Goblin Claw

A collection of anti-Tolkien fantasy short stories, supplemented with previously unpublished texts. It is the night before the battle of Tyrn Gorthad, and a pair of orcs are telling a fellow soldier the story of the Wolf's Claw unit, its soldiers, their orc and uruk-hai competitors, and their elven, human, and dwarven enemies. Who will fall, who will survive, and who will be the greatest warrior of all time? Seasoned authors Ghark the Archer and Sharag the Poet present seven orcish tales from Tolkien's world for the pleasure, entertainment, and edification of all conquerors of Middle-earth. Long live the Witch-king, and may Angmar rule forever! Michal Špaček (1971), a talented short story writer with a sense of irony and hyperbole, divides his work to date—with a few exceptions—into two cycles. The central protagonist of the first is the Švejk-like hero Vosák, whose escapades were mostly published in the book *Technologie masa 2: Tykvový večírek* (1996). The collection *Skřetí spár* contains stories from the second series, which view the events of Tolkien's Middle-earth from a somewhat unconventional perspective. For one of them, *Devět bojovnic Elbereth* (1996), Špaček won the prize for Best Fantasy.