crest the hill on my courser black as bee stripes / with honey in my eyes.

In this episode of the Strange Horizons podcast, editor Ciro Faienza presents Kelly Stewart's “The Bandit King” with a reading by poet.

Orcs are a species—more commonly labeled a “race”—of wicked, dangerous humanoids found en masse in JRR Tolkien’s Middle-earth as well as most of analog and electronic gaming. But Tolkien derived their ugly appearance and savage temperament, like almost all orcish traits common across different media, from a long and painful history.