We've heard it all before. Orcs are petty, coarse and savage. Great green brutes with feral tusks, devoid of culture and of reason. It’s been said they have no souls and that the gods themselves disdain them. At least, so say the campfire tales. But what if there were more? Another side to all-things-green. A birthright yet to find a claimant.
The first of six installments in the Blackmount novel cycle, Wars and Rumors of Wars takes up the tale of one unhappy hybrid, sired and kept without consent, and of the mess that swirls around him as he tries to find his place between his human and orcish halves. If only anything were simple! Larger games are already in progress on the board he wanders onto.
The complete first novel in the story of Blackmount and her people - combining Wars and Rumors of Wars: Episodes 1, 2, and 3 into a single 722 page compendium edition. This is Blackmount as it's meant to be read.
Fans of Bradbury, Adams, Clarke and Pratchett will find themselves right at home in this introspective political thriller cleverly disguised as epic fantasy.
I've been giving this some thought, and I would just like to point out a handful of statistical facts about where I fit in the pantheon of great novelists for my future biographer, now that I'm a fancy-pants writer and all...
Consider:
I am WAY better at writing books than J.R.R. Tolkien and Douglas Adams (currently) are. I'd go so far as to say that if you put the three of us in a room next month, Everything that I wrote would be conclusively better than the two of theirs together. I put out one book this year. Them? Slacking.
My DEBUT NOVEL contains 1,000,000% more Orc protagonists than J.K.Rowling's whole body of work. Representation is everything.
I am almost as good-looking as Neil Gaiman, and FAR BETTER at playing the Tuba (though that could change.)
I can almost definitely beat Terry Brooks at Halo, and I challenge him at any time to prove me wrong. (no, seriously, i'm free any time to Fanboy, er, DEFEAT HIM. I will clear my calendar to defend my title.)
Orson Scott Card has sold more books, it's true. But I'll bet I've won more LARP archery competitions by a factor of four. Clearly this makes us even.
I am a Much better photographer than George R.R. Martin. I'm happy to trade pointers with him any time he wants to come over. I hear he's super-nice. We could go bowling.
What I'm saying here is, I'm better than all the other writers that I like [at irrelevant things unrelated to writing, of course, but hey...] so you should read my book. You've already read all theirs anyway, and George's taking forever to write his next masterpiece. ( I write mine to fill the time between his, like those tiny birds that inhabit the mouths of crocodiles. my niche is 'so hey, while you're waiting for That to come out... what do you know about Orcs?' )
I wish I had been able to give this book more time and attention as I read (rather than in spurts on my never-long-enough lunch break). There are definitely a lot of moving parts, pieces, characters, and plot points that it was very easy to be a bit overwhelmed and a little lost from time to time until I could get my bearings with reading more than just a handful of pages at a time.
I can't wait to find out what comes next in this never-a-dull-moment story of twists, turns, Sky Orcs, multi-dimensional, multiple-timeline story of war, angels, orcs, elves, humans, and a little bit of everything in between. The characters feel well thought out and are delightfully complex, with race, religion, politics, and rich backstories as a solid foundation for an equally complex plot line. I'm sure a flow chart of the greater plot would be like one of those string maps from a crime drama, but a well seeded plot makes me want to come back for more each time. I can't wait to find out how everything works out by the end--and hopefully we won't have to wait too long for the next installment at least!
A tale of an orcs, elves and humans. I tale like you've never read before. The heroes are outsiders, and being on an isolated world only ads to that. The characters will come alive to you, and the story so vivid you feel like a watcher yourself