As I was reaching the last fifth of the book, I was thinking of writing a review with a wildly different tone. Thankfully, it redeems itself beautifully.
Learning to Live with Orcs (LLO) is a 1999 “social science fiction” story by ancient game designer Richard Bartle (who, as a piece of trivia, created the first MUD game).
Readers who have had experience with collisions of the fields of computer science and social science, especially recently, might be able to grasp some of the failings of this book before I even talk about them. But let’s get on with it!
This review was originally available at https://recordcrash.com/blog, dated August 3rd, 2020.
LLO’s protagonist is an anthropologist named Richard. While a character named after the author who’s not an explicit self-insert is a red flag, it’s the first of many to follow. Richard, as well as a few dozen others, is selected to take part in an anthropological study of a newly (re)discovered planet of Orcs, Elves, Goblins and pretty much every fantasy race you can think of.
The worldbuilding is excellent, though the initial conceit relies heavily on science-technobabble. Wormholes link the planet and Earth together, but the alignments only rarely work out so that a human can cross over. However, they’re frequent enough that there’s been cross-contamination from the beginning of time, and the rare, unreplicable crossovers have been responsible for a lot of Earth’s mythology, and viceversa.
Of course, that changes when a fleet of Puritan ships crosses over while on a trip to the new continent, in 1623. They quickly realize they can’t go back home, and that it’s not even their home planet, but that doesn’t stop them from doing what the British Empire does best, and they quickly use their superior technology to achieve world hegemony and screw over the natives. They rename this planet Virginia.
In the 1990s, the wormhole is rediscovered by a far superior american ship, who find a perfectly peaceful international society that has integrated perfectly with humanity.
(Wait, hold up…)
Let’s ignore that for now. With american technology and repeated trips, they’re able to pinpoint the wormhole’s location and movements so they can use it for stable travel. Diplomatic relations are established between Earth and Virginia (mostly because the Virginians have really strong offensive tech, so they can protect themselves from the americans), which leads to Virginia asking for anthropologists to study the differences between their societies. This takes us to the beginning of the story.
Richard interacts with the navy, both US and Virginian, while on the way to his assignment, a village populated by the orcs known as the HA (capitalization and underlining are part of an orc language notation for volume, long story). The early parts of the book, before Richard makes it to the orc lands, are the absolute weakest. There are some arguably sexist jokes, not any the protagonist makes, but ones you are clearly meant to chuckle at. In general, there’s a lot of stereotypical humor which you’d absolutely expect from a moldy professor in the 1990s. It’s somewhat forgivable when you think about it like that, and it completely disappears from the story once the other anthropologists do (around Chapter 3), barring a single terrible line about a woman's life being over just because she can't have children anymore.
The truly vibrant red flags come into play later.
I overall recommend the story, so I would close this review and go read it before checking the spoilery parts below.
[SPOILERS BEGIN HERE]
As the main character studies the orcs, makes friends in the village, and overall enjoys his stay, something began to bug me. The Virginian orcs have the following features (and some others, but I want to make a point):
Wide noses
Coarse hair
A dislike of swimming
Lazyness
Some of this you can attribute to Tolkien and general fantasy species design, and in fact, the first two are revealed early on and I didn’t think about it twice. There’s another big red flag later on, too, that almost made me drop the story, but which is unfair to write about out of context when it’s justified later. Overall, the picture being painted was bad.
Orcs weren’t unlikable in the slightest, however, and there’s none of the feeling of superiority you’d find in a more questionable story, which kept me reading. Richard is something of a pro, and stays focused on recording anthropological insights instead of judging or changing anything.
I am glad it happened when it did-the above is beautifully subverted before the climax, right after that one big red flag. If you were thinking “white savior” stereotypes were in play, you could not be more wrong. The main character actually develops, considers his beliefs, and fixes them. What initially seemed like clueless racism turns into a message about tolerance during one of the big reveals—intentional commentary, all along.
[SPOILERS END HERE]
I would say that’s the main issue with the story. Much like in HPMOR, you are meant to feel uncomfortable, confused and occasionally annoyed, but it’s impossible to explain why to potential readers without ruining some of the biggest reveals. In fact, I only scratched the surface in the section above.
Overall, I think I would call LLO a social-mystery story in the fashion of Speaker for the Dead. Or maybe a particularly actionless episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation. It’s definitely the strong part of the book, being shown a species of beings whose culture doesn’t seem to fully make sense, and finding insights on their history and beliefs that bring the whole picture into focus by the end.
I mentioned before the worldbuilding was strong, and indeed I was sad I had to leave the world behind when the story ended. Only one species and culture was explored, and there was plenty of exposed depth in some of the throwaway lines. Oh, well.
And I couldn’t end this review without mentioning the comedic aspect. Some of the jokes are lame and little more than slapstick, but overall I found myself chuckling pretty often at some of the elaborate wordplay (I would compare it to UNSONG at points, if you’ve read that).
Regarding the tone and style of the story, I would call simple but witty, which combined with the interesting, original plotline and the lovable characters (Orc law student SKUP in particular stands out) makes for an exceedingly entertaining experience. One of those books you can’t put down until it’s over.
8/10 - A questionable experience, until the question is answered
I can’t recommend it enough if you’ve got a few hours free.