Orconomics Review

E-Book, 340 Pages
Adult/ Fantasy/ Satire
By: J. Zachary Pike
Rating: 🌟🌟🌟🌟

“Not all who wander are lost; some are on quests.”

I almost read all of the SPFBO competition winners except for one and this is my third favorite out of those. I can see why it won the 2018 SPFBO! Despite the book having +5000 ratings and an average rating of 4.33, I still think it is an underappreciated read and more fantasy readers should be reading it.

The thing that kept me from reading this for a long time is that it kind of sound dull with the title giving the impression it will be dry and the satire genre which doesn’t work for everyone but I was wrong because this is not what I expected at all. The closest thing that comes to mind when I think of this books is Nicholas Eames The Band series because it is indeed a fantasy quest book with a weird combination of characters that just work perfectly well together.

Gorm was a great protagonist and the other 6 heroes or secondary characters were all great, three dimensional and funny in their own ways. The way they are introduced is smooth without info dumping the readers. There are all kind of characters in this books like Goblins, Orcs, witches, mages, elves and dwarves. Just think about it and it is there. I loved the fact the way the community was separated into Lightkin and Shadowkin which was merely a social construct to benefit some people. Sounds like real life, huh?

I first thought this was going to be very political and dry specially with a name like Orconomics (Don’t get me wrong I love economics) but the humor was nailed and the writing in general is easy to follow. The politics is there but it doesn’t shadow the rest of the story, there was a focus on capitalism, shareholders and money but in a very entertaining way. You have to think of this more like an epic fantasy quest with magic and swords rather than politics and satire.

Summary: I really enjoyed Orconomics with its funny writing, awesome characters and tight plot. I think it deserves to be an SPFBO winner and more readers should give it a chance. I will be certainly continuing it but closer to book three release!