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Orcs
©2004
 
Bodyguard
of Lightening ©1999
Legion of Thunder
©1999
Warriors of the Tempest ©2000
Stan Nicholls tries his hand at reworking Tolkien's cannon fodder characters
from simple villains to heroes. The results are somewhat mixed, but
it's still early going so the jury is still out. However, what I have
working to my benefit is an omnibus edition that presents the entire
tale in a single volume rather than the one book at wait for the next
book trilogy thing. Which is a good thing, because I'm not sure if this
one had enough momentum to carry me over to the next book.
I'm always a sucker for something a little different and an adventure
story where the orcs are the good guys was a nice twist. Of course to
have an adventure you need something to rally around and the basic premise
is pretty simple. A war band of orcs capture something for their queen,
but along the way they are waylaid and lose the item they'd just captured.
The queen thinking the war band has gone rogue starts to think less
than pleasant thoughts about those orcs and sets about trying to find
them. Of course those same orcs were just trying to get back that which
they'd stolen, and along the way they do get it back, but they also
picked up an old goblin who happened to be scholar of sorts and told
them that the pretty little trinket the queen wanted was an item of
great power and that if the orcs were to get a whole bunch of them things
would be very different for the orcs. Of course by this time they realize
that their queen is pretty unhappy with them and rather than face her
wrath they go rogue and decide to collect the "stars" and
see what they do.
There's some fun playing against the stereotype. The orcs are warriors,
but they are not mindless blood thirsty killing machines. They stumble
across a group of humans comprised of women and children and rather
than poke them full of wholes and eat the babies, the war band stops
to chat and even share out some of their provisions. They're quite nice
for all that. Also it would appear that they are adept killing machines
when they want to be as evidenced by their clashes with humans and trolls.
They inflict a lot of damage and don't take a lot of casualties on their
end.
The story was pretty good, and it sort of meandered building up some
momentum without any clear line of sight. The first book abruptly ends
with not one, but two cliff hangers. It's as if after close to 250 pages
it was simply time to stop. Not really a satisfying way to end at all.
Which is why I was glad to have all the books in one volume as to continue
the story all I needed to do was turn the page and start in on the next
installment. The second story was actually the best of the bunch and
really built up a good head of steam. I liked the interplay between
the characters, and even the brutally heavy handed religious elements
weren't as annoying as I'd have figured them to be. However, the third
book while decent enough seemed to go off the rails a bit. It's as if
Stan had written himself into a bit of a corner and to get himself out
of a jam started killing off characters at a furious pace. The end of
the story left me thinking "that's it?"
I had really hoped for more
from the series, and while it was entertaining enough for all that,
it wasn't something that lived up to it's promise.
Reviewed May 15, 2009
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The
Smoke Ring  
The
sequel to The Integral Trees. An interesting world, and an interesting
premise. Not the easiest book to describe in a couple of sentences.
A lot of floating trees. A bunch of people who were stranded there 500
years earlier. A wacked out computer who takes after HAL. The story
moves along, and there are some interesting moments. As you can tell
from my use of the word interesting, on the whole I found this an interesting,
if not good book.
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The Elvenbane
  
This
book was on my "B" reading list for a long time, and the other day I
figured I'd give it a turn. All in all this was a pretty fair
read. Humans, Elves, Dragons, magic, etc. No deep meaning
or anything, but it was a good fantasy romp, and it left me wanting
more.
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Elvenblood
(©2002)    
Well,
after a number of years Norton and Lackey put out another addition to
the Halfblood Chronicles. Still an easy reading fantasy that goes by
quickly and doesn't take a lot of brain power to digest. This time around
we meet up with an honorable elf, who likes to read history and play
war games. We get equal measures on intrigue and action along with some
small "s" social commentary.
Considering the time between
books I was pleased that Elvenborn didn't pick up where the last one
left off and assume you had an eidetic memory. The way things unfolded
I remembered what I needed to as it went along.
This was a really good piece
of escapism. I doubt it'll ever be a classic, but it was entertaining
and left me wanting more.
Reviewed April 2003
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