Prohibition Orcs

by Michael Warren Lucas, Robert Jeschonek (Foreword)

"I love these stories"
Kristine Kathryn Rusch, Hugo- and Nebula-award winning author of The Fey

ELVES WENT INTO THE WEST—TO AMERICA.
GENERATIONS LATER, ORCS FOLLOWED.

1927 Detroit. Orcs fight Prohibition, avoid police, and labor hard for their children. All while doing their best to navigate the narrow human world. Men drive fancy Dodges and Cadillacs; orcs squeeze into fourth-hand Model Ts. Dwarves dominate the skilled trades; orcs push brooms. And behind everything, elves make it their life’s work to deny orcs have worth.

To be an orc is to endure, but when the world tries to deny even that, an orc must act.

And Uruk-Tai will do anything for his family.

This long-demanded collection includes all the Prohibition Orcs tales— Spilled Mirovar , Final Gift , Drowned Mirovar , Witness November , Degreased Hopes , Woolen Torment , and the never before published A Debt of Meat .

With an introduction by USA Today best-selling author Robert Jeschonek

196 pages, Paperback

Published November 4, 2022

Reviews

[Nina Holm · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was a fun romp! It explores class differences in a very high fantasy way, but it paints a surprisingly realistic picture of how prejudice and cultural differences can come together to form oppression. It shows how orc culture, so alien and incomprehensible to humans, works to worsen the oppression (for instance, by the orcs' inability to understand/accept that a leader could be duplicitous).

Nothing was particularly surprising plot-wise, and I got a bit tired of Uruk-Tai's gruff refusal to understand human ways. But I think that was the point - making me feel disdain and prejudice from "the other side". It was certainly interesting.

Overall it was a surprisingly fun read with more to say than I thought it would.

[John · Rating 4 out of 5]

The friend who gave me a copy of this book (you know who you are!) deserves my sincere thanks turning me on to this world. What a fun idea, spinning out an entire world from a simple half-joking question ("What if when the elves went to the West, where they ended up was the Americas?"). And the stories manage to find honor and dignity in this group of downtrodden (descendants of) immigrants, who are not at all the brutal, relentless killers we tend to think of. Nor are they the cute and lovable goblins I've seen in some recent works.

I'm looking forward to reading other work by the author, which based on the summaries here, is all quite different.

[rixx · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fun! Orcs as badly paid, badly treated labour class in the US, working in factories, few rights, no accommodation of culture, very (fantasy, but barely) racism. Solid characters, interesting arcs. A bit too US-ian for me to fully care, but in a good way? Like, very solidly localised, in a way that makes it less for me, but very much for other people.

[Dorothy Taylor · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved this and will read more! A thoughtfully built background for the orcs; one of the impressive details was how cloth felt to them. These are not just humans in orc suits, these are 'alien' beings, sentient non-humans with history, religion, and thought processes that cannot be truly understood by the humans around them.

[James · Rating 5 out of 5]

For fans of: USA prohibition-era working class stories and orcs!

My favourite depiction of my favourite fantasy creature! The clash between the orcs’ philosophy and human sensibilities is as engrossing as it is entertaining. Thank you, Mr Lucas!