Broadminded orcs

Do you want to be an orc? Not the pig-nosed, smelly, barbarian type, I mean, though I’m sure someone out there has dreamt of being one of those. I mean these orcs:

http://www.valingstoneways.com/manifesto.html

Here’s the MANIFESTO:

There’s been a lot of complaining recently from various sectors of the specfic community about how our genre gets no respect. I say, who cares? Not liking specfic is the literary world’s problem, not ours. Why should we worry whether they like what we read? Do they bother themselves over what we think of their favorite books? Of course not. What really matters in the end is that you read what you like, not what someone else tells you to like.That’s what this site is all about. Like what you read, and don’t worry what anyone else thinks about it. If we readers of speculative fiction are going to be labeled outsiders, the orcs of the reading public, we should at least be proud of it. Instead of grumbling, we should wave our orc flags high. We should be proud of our genre, and not care about anyone else’s opinion. Not everybody can like everything. Be happy we have a choice. If the rest of the world doesn’t appreciate the books we like, that’s their loss, not ours. Long live Frodo, and Harry Potter and Muad’Dib and John Carter and Saxifrage Russell. And, if anyone reading this happens to have a soft spot for Elizabeth Bennet or Nathan Zuckerman, be proud of that too. We orcs, at least, can try to be as broadminded as possible.

WE ARE THE ORCS!

Sign up today if you feel your heart beating to the drum of the literary orcs! Then go skulk into your dank cave and read your favorite speculative fiction books to your orcish heart’s content. Then go pillage a town and leave a bunch of people’s heads on pikes while their little huts burn in the background and the wailing of the survivors sends a tremble of fear across the land…

Ahem. Got a little carried away there.

(looks around)

Orcs!

(scampers off)

I see that smile.