Books like Lord of the Clans

"I have no fear of killing those who deserve to die. I do not choose to kill those who do not."I hate orcs.Really, they’ve always been one of my least favourite fantasy races. I grew up with Tolkien’s books, and he was the first to shape my perception of all the traditional fantasy races. Later, when I played games such as The Elder Scrolls, the orcs, while different from Tolkien’s, were still too twisted and ugly and mindless and brutish for me to sympathise with them in any way. And other fantasy works containing orcs, such as several Dungeons & Dragons settings, never caught my interest.When I started playing World of Warcraft a few weeks ago, I couldn’t stand the orcs here either. They are evil and bloodthirsty, with no mind for anything but combat. However, there was one orc I encountered that I actually liked. His name was Thrall, and he quickly became my favourite orc, or more correctly, the only orc I’ve ever liked. Lord of the Clans is his story, from the utter defeat of the orcs of Azeroth and Thrall’s early years as a slave to ruthless humans, to his fulfilling his destiny as Warchief of the Horde.I started reading this because I wanted to know more about Thrall. Little did I know that soon after having become my favourite orc, he would be relegated to the second spot. Besides Thrall and his story, this book has quite a few qualities. Most importantly, the character Orgrim Doomhammer; also just the ridiculously awesome name Orgrim Doomhammer. Then there is the brilliant prologue, heavily featuring Orgrim Doomhammer; a fascinating mentor-protegé relationship between Thrall and Orgrim Doomhammer; an awesome character comeback by Orgrim Doomhammer; and in case I haven’t gotten it across yet, I also really liked Orgrim Doomhammer.But there are other good characters too, including the vile and conniving Lieutenant General Aedelas Blackmoore. Led astray by temptation, Blackmoore is as far from an evil mastermind as a villain can get, even though he’s both intelligent and ambitious. But this guy is simply an everyday villain. He wants power for himself, he’s a drunkard and a xenophobe, and only coincidence transforms him from a brilliant soldier and into a brutal slave owner.Like the previous Warcraft book, this one is not particularly well-written, and apart from the prologue and the other brilliant parts, it was quite a bit boring at times. But the story and some of the characters were much more interesting, and so I have to rate it higher. I would really recommend this one to WoW and Warcraft players, especially those favouring the Horde.I’ll close off this review with a picture of um… Orgrim Doomhammer.