Royal Destiny: Queen of the Orcs, book III, by Morgan Howell.

My most recent post on this series is here. The first one is here.

In this, the conclusion of the trilogy, Dar, who began as a slave to a terrible human king, comes into her own as queen of the orcs. (Howell's orcs are quite different than Tolkien's. They are a matriarchal society, and, with rare exceptions, incapable of dishonesty or deception. They are loyal and brave.)

Sure enough, this is sword and sorcery fantasy. There are swords, daggers, bows and arrows. There is also a wicked sorcerer, and there are spirits, and reincarnation, and habitation of living, intelligent beings by spirits. One of the spirits appears to be a devilish god, but is not well described.

Nonetheless, there are some surprises in this book, especially the ending, which is ambiguous enough that I'm not completely sure what was going on.

There's not much else I can say, without giving away large sections of the plot, which I'm not going to do. I would classify this trilogy as somewhat above hack work, but somewhat below the quality of ideas of Tolkien, Elizabeth Moon, Patricia McKillip, Lois McMaster Bujold, or Ursula K. LeGuin. For example, Howell uses muth as the orkish root word for mother. (There's an orkish glossary in the back, and enough orkish in the book to have made it useful.) Tolkien would have invented a word much different than the English word.

I'm not sorry that I read these books, but would give them a luke-warm recommendation to others.

Thanks for reading.

Clan daughter: Queen of the orcs, book II, by Morgan Howell

I have already posted on the first book of Morgan Howell's Queen of the Orcs trilogy. The heroine, Dar, began that book as a slave. The subtitle indicates what the end will be, but I'm not there yet.

In the second book, there are some interesting developments. The King of the local humans has an evil magician, who has the current Orc queen under his control, because of the drugs he is giving her. Dar is able to defeat him, to the point that he is apparently dead, and and to rescue the queen. Dar has some visions from spirits. Near the end of the book, the queen dies, and appoints Dar as her successor, which is not appreciated by the mothers of some Orc clans who believed that they, or their daughters, had some claim to that office.

In the first book, I indicated that Howell's Orcs are quite different from those of Tolkien. They are a matriarchal society -- the females are in charge, although they don't go out to fight. They are ethical beings, and, apparently, unable to deceive, which makes them vulnerable to some battle strategies that they cannot anticipate, or makes them vulnerable in battle because they can't carry out plans that involve deceit. However, in this book, we learn that there are some Orcs that can lie. There aren't many of them, but there are some.

Also, Dar discovers that she is in love with an Orc. Their relationship is not consummated, but they do engage in some serious physical intimacy. This Orc's mother does not bless their relationship, because she thinks it cannot result in offspring.

As a negative criticism, I was surprised to find that the cover art on the version I read (New York: Del Ray, 2007) showed Dar with no facial ornamentation. In the book, she received an Orc tattoo. I suppose that the publisher thought her unadorned face would help sell the book.

It's a readable series, and the non-Tolkienish Orcs add interest. I plan to finish reading the trilogy.

Thanks for reading.

Queen of the Orcs: King's Property by Morgan Howell

I recently read Queen of the Orcs: King's Property, the first book in a trilogy, by Morgan Howell. (Howell is a pseudonym.) Here's the Amazon page on the book.

Orc is a term used most prominently by J.R.R. Tolkien. As the Wikipedia article on the term indicates, the word pre-dates Tolkien.

There are significant differences between Tolkien's orcs and those of Howell. Tolkien's orcs seem to have been about human size, or smaller. Tolkien didn't have any female orc characters. Tolkien's orcs were treacherous, devious, and seemingly given over entirely to evil. Howell's orcs seem to be somewhat larger than humans. Although there are no female orc characters in this book of the trilogy, the orcs hold their females in great reverence, and live in a matriarchal society. The orcs in this book are all serving as soldiers for a human king, under what they think are orders from their queen. They serve in an army that includes both human and orc units. As to devious character traits, the orcs are honorable to a fault, and, if fighting by themselves against humans, can often be beaten, even if they seem to have a superior force, because they are not only honorable, but cannot imagine dishonorable behavior well enough to imagine possible treacherous, or even deceptive, behavior by humans.

The protagonist of the book is Dar, a human woman, probably in her twenties, whose father and stepmother give her to the king's army. Like the other women accompanying the army, she serves as a slave -- she is branded as the property of the king. She works as a cook and scullery maid. Most of the book is told from her perspective.

One of the duties of the women is to serve meals to the orcs. The orcs have a strong religious, or cultural, belief that all good things, including food, come from a Mother, and accept food only from a human woman, there being no orc women in the army. Dar is sent to serve them, because she is a newcomer. However, she gradually learns to respect the orcs, learn some of their language, and, most important, eventually convinces a special orc friend that she, as a female, should be taken seriously, even listened to.

Another thing that the women do is serve some of the soldiers sexually. Dar never does this, but a couple of the officers lust after her, and, when she refuses to cooperate, plan vengeance. Since orcs are protecting her, the vengeance involves letting the orcs be destroyed by an enemy army. The book closes with Dar escaping from the battle, and the army, as leader to five orc soldiers, including her special friend, Kovak-mah.

There are some religious aspects to the book. Both the orcs, and the humans, have pagan religious beliefs. There is magic, or the supernatural, in at least two ways. Dar discovers that she sometimes sees visions, which turn out to come true. The king has a sorcerer, who goes into a trance, using blood from a newly sacrificed human boy each time he enters one, and, upon coming out of the trance, has learned something about the future.

Tolkien was accused of writing his famous Lord of the Rings trilogy to flesh out his made-up languages, and there may have been some truth in the accusation. Howell hasn't gone nearly as far, but there is, at least, an appendix of about a dozen pages, giving some vocabulary and grammar from the orc's language.

There are certainly some bad guys in the book, but Dar, and Kovak-mah, are honorable, and try to help others unselfishly. Dar is a strong character, hard-working, with high ideals, and a good mind, in spite of the handicap of her background as a peasant woman rejected by her own family. I expect to read the other two books in this trilogy.