An Orc on the Wild Side by Tom Holt

Published by Orbit on September 10, 2019

An Orc on the Wild Side is a sequel to, or at least set in the same multiverse as, Doughnut and When It’s a Jar. Utilizing the pathway to the multiverse that was discovered in Doughnut, an entrepreneur sells real estate in the Hidden Realms to snooty Brits who can no longer afford to buy vacation properties in the south of France. The Hidden Realms have a primitive human population, but the more interesting residents are goblins, Elves, dwarves, halflings, trolls, and wraiths. Not to mention the Eye.

King Mordak is the new ruler of the goblins. His New Evil platform of reform has met with resistance, but liberal change is always resisted by traditionalists. Mordak understands that Evil always loses and, in fact, that is Evil’s fate in the long run, so maybe a new game plan is in order. Mordak’s latest problem is his successful attempt to create a female goblin. There has never been one before, and since females are stronger and better problem solvers than males, the goblins aren’t sure they are ready for one.

The strongest of the seven dwarf-lords is King Drain. He is preoccupied, however, by the discovery of eggbeaters and can openers, contraptions (he is told) that are made in a place called China. The gadgets speak to a sophisticated level of machining that dwarves have never managed. While Drain is worried that cheap Chinese goods will put dwarves out of work (at least if this place called China decides to market its wares in the Hidden Realms), a human who calls herself Snow White sees the opportunity to make some cash — the very reason she traveled to the Hidden Realms.

Other complications arise when the humans back in our universe vote in favor of Rexit, a reality exit referendum to seal off our universe from the rest of the multiverse for fear that immigrants from other universes will come to ours and take our jobs. That’s the kind of priceless humor that Tom Holt serves in abundance. I also appreciated the Eye’s definition of authority as “there’s more of us and we have all the weapons, so we can do what we like to you.”

Even with the reforms inspired by the New Evil, goblins are pretty awful, as are the other dwellers in the Hidden Realms, especially wraiths. ‘The wraith who’s tired of killing is tired of life.” But are humans really any better? Goblins and dwarves are at least honest about their nature. “Humans, alone of the Races, have a unique ability to believe things that are patently untrue, even when the facts are pulling their heads back by the hair and yelling in their faces.”

The humans in the story include Snow White, a lawyer (but not a very good one) who tires of serving Elves, the property owners who are having buyer’s regret, and Theo Bernstein, the fellow in an earlier novel who blew up the Very Very Large Hadron Collider. They all illustrate the folly of being human.

I’m not usually a big fan of fantasy, but the multiverse theory holds that everything is happening somewhere, blurring the distinction between fantasy and reality-based fiction. I am a big fan of Tom Holt. I grin my way through his novels and frequently laugh out loud. I love the way he mixes imagined absurdity with the absurdity of the world we inhabit. An Orc on the Wild Side is perfect for readers who don’t take fantasy, or for that matter humanity, too seriously. "It's better to laugh than to cry" is the message I take from Holt's inventive books.

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