Orcs: First Blood: A New Definition of Badness.

[LizardWizard]

I've read the Orcs trilogy by Stan Nicholls and I must say this dog has set new standards of extremely uncreative writing erroneously packaged and sold as "fantasy".
The most irritating elements of this opus are:
-The cheesiest EVER portrayal of Christianity in a fantasy book. And yes, citing an old joke about Adam and his two incredible organs was really lame.
-Rampant ethical relativism. Almost all of the book's characters (including the orcs) are murderous, blood-craving bigots. The author's attempt to set the orcs' values as a sort of ethical standard is a real failure.
-An unbelievably cliched, almost caricatural female villain reminiscent of The Fifth Sorceress' worst pages.
-An overall impression of being highly derivative, with only one arguably innovative feature (orcs-as-good-guys).
In a nutshell, Orcs demonstrates how low can modern fantasy fall.

 

[KenM]

Just a quick question, if the first book was that bad, why did you bother reading the other 2 books?

 

[AdmundfortGeographer]

You should post your review over on Amazon.com. I just checked out the reviews there, and while generally few, they are mostly lauditory.


Regards,
Eric Anondson

 

[Tonguez]

Personally I liked the first book (haven't read the others), it wasn't a masterwork but it did its job and had a few droll moments and really anytime the premise of 'Orcs as good guys' is explored caricature, derivation and straight out 'spoof' are bound to follow...

ie accept it for what it was not what it ought to be

 

[drnuncheon]

Never heard of this series - it sounds similar to Mary Gentle's Grunts, although I'm not entirely certain what you mean by 'orcs as good guys'. Grunts certainly had orcs as protagonists, so if that's all you meant then the sole 'innovative' item wasn't even that.

J

 

[Krug]

I did enjoy the Warcraft book which had an Orc as the main character...

 

[KenM]

Grunts was a fun read.

 

[Hypersmurf]

Pass me another elf, Sergeant...

-Hyp.

 

[Berandor]

The book sucked.

I bought a "collected series" edition, and man, did I regret it. Unimaginative, and the ending was terrible.

I was most displeased by the fact that his "orcs" seem like any other kind of grunt soldiers, whereas writing about really badass, brutal, bloodthirsty barbarians or highly, highly, highly efficient SHARK-Orc-shock troops. These orcs were also too reactive to my liking.

I was bored.

 

[LizardWizard]

2 KenM:
My edition of the book contained all three parts in one volume, I had a lot of free time and nothing else to read within immediate reach. Boredom and idleness can make you read almost anything .
2 drnuncheon: By "orcs-as-good-guys", I mean that the author really sympathises with what the orcs believe and do. Sure, they certainly are portrayed as somewhat brutish and uncouth, but Jennesta and Hobrow (sp?) are completely despicable. Therefore, the orcs' behavior is completely justified and even welcomed by the author.