I liked the book, but I really feel that it could have been told better and with greater effect if it had been half the length. Too much of the story felt like it was just dragging out time between the parts worth reading. ( )

Filled with fights, so it has enough action and pace. But it also is lacking real humor other than situational once or twice and a repeating argument between two band members that should probably count as fun in the mind of the author because the two are actually friends anyway. Well, it doesn't work.

There are too many deus-ex-machina solutions and the climax is completeley pointless what's the use ins ending away a few on thousands of orcs? ( )

A rollicking good read.

If you're put off by the negative write ups here, forget them! So, not many of the band get killed, how many of the nine get killed in Lord of the Rings? Ok, so the land described isn't massive but neither is Scotland and that has plenty of room for this story to happen.

Read it if you love fantasy books. ( )

3 stars is a good score from me for this book because normally I'm stuck between 3 and wishing to put 3.5 or 4.5. Half stars are needed! Well, except in this case. Orcs is a decent read. The descriptions are detailed but after awhile I found it fairly redundant. There are only so many ways to hack an arm off. When I was younger I would have loved this book and the ones that followed. I'm getting older and more jaded I guess. I'm used to more complex writing like Robert Jordan's work. So, you may want to consider your tastes for variety and complexity when thinking of Orcs. ( )

Consisting of the three "Orcs" books; Bodyguard of Lightning (1999), Legion of Thunder (2000) and Warriors of the Tempest (2000), it also includes the short story The Taking (2000) which first appeared in the anthology Swords against the millenium, edited by Michael Chin.

"Orcs" is the story of an elite orc warband, the Wolverines, led by the enigmatic captain Stryke and his cadre of officers: the grumpy sergeant Haskeer, the dwarf Jup, the corporals Olfray (the bands' healer) and Coilla, in their search for five magical artifacts called "instrumentalities", which somehow can tell them the truth about the past, present and future of the Orcish race.

Although a fast-paced saga riddled with well-written combat and battle sequences, it falls short of the expectations the Encyclopedia Fantastica had about this omnibus. The main characters are never more than two-dimensional and especially the Orcish race depicted within the pages of this book is never able to convince. They are not mean enough, not gritty and lean and far too honourable and nice. The setting of "Orcs", the world of Maras-Dantia (or Centrasia as the human inhabitants call it) is not worked out as it should be, despite the fact that a myriad of races call it home.

Certainly an entertaining read, but Nicholls is unable to suck the reader into the story as really great novels are able to do. ( )