Jayaprakash Satyamurthy
Knivesout no more
Grunts!: A fantasy with attitude
by Mary Gentle (1992)
Note: Polymorphikos liked this book a great deal more than I did, and will hopefully respond to this review with dissenting views. As with all my reviews, here be severe spoilers.
It was, as promised, an iconoclastic romp through Tolkienesque fantasy territory. Gentle begins by telling of a Last Battle from the point of view of the loathed minions who form the majority of the Dark Horde in such an engagement - the Orcs. These much-maligned grunts are directed to a dragon's horde of weaponry stolen from the US Marines, back on good old Mundane earth. A curse placed on the horde makes the Orcs begin to talk and fight like Marines.
The Last Battle happens, Dark is defeated. But the Orc Marine Corps make a last stand, and, aided by anti-magic talismans, survive. The Orc leader, Ashnak, marries a halfling aristocrat and starts a highly profitable arms manufacture and marketing business. Things look good for the Orcs - no Dark Lords and Necromancers to push them around, lots of money and lots of brutal fun to be had. It's too good to last, and it doesn't.
The Dark Lord re-surfaces, around the same time as a mysterious threat from insectile warriors, known as Bugs. The Dark Lord doesn't want to fight another Last Battle - this time he wants to take the world over by winning an election. The Orcs are put into service on the campaign trail, as the Dark Lord promises a swift and strong defence against the Bugs as a major campaign platform.
After twists too numerous to list, the Dark Lord wins. The Bugs are defeated and it turns out that they are interstellar marauders looking to replace their starship and get out of this backwater world. The Dark Lord decides that ruling this rather limited place is beneath him, and fucks off with the Bugs to conquer distant worlds. Which leaves the Orcs in nominal charge of their world.
Naturally, there's time for a last minute twist in which Ashnak discovers an interdimensional portal which leads to numerous warlike worlds. The Orcs are now their own masters, and have a universe of worlds to ravage. It's an Orc's life in the Marines...
Which is all very well, but I have to confess that I found the book less enjoyable than I'd expected. First of all, the story mainly stands as a send-up of the cliches of Tolkien-derived fantasy and RPGs. I've never been that keen on fantasy 'in the tradition of Tolkien' in any case, and I haven't read much of it either, so for the most part the satire just seems overwrought to me. Yes, elves are annoying sylvan ponces. Yes, grey bearded wizards are boring. self-important geezers. Yes, yes, yes. I know. I'd have found it far easier to swallow a shorter work (this novel extends across just above 400 pages) with the same theme - maybe a short story, ideally.
And then, Gentle's prose doesn't really help the story along. There are too many cod-fantasy digressions into scene-setting and description, and nearly every good gag is swathed in passages of rather turgid text. Gentle's use of comic book-style sound effects to denote much of the explosive action simply doesn't work in purely verbal medium. And there's a certain feeling of arbitrariness in the satire - Gentle rears at far too many unrelated targets, other than fantasy cliches. There are also too many subplots that don't really go anywhere.
All in all, it was an amusing read, but lost out in pacing and coherence. Ironically, the book falls prey to the failings that characterise the sort of fantasy it takes off at, by being too long and having too many points of view and subplots. I'll certainly have a go at Gentle's other work, which I understand is quite different in tone. Perhaps humour isn't quite her natural register, but she does seem to have a rather dark, cruel imagination.
In the meantime, if you really want to plunge into some hilarious, exciting fantasy that is refreshingly free of conventional moral dichotomies and other annoying Tolkienesque legacies, you could do a lot worse than Fritz Leiber's tales of Fafhrd & Grey Mouser.
by Mary Gentle (1992)
Note: Polymorphikos liked this book a great deal more than I did, and will hopefully respond to this review with dissenting views. As with all my reviews, here be severe spoilers.
It was, as promised, an iconoclastic romp through Tolkienesque fantasy territory. Gentle begins by telling of a Last Battle from the point of view of the loathed minions who form the majority of the Dark Horde in such an engagement - the Orcs. These much-maligned grunts are directed to a dragon's horde of weaponry stolen from the US Marines, back on good old Mundane earth. A curse placed on the horde makes the Orcs begin to talk and fight like Marines.
The Last Battle happens, Dark is defeated. But the Orc Marine Corps make a last stand, and, aided by anti-magic talismans, survive. The Orc leader, Ashnak, marries a halfling aristocrat and starts a highly profitable arms manufacture and marketing business. Things look good for the Orcs - no Dark Lords and Necromancers to push them around, lots of money and lots of brutal fun to be had. It's too good to last, and it doesn't.
The Dark Lord re-surfaces, around the same time as a mysterious threat from insectile warriors, known as Bugs. The Dark Lord doesn't want to fight another Last Battle - this time he wants to take the world over by winning an election. The Orcs are put into service on the campaign trail, as the Dark Lord promises a swift and strong defence against the Bugs as a major campaign platform.
After twists too numerous to list, the Dark Lord wins. The Bugs are defeated and it turns out that they are interstellar marauders looking to replace their starship and get out of this backwater world. The Dark Lord decides that ruling this rather limited place is beneath him, and fucks off with the Bugs to conquer distant worlds. Which leaves the Orcs in nominal charge of their world.
Naturally, there's time for a last minute twist in which Ashnak discovers an interdimensional portal which leads to numerous warlike worlds. The Orcs are now their own masters, and have a universe of worlds to ravage. It's an Orc's life in the Marines...
Which is all very well, but I have to confess that I found the book less enjoyable than I'd expected. First of all, the story mainly stands as a send-up of the cliches of Tolkien-derived fantasy and RPGs. I've never been that keen on fantasy 'in the tradition of Tolkien' in any case, and I haven't read much of it either, so for the most part the satire just seems overwrought to me. Yes, elves are annoying sylvan ponces. Yes, grey bearded wizards are boring. self-important geezers. Yes, yes, yes. I know. I'd have found it far easier to swallow a shorter work (this novel extends across just above 400 pages) with the same theme - maybe a short story, ideally.
And then, Gentle's prose doesn't really help the story along. There are too many cod-fantasy digressions into scene-setting and description, and nearly every good gag is swathed in passages of rather turgid text. Gentle's use of comic book-style sound effects to denote much of the explosive action simply doesn't work in purely verbal medium. And there's a certain feeling of arbitrariness in the satire - Gentle rears at far too many unrelated targets, other than fantasy cliches. There are also too many subplots that don't really go anywhere.
All in all, it was an amusing read, but lost out in pacing and coherence. Ironically, the book falls prey to the failings that characterise the sort of fantasy it takes off at, by being too long and having too many points of view and subplots. I'll certainly have a go at Gentle's other work, which I understand is quite different in tone. Perhaps humour isn't quite her natural register, but she does seem to have a rather dark, cruel imagination.
In the meantime, if you really want to plunge into some hilarious, exciting fantasy that is refreshingly free of conventional moral dichotomies and other annoying Tolkienesque legacies, you could do a lot worse than Fritz Leiber's tales of Fafhrd & Grey Mouser.
