Stan Nicholls’ ORCS has a very simple, but welcome conceit: Tell the story from the other side. This massive new release from Orbit combines the three books originally published in the “Orcs First Blood” series — BODYGUARD OF LIGHTNING, LEGION OF THUNDER and WARRIORS OF THE TEMPEST — into one handy, 784-page omnibus.

Stryke is the leader of a warband of orc creatures in the employ of the phenomenally brutal and evil Queen Jennesta. They have been sent to obtain a particular artifact, but during the return journey from a successful hunt, the artifact is stolen. They realize that the queen will put them to death for their failure, even after they have managed to re-acquire the artifact, and so they decide to go rogue.

Knowing that Jennesta valued the artifact very highly, and knowing that there are others like it elsewhere in the world, the orcs go on an adventurous quest to assemble all the similar artifacts in order to gain the power they need to fend her off.

Nicholls writes smoothly enough of a world filled with orcs, mermen, brownies, fairies and the like. He’s also especially fond of battle descriptions and bloodshed, appropriate for a book focused on orcs, but a little heavy going especially in the first 50 or 60 pages. Once past that, the reader ends up immersed in the plight of Stryke and his fellow warriors, and we eagerly travel with them from one adventure to the next. If you ever gave a thought to the non-human side of fantasy, this book is for you. —Mark Rose

Buy it at Amazon.