Review: "Son of a Liche" by J. Zachary Pike

Disgraced hero Gorm Ingerson and his dysfunctional party are outlaws, but they may also be the only hope against an army of the undead in J. Zachary Pike’s “Son of a Liche” ($5.99, Gnomish Press).

Caught in a set up at the end of the previous book, “Orconomics,” Gorm and his band are hiding from the law, but there are bigger threats than assassins’ contracts and the rewards plastered everywhere on badly-drawn posters.

The heroes follow the trail of the Guz’Varda tribe of orcs to try to make amends for the disastrous consequences of their last quest. But the Guz’Varda have joined the Red Horde, a band of shadowkin set on returning to the old ways of violence and pillaging. At the same time, the necromancer Detarr Ur’Mayan (who happens to be the father of the band’s noctomancer, Jynn) has raised an army of the undead and is marching across the kingdoms, aggressively recruiting on the way.

The outlaws may have the secret to stopping both threats, but they’re not going to make any friends among the world’s powers that be by doing it.

My favorite reads of 2018

There’s not a lot to recap as the calendar runs out on 2018. It was a slow and strange reading year for me. It was a year of less reading time and more DNFs than I can ever remember. I probably abandoned more books than I finished.

Wrapping up

Even some of those that I stayed with disappointed. A couple of series that I had enjoyed in the past came to very unsatisfying conclusions for me, but I felt I had to see them through. One bright spot in the series conclusions is also the first of my favorite reads of the year (not No. 1, mind you, just the first to be mentioned).

“Assassin’s Fate” by Robin Hobb. This was a very bittersweet book for me, so much so that I put off reading it for a long time after its release. I’ve known and loved FitzChivalry Farseer for more than two decades, and I felt certain this would be my last journey with him. It was not a perfect book nor the best in his tale, but it was, at least, a satisfying conclusion.

Review: "Orconomics" by J. Zachary Pike

As you may have noticed if you visit this site occasionally, my reading has been pretty slow this year. I’m only averaging about one book per month, and May was the first month in my memory that I didn’t finish one at all. There are a few DNFs in the mix, but despite there being new books by some authors I really like that I haven’t gotten to yet, I’ve been in a bit of a slump.

Then I stumbled across J. Zachary Pike’s “Orconomics” ($13.99, Gnomish Press). After getting a few chuckles out of the sample, I still wasn’t sure about it, but the book turned out to be just what I needed.

Gorm Ingerson is a disgraced professional hero. Once known as the Pyrebeard, he was one of the most feared berserkers in the game. Then, a raid on a necromancer’s stronghold went south. He was stripped of his rank, and now wakes up drunk in a ditch most every day. That is until, quite accidentally, he befriends a goblin. He sets out to get the goblin his NPC papers (making him off limits for heroes to claim a bounty). That move sets Gorm on a world-changing path.