Grunts: A Fantasy With Attitude
By Mary Gentle
Imagine a world where JRR Tolkein wrote a fantasy novelization of Stanley Kubrick’s Full Metal Jacket. The result might read something like Mary Gentle’s phenomenal fantasy novel, Grunts. Gentle takes the fantasy standards of the constant struggle between good and evil, and turns it on its head by telling her story from the point of view of everyone’s favorite fantasy fodder, the lowly orc.
While on a mission to steal magical treasure from the local dragon on behalf of the Nameless Necromancer, a small group of orcs winds up with modern military weapons — and, thanks to a curse from the dragon, a U.S. Marine-style approach to war.
The first part of the book is a well-done straightforward parody of fantasy novels similar in some ways to Terry Pratchett’s Discworld novels. The orcs run around ordering their enemies to surrender “in the name of the Nameless,” while preparing for the latest installment in the Final Battle of the Army of Light Against the Horde of Darkness. The heroes on the good side are so smug in their goodness, the reader is rooting for the orcs to off them.
The last 2/3rds of the novel is more of a sendup of World War II action movies, and the inanities of modern politics. The Dark One decides he’s had enough with the endless battles between Light and Dark and announces that instead he wants to settle the whole matter once and all with an election (of course the evil lord promises free health care and high taxes), while the orcs busily construct their own military-industrial complex in the middle of the fantasy world.
Normally I’m not a big fan of fantasy novels — for example, I can’t stand reigning king of fantasy Robert Jordan’s books — but Grunts is one of the most hilarious and well-plotted novels I’ve read in a very long time. Although the book is slotted in the fantasy genre, it’s really just an all around excellent satire that works on many levels and just happens to occur in a Tolkein-esque setting.
There is only one caveat I have in recommending Grunts. If you’ve seen Full Metal Jacket you know the movie isn’t very appropriate for young people. Neither is Grunts. The violence is non-stop and described very graphically, along with quite a few sexually explicit scenes, including a few sadomasochistic scenes. They work within the novel, but this probably isn’t the book to give your 13 year old nephew.
Other than that, this is one of the best novels I’ve read in years.