Orcs

"An orc is one of a race of mythical human-like creatures, generally described as fierce and combative, with grotesque features and often black, grey or greenish skin. This mythology has its origins in the writings of J. R. R. Tolkien.

These creatures have since become popular figures in other fantasy and science fiction literature as well as many types of fantasy games. They are variously portrayed as physically stronger or weaker than humans, but always high in numbers. They often ride boars, wolves and wargs. In many role-playing and computer games, orcs have green or greenish skin (earning the name 'Greenskins' in such games as Warhammer Fantasy and Warhammer 40,000). Usually, and in contrast with other fantasy races such as Elves, orcs use shamanistic magic, or no magic at all. Their fighting skill is honed to maximum power and efficiency." - Wikipedia

 The first I heard of orcs was when I read Lord of the Rings. I think I was around 13 years old and it was a relatively new addition to the library in my neighborhood. I remember taking the three huge volumes of the shelf and reading the back cover on the first. It hooked me in an instant. I took them home and read them in that weekend. I don't think I did anything else during those three days beside reading, eating a bit and sleeping for a few hours. I was amazed by the brilliance of the story, the depth of the characters and the beautiful depictions of the environment. It became my favorite book. Years later, in 2007 I believe, I found the entire story in one book (huge, heavy and bright red with golden letters on the cover). It cost me a lot of money but it was worth it and now it sits proudly on my shelf next to a lot of other favorite books of mine.

Needless to say, I saw the movies and loved those as well.

Another time I encountered orcs in stories was when I started playing Warcraft III. A colleague from high school gave it to me and I played it non stop for a few days, redoing a lot of the campaigns in the beginning because, truth be told, I was a complete newbie at computer games back then. Warcraft III became one of my favorite games because of its Orc Campaign. I still play that campaign again and again, not because it's the easiest but because I get to play the orcs in the game. The depiction of the orcs was different here than it was in Tolkien's Lord of the Rings. Not better, not worse, just different, and that made me enjoy it all the more.

And now I come to the real subject of this very long and tiresome post. Still with me?

A few months ago some new books with the orcs as the main characters appeared in my country. They were written by Stan Nicholls and made up a trilogy. It is named Orcs: First Blood. It was originally published in the UK around 2000 and it has sold over a million copies worldwide since.

These books are among the first in which the main characters are orcs (from all the books I've read).

The books tell the story of a band of orcs that are sent into a mission by their Queen. When the mission fails they try and recover the artifact that their Queen needs in order to keep their jobs and heads. But since they don't come back from the mission on time, the Queen considers them traitors and sends other orcs, bounty hunters and dragons after them.

On the run, the orcs recover the artifact and find new ones as well which lead the story to an interesting conclusion. The entire three books are filled with battle scenes, dreams, spells and twists that stop you from putting the books down.

The descriptions of the battle scenes are amazing, you can feel as if you're watching them, being part of them. The entire orc society that is described in the books define the characters.

The ending seemed a little abrupt but then I read there will be another trilogy so I'm guessing the story isn't over just yet.

These are a few pictures I found on the author's website and mostly look like how I imagined the characters would be:

Strike

Jup

From what I found on Imdb.com, sadly there aren't any scheduled movies for this series, which seems a shame considering what great scenes there would be in them.

To conclude, I need to read more orc books because the ones I've read I liked. I like the fantasy genre so here's to more books like these!