Author Allen M Werner

“You only got us to vote on the cylinder, Stryke, not turning renegade.”
“Fair point, Though I reckon we’re renegades already. You just haven’t realized it.” He faced the assembled Wolverines. “You’ve heard what’s been said. I want to go after another star, and Trinity looks the best bet. I won’t pretend it will be anything but rough. But then we’re orcs, and that’s what we do best. If any of you don’t want to come, if you’d prefer to go back to Cairnbarrow or anywhere else, you’ll be given rations and a horse. Make yourselves known now.”
No one, not even those who had voted with Haskeer, came forward.
Excerpt from Orcs by Stan Nicholls

Orcs is a breathless, fast-moving action adventure you won’t want to put down. And these are not your Tolkien’s orcs, nor are they some modernized peace-seeking, family-values orcs.

The orcs are militant and a minority class in this world where magic is being depleted and drained by the invasion of humans. Sold by their own into the service to the nyadd Jennesta, an unmerciful, tyrannical sorceress who is allied with some of the humans, the orcs take orders and war as they are bred to do.

The Wolverines, one such war band of orcs led by Stryke, fail to complete a mission to obtain an artifact, a star, an instrumentality Jennesta desires. No one is sure what to call the object.

Failure to complete the mission is unacceptable and if they return home without the star, they are sure to be punished, possibly with their lives.

Not wanting to face Jennesta’s wrath, Stryke decides, despite a few complaints, that they should proceed on their own to hunt down the kobolds who stole the star. Once they obtain the artifact, they might be able to negotiate some mercy from Jennesta. These orcs know no other life and they have no place else to turn. Following Stryke is the only hope they have.

Jennesta, however, views the Wolverines actions as desertion. She sends out hunting parties to find and destroy the Wolverines, everything from orcs, humans, brownies, dragons and harpies.

It’s not long before the Wolverines realize that there is no going home. After hunting down the kobolds and obtaining the star, the war band learn that there are five of these instrumentalities and they are valued by more folk than just Jennesta.

Although he doesn’t know what the stars are or what powers they have, Stryke decides that the orcs only hope for survival lies in obtaining these things that are valuable to others. A war band without purpose means ruin. The orcs need a purpose to stay united. So they strike out to find more stars.

The Wolverines proceed to make enemies nearly everywhere they go. Seemingly every endeavor turns into a fight. And they fight. Often. (The one misgiving with the book might be the few casualties the Wolverines suffer throughout much of the book but it is fantasy adventure and you don’t want their numbers to dwindle, so you take it as a point of fact that the Wolverines are an elite war band, superior to most other orc war bands)

Stryke, while holding onto the stars as they gather them, begins to dream of a distant land where orcs live in peace. He is confused and not sure if it is a dream or someplace real. It seems very real when he is there, walking alongside a fetching female orc who speaks with him, knowing nothing of Stryke’s volatile world, only knowing the peace of her land, wondering why he keeps coming and going from her life. He wants to stay with her but doesn’t know how.

If you like action and fantasy with a band of interesting heroes, Stryke, Collia, Haskeer, and Jup (the only dwarf in the war band) as well as the other grunts, this story will satisfy your thirst.
I loved it. This is a book I would like to read again and probably will one day. It is that good. 5 Stars.

Allen M Werner is the author of the epic fantasy series
The Crystal Crux