Kirill Yeskov's The Last Ringbearer turns Tolkien's account on its head (under the premise that "history is written by the victors") and portrays Mordor as a peaceful and prosperous civilization threatened by the barbaric Men and Elves.
DVK UPDATE:
To relate to the OP's question, one of the 2 main heroes (well, probably more of a major rank sidekick) is an Orocuen. What the invaders called "Orcs".
This book has an English translation, as far as I'm aware fully endorsed by the author.
Translator's blog entry contains both the link to the translation, the link to the original Russian book, and a link to the translation of Yeskov's essay explaining the motivation for writing the book.
High level, the author (Dr. Kirill Yeskov) is a professional paleontologist, who usually only writes textbooks, with apocryphal fiction being a hobby (a very well executed hobby). His main two beefs with the Professor's work were:
Arda, as described in great detail by Tolkien, makes absolutely no sense geographically based on plate tectonics.
This was a myth/legend about a war, told by the winners. We all know how truthful those tend to be.
The book is set in Arda, but is somewhat peripherally connected to LotR. No hobbits, one brief mention of King Sauron (most of the book's action take place after the defeat of Mordor), and hugely unimportant The One Ring.
On a personal note, I'd highly recommend the book. Well worth the time spent.
... Of course, the nomadic Orocuens have always looked with scorn on their tribesmen who chose the life of a farmer or a craftsman: everybody knows that the only occupation worthy of a man is cattle-breeding; that is, if you don't count robbing caravans. This attitude, however, had never prevented them from regularly driving their flocks to the markets of Gorgoroth, where the sweet-talking Umbarian merchants who quickly came to dominate local trade would invariably fleece them. However, their main source of income had always been the export of rare metals, mined in abundance from the Ash Mountains by the stocky unsmiling Trolls – unequaled miners and smelters, who later monopolized all stonemasonry in the Oasis, too.
Life side by side had long trained the sons of all three peoples to eye the neighbors' daughters with more interest than their own, to make fun of each other (“An Orocuen, an Umbarian, and a Troll walk into a bar...”), and to defend the Ash Mountain passes and the Morannon against the Western barbarians together.
This, then, was the yeast on which Barad-Dur rose six centuries ago, that amazing city of alchemists and poets, mechanics and astronomers, philosophers and physicians, the heart of the only civilization in Middle Earth to bet on rational knowledge and bravely pitch its
barely adolescent technology against ancient magic.
