Review: Orconomics

Orconomics by J. Zachary Pike
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This is a 5-star review.

I rarely give out 5 star reviews. This book is something special.

[I failed to write a review when I read the book in 2019. So this will not be as detailed.]

The world of Orconomics is the world of old-school, hack-and-slash, raid dungeon for gold Advanced Dungeons and Dragons. The only good version of AD&D, in my opinion.

The sub-text of the book is the story of Wall Street trading in stocks, derivatives, and other financial tools. There is, to my layman's eyes, a pretty solid critique in this book to the activities that led to the financial collapse of 2008.

Back to the story, our hero assembles a team of adventurers to go get the McGuffin. In the process of hacking and slashing their way to the McGuffin, they learn that the whole system is a bit of a Ponzi scheme that gets adventurers to rob nominally peaceful non-humans (i.e. orcs, etc.) in order to fulfill investment contracts.

There is a ton of humor in the story. The characters are highly relatable. The economics sub-text informs rather the story rather than surpassing it. This is a solid book that is worthy of your time.

View all my reviews