I’ve read most of Mary Gentle’s books (well, not her porn, which I didn’t know about until now), and I like some of them. Well, mainly the Ash books — those were really special, mixing post modern takes on history with fantasy. Great fun. The other books were (if I remember correctly) a bit hit or miss.
I hadn’t read this one, which is probably her best seller? The copy I have is an 18th printing (i.e., one every other year), and there’s been several editions.
It’s very oddly structured. It’s divided into three “books”, and the first is 80 page long, and is structured like a novella. Then we get a 125 page long “book” that continues straight on from the first novella-ish, but it’s structured like a novel, with an novel-like ending that ties up most of the plot threads. And then there’s book three, which is 250 page totally a new novel in the same series, with a prologue, re-introduction of the characters and concepts and everything.
I’m curious how it was written. Did it just grow? Was it meant to be two novels, but the publisher wanted to publish it in one volume, because long fantasy books sell way better than short ones — I’ve read fantasy novelists that say that it’s just impossible to get a book shorter than 300 pages published.
But on the other hand, the publisher has pushed this 465 page book out as a paperback that has extremely small margins and gutters — with a normal layout, this would probably have been a 550 page book, is my guess.
So it’s just… odd.
Anyway, the first novel is a satire (noun; ‘not actually funny’) on Lord of the Rings and the US Marines. It’s told from the point of view of the orcs, and the gag is that they’ve been magically enchanted into behaving like marines (and also given weapons from this Earth). That sounds straightforward enough for a lark, but Gentle makes everybody in this universe horrible — the orcs not only kill and maim, but also rape people to death. And the two Hobbit characters we follow are thieves that kill whole families and eat their children, and so on.
So I imagine the readership would be pretty divided. I can totally see certain people pumping their fists and going ‘whoa! that’s so outrageous! gnarly!’ at all the violence, and I can see lots of people being 1) horrified and 2) upset that there’s not a single positive character here.
The second novel is quite a bit different. The orcs are now living with the hobbits, and the novel seems to start out positing the hobbits as metaphors for the English (see above), and the orcs for Americans. But then it’s like you can see the gears whirring in Gentle’s head… “hey… I’ve got Orc Marines. That’s such a great concept. This could be a franchise! This could be a series of movies! This could be a Saturday morning cartoon! It could be the next Shrek, which will premiere nine years from now! I’ve even got the orc married to a hobbit! It’s a shoo-in!” And so the violence is pulled way back, and goes from (mostly) atrocity to cartoonish violence. (And it ends with a scene that leaves the franchise wide open.)
And there’s so much plot here — it’s a very dense novel. Much of it is dedicated to a war with some alien scorpion-like critters (is it a Starship Troopers reference?), and the other half is that Sauron has decided to hold an election to become the President of the world. And as you can see above, Sauron is running on a Labour platform. (Yes, the author is British, and the humour is indeed very British.)
It’s just a lot. I think my main issue was that when I’d finished with the first novel, I was “well, OK, that’s fine”. But I wasn’t chomping at the bit to read a new novel set in this universe. And then this new novel just dragged on and on. It took me three hours to get through the last 60 pages, because I found myself reaching for any, any distraction to be had over continuing to read. But perhaps if I’d had a pause of a year between the two novels, it would have been fine? It’s not unlikely.
But now I’m really curious what the people on Goodreads had to say about the book. My guess is that it’s a divisive book.
I’ve never seen anything like it. Almost all of the highest-rated reviews are either five star or one star reviews! Wow. Talk about divisive.
Heh, here’s that two star review:
I give up. I can’t go on. I couldn’t even make it to page one hundred. I slogged through the first 85 pages, which should have been a stand-alone novella (had it been a novella, it would have been a vast improvement, and I may have sped through it had I not been daunted and confused by the presence of the 300+ pages that were still to come).
And that’s the two star review!
Oh, man, here’s the highest rated five star review:
Set the world of Tolkien but with a twist here the Orcs are the hero’s I hate football & the game of football in this book is how it should be played.
This black comedy that is very funny .Mary really enjoyed showing up the Army in this. The foot soldiers or As tile says Grunts which rhymes with another word – get it!
Yes, this is indeed the kind of person who I thought would love the book.
There are very few books I have just given up on. This is one of them. My friend recommended it to me, and based on past advice I took his word for it. After a death march to page 250, I tossed it in the recycling bin. Literally. I asked my friend why he though this steaming pile was worth reading, at which point he admitted to never finishing it either
Yeah, I can totally see why somebody who loved the first novel wouldn’t make it through the second novel.
The first I heard of this book was when I was young and unemployed. A friend of mine didn’t necessarily recommend it to me but was rather laughing about it with some other friends. Apparently their favourite line was ‘pass me another elf, this one’s broken’. Yet another friend lent it to me and I read it. In conclusion, it was one of the most painful, disgusting, disturbing, and horrible books that I have ever read. To put it lightly, I hated it.
Oh, deer. They misremembered that favourite line — it’s actually much, much worse.
Oh, wow, this one thinks that the whole orc thing is racist:
However, I was writing about how orcs are the stereotypical cannon-fodder of the fantasy world. While it is true that orcs do not exist, I would suggest that there is the subtle idea of superiority resting here. The idea is that the beautiful and the intelligent are good while the ugly and the stupid are bad. If you are ugly then ergo, you are bad. If you are stupid, ergo, you are barbaric. In a way we all try to hide our prejudices (or most of us do, many of us are very blatant and outspoken regarding our prejudices, but that is beside the point), and while charges of racism are hardly going to stick against an author because the author writes a book wherein orcs are bad, I am suggesting that the idea still does lurk below the surface.
That’s some convoluted reasoning.
This is not a review because I could not force myself to finish it. It was not funny. The characters had zero appeal, and there wasn’t much plot. I found the thing so distasteful I threw it in the trash rather than risk some other poor sod (who I never met and have nothing against) picking it up at a used book store.
Anyway… It’s an interesting book at least, I guess? Stirs people up, one way or another.
Grunts (1992) by Mary Gentle (buy new, buy used, 3.51 on Goodreads)