I liked the book, but I really feel that it could have been told better and with greater effect if it had been half the length. Too much of the story felt like it was just dragging out time between the parts worth reading. ( )

A rollicking good read.

If you're put off by the negative write ups here, forget them! So, not many of the band get killed, how many of the nine get killed in Lord of the Rings? Ok, so the land described isn't massive but neither is Scotland and that has plenty of room for this story to happen.

Read it if you love fantasy books. ( )

3 stars is a good score from me for this book because normally I'm stuck between 3 and wishing to put 3.5 or 4.5. Half stars are needed! Well, except in this case. Orcs is a decent read. The descriptions are detailed but after awhile I found it fairly redundant. There are only so many ways to hack an arm off. When I was younger I would have loved this book and the ones that followed. I'm getting older and more jaded I guess. I'm used to more complex writing like Robert Jordan's work. So, you may want to consider your tastes for variety and complexity when thinking of Orcs. ( )

Consisting of the three "Orcs" books; Bodyguard of Lightning (1999), Legion of Thunder (2000) and Warriors of the Tempest (2000), it also includes the short story The Taking (2000) which first appeared in the anthology Swords against the millenium, edited by Michael Chin.

"Orcs" is the story of an elite orc warband, the Wolverines, led by the enigmatic captain Stryke and his cadre of officers: the grumpy sergeant Haskeer, the dwarf Jup, the corporals Olfray (the bands' healer) and Coilla, in their search for five magical artifacts called "instrumentalities", which somehow can tell them the truth about the past, present and future of the Orcish race.

Although a fast-paced saga riddled with well-written combat and battle sequences, it falls short of the expectations the Encyclopedia Fantastica had about this omnibus. The main characters are never more than two-dimensional and especially the Orcish race depicted within the pages of this book is never able to convince. They are not mean enough, not gritty and lean and far too honourable and nice. The setting of "Orcs", the world of Maras-Dantia (or Centrasia as the human inhabitants call it) is not worked out as it should be, despite the fact that a myriad of races call it home.

Certainly an entertaining read, but Nicholls is unable to suck the reader into the story as really great novels are able to do. ( )

I finally finish the daunting/masochistic task of reading the 745 pages of crap that this book contains… now as promised my review:

Look I’ve read crap in my life… but this was just ridiculous… if you ever played one of those random RPG games for the Game Boy back in the early 90’s you know what talking about here… you get your generic main character an Orc named Stryke, you also get the traditional cookie cutter motley crew of retards: Haskeer who is stubborn and stupid and is supposed to be the main source of “comical” relieve… Coilla, who steps forward as the mistress in distress in a couple of situations that made wish I was blind or illiterate… you also get your wise healer Alfray, who starts showing his skill by cutting off somebody’s leg and then cooking it to give the patient strength and a fast recovery… (Yes, the patient dies anyway) and Jub, a dwarf with some racial self-pity/shame issues… but wait there is more!!! You also get another cookie cutter character; the evil ruler Jennesta!!! She likes to wear a strap-on unicorn horn dildo to refill her magic powers from her ritualistic rapes!! But wait there is more!! You also get tour designated Gandalf, a human mage who likes to make cliché religious jokes and goes by the name of Serapheim… (Still wishing I was illiterate)

After an attack on a random village and stealing and important artifact the Wolverines (believe it or not that’s the name of Stryke’s war band) decides to smoke some pellucid (this world’s equivalent of crack) that they find along with the artifact… they late because they were getting high and decide to make a run for it so their evil ruler don’t get upset, but in their way back they get attack and the artifact is stolen from them. in the process of getting the artifact back they discover that is a star shape thingy that has some of awesome powers! And that there are 4 more scattered around the world (they gets this information from a scholar gremlin) and so they decide to take on a quest of get them all in an adventured that will take the mighty Wolverines to great quests like getting a tear from an megalomaniac selfish bitch in some cave, fight stupid trolls in smelly caves, stealing from Nazi look alike religious freaks and, stupid besieged cities with magical geysers!!!

Many times while I was reading this book I started to wonder… what horrible thing would I rather be doing instead of reading this book? Here is a few of the things I came up with:

1. Cover my hand with crazy glue and then sprinkle it with glass chards and then masturbate with it…
2. Listen to a Bon Jovi album.
3. Talking to that crazy Jehovah witness near the Q38 bus stop.
4. Play Final Fantasy X-2 .
5. Call my mother.
6. Running around the tiger mountain on the Bronx zoo while wearing only a raw meat jacket.
7. Watch the teletubbies
8. Read a harry potter book.
9. Cover my genitalia with honey and then walk around naked in a bear cave.
10. Watch an entire golf tournament in ESPN.

I Alfonso Gutierrez give this piece of crap a 2 out of 5 because of the unicorn horn dildo!!
( )