fighter and although he needs both his wits and strength to keep his command his men love him. Next in the line of command are the sergeants Haskeer and Jup. Haskeer is the troublemaker in the Wolverines. He's always having arguments with Stryke about the things they should be doing. Besides that his favourite waste of time is making war on Jup. Jup is the stranger in the warband full of orcs, simply because he is a dwarf. Not quite a surprise, Jups favourite waste of time is making warfare on Haskeer. Last in command are the corporals Coilla and Alfray. Coilla is the only woman in the warband, but that doesn't make her less frightful. Alfray is the oldest orc of the Wolverins and their medic.

Bodyguard of Lightning is set in the world of Maras-Dantia, although this is the name the humans living there call it. For the orcs the world is called Centrasia. The world of Maras-Dantia is witness of a war between two groups of humans, called the Unis and the Manis. The orcs are fighting under the command of Jennesta, queen of the Manis. The story sets of when the Wolverines are on a secret mission to capture a message cylinder hidden in a Uni settlement. Stryke and his warband are able to defeat the Unis and get there hands on the cylinder. Unfortunately the Wolverines are attacked on there way back and they lose the cylinder to a group of kobolds. Trying to retrieve the artefact Stryke orders the Wolverines to chase the kobolds. This turns out to be a great mistake since queen Jennesta now thinks the orcs have deserted her cause and orders here general to find and destroy the Wolverines. Unknown of this threat the warband succeeds to destroy the kobolds and retrieve the cylinder. Along with recapturing the artefact the release a gremlin prisoner called Mobbs. This gremlin convinces Stryke to open the cylinder. The cylinder contains a magic artefact which according to the gremlin is a part of a tool which could set the orcs free of there alliance with the humans. Thinking they can find the other pieces of the artefact Stryke and the Wolverines abandon the service of Jennesta. This is where the real adventure starts.....

The story continues in Legion of Thunder and Warriors of the Tempest. Without giving the story away, the Wolverines have to fight and think there way trough the world of Maras-Dantia to find the other pieces of the artefact to finish their quest. During this adventure they start to find out what is really happening to their homeland.

Stan Nicholls succeeded in turning so called dumb and evil creatures into real heroes you will start to love the further you get in the books. You'll even forget you're reading about orcs, the characters become more and more humanlike throughout the book. The books are real so-called page turners, once started you won't be able to put it away. You just want to know more and more about the adventures of this brave warband of orcs. Job well done!

Pieter W. Lak
28-4-2006