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

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.

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.

Elvenblood (©1995)

As good as the first.  If you like the easy brainless fantasy that takes you away for a bit this book, and its predecessor are for you.

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