The Orc Ranger

An Orc Ranger Series Novella

By: Jacob McElligott

Narrated by: Jack de Golia

An ancient darkness lurks in Gayne County, and it will not be taken lightly.

Thurk Gutarg lives a hard life. Being both an orc and one of the famed Albara Rangers, his entire life has been spent under the judgemental eyes of other people. When reports come in from isolated Gayne County of people going missing on the plains, Thurk can not be sure of the cause. He strikes out anyway, firm in his duty as a Ranger.

Finding unlikely allies in the form of an old dwarf named Galmar and a native boy called A'Tiami, Thurk sets out to find the dark evil plaguing this small western town.

Can this unlikely trio discover Gayne County's dark secret in time to save the town and themselves?

A rich fantasy world combines with a vibrant western story in a world full of lost magic and fearsome beasts in this debut novella to the Orc Ranger series.

Lovers of the Weird West Fantasy Genre (The Dark Tower, Wolf in Shadow), as well as fans of traditional fantasy and contemporary fantasy, will thoroughly enjoy this tale. Listen to The Orc Ranger today to accompany Thurk and his companions on an unforgettable journey through the West.

©2019 Jacob Peter McElligott (P)2020 Jacob Peter McElligott

I Didn’t Hate It, but a full blown hit in my eyes

For the material that was presented.. a western type movie setting, with mythical creatures like an Orc & his companions, it was an ok book. I will continue to give this book a chance & read books 2 thru whatever, one can hope that it gets better in time.

Fun Listen

Good start to this short series. Fun and enjoyable. It was a little hard to understand the Orc at the beginning, but it got better as the story went on. I guess I would categorize this as western fantasy. Received a copy of this audiobook for free for my unbiased voluntary review,

spaghetti western meets middle earth

An orc, an dwarf and half elf enters a frontier bar...

A post-middle earth world short story where lingering ancient evil lurks over a dusty border town. A lone orc seeking to break traditional barriers, gathers companions as he doles out frontier justice...

About what I'd expect for a weekend DnD campaign translated into a wild west setting.
Solid, but a bit straight forward storyline. Short story format impacted plot developement opportunities. Would have benefitted from a bit more mystery getting to the mystery villian reveal. Still overall enjoyable.

Fantasy western hmmm

The story, concept, and characters are great. Jacks voices are great. Had me smiling throughout the listen.

Western ideas for fantasy ttrpgs

It was a short pleasurable read. I just wish the ending wasn’t so abrupt to end.

Inventive and entertaining, despite it's problems

This is a curious admixture of Western Mystery/adventure and fantasy that, despite a number of issues, is a quick, fun listen.

Jack De Golia does an excellent job with the audio. His narration tone and pace is excellent for the subject matter and his character voices are well crafted, consistent, and distinct. His vocal inflections are near-perfect, and his shifts in tempo throughout the story are subtle but effective.

The first thing that becomes apparent right away is the author's word choices are absolutely spot on to fit the Old West world the story takes place in.

The second is that this is a fantastic premise!

As a general rule I'm not fond of guns in fantasy, but this isn't a fantasy world so much as an Old West world with fantasy flavor, and that aspect of it is executed brilliantly.

Now, for many I'm sure this won't be an issue, but I wasn't fond of the omniscient perspective. I much prefer stories that are grounded in one (or more) character's point of view.

Especially since for most of the story it actually comes off as more objective than omniscient as there is very little insight into internal motivations, and almost all of what there is was given in the form of either dialogue or expository back story.

I would have liked seeing a lot more internal motivation, thoughts, feelings, and reactions.

While I understand the reason an author might omit contractions for this kind of book, the unfortunate reality is that all it does is make it sound stilted. The idea that using contractions is a modern creation is not only historically inaccurate, it also makes dialogue sound silly.

There are a few scenes that are a little on the nose, with things being spelled out unnecessarily. We don't need a verbalized agreement/explanation when a simple nod or grimace would have done the job.

To address the ending.
Again, some parts were a little on the nose and over explained, but once we get into it things quickly start to bubble over and the action gets very exciting.

There's a nice call back to an earlier event in the ending that does tie things together quite nicely.

It's fairly common in novellas, but I did find the very end quite abrupt with no real wrap up.

Despite its relatively minor issues, this was a fun story to listen to and I hope the author starts writing some longer, more complex stories in this world.

a fun, short ride

Narration is a little monotone, but otherwise I enjoyed this. The setting was fun, the characters good, and the story was fun.

enjoyable

a wonderful mixture of genres. I thoroughly enjoyed this story, my only complaint is that it was a novella and thus short. definitely look forward to getting my hands on more books with these characters/in this world if there are any. good prose, good pacing for a novella, good world building, interesting premise with good execution, ok dialogue.
narrator was ok. small vocal range. good pacing and inflection.