Bruce Von Stiers

The popular WarCraft franchise just got a big boost with the release of the new game WarCraft III: Reign of Chaos. With that in mind, I decided to check out a couple of novels based on the characters from the games. I reviewed a title called Day of the Dragon that was the first in a series of books based on WarCraft. Now I have had a chance to read the second book in the series. It was written by Christine Golden, a veteran of the Star Trek: Voyager novel series and the author of several original fantasy / sci-fi novels. The title of this new novel is WarCraft Lord of the Clans. It was published by Pocket Books.

This is the story of a warrior named Thrall. He is an Orc, a greenish ogre type of race that is hated by the humans. He is adopted by a family of humans after his family is killed in a battle with humans. He is taken from the family by the lord of the area, Aedelas Blackmoore. But not before Thrall has become close to his adoptive family, the Foxtons. Especially the daughter, Taretha, who really takes to Thrall after the death of her little brother.

The book follows the life of Thrall as he is being trained to become a great gladiator and warrior. What nobody really knows is that Blackmoore is grooming Thrall to become the leader of an army of Orcs. This army will go to war with the Alliance and upon victory; Blackmoore will be the King of the world.

But Thrall has plans of his own. He eventually escapes and makes his way towards his people. He gets together with some fellow Orcs and tries to get something going. But he is captured once again. Then he finds out about all of the Orcs that are being held captive and how repressed the people are. He vows to free his people from captivity. He also wants to learn of his legacy and become a member of his family’s clan.

Those of you who are familiar with the characters in the WarCraft games will recognize some of the names in the book. The names most prominent in the book besides Thrall are the Orc leaders Grom Hellscream and Orgrim Doomhammmer.

According to my son, who is really knows his WarCraft stuff, this book sounds like it was based on the WarCraft Adventures. Josh says that WarCraft Adventures was an intermediate game that was never released.

This book has some interesting battle scenes. There are a couple battles where Thrall is helping his fellow Orcs escape imprisonment and a final bloody battle with Blackmoore. The author does a real good job of provided details of the battles.

WarCraft Lord of the Clans is a welcomed addition to the world of WarCraft. Those folks who play the game for hours; battling between Orcs and Humans can take a short breather now and then and read this book.

This book has a lot of different elements that together make a great story. There is the age old story of a slave imprisoned only to rise up against his masters. There is a tender story of a girl and her sisterly love towards someone of another race. And the reclaiming of a heritage and leadership of a people is also a major part of the story.

WarCraft Lord of the Clans is available online from the Blizzard web site at www.blizzard.com.

You can also pick it up at book retailers like Barnes and Nobles.