It’s a sort of satire on the Tolkien genre of good, wise peoples against a Dark Lord and his foul orcs, told from the point of view of the orcs. Mary Gentle subverts the genre very amusingly in places, having a pair of hobbits as murderous, thieving con-men (con-hobbits?), an abominably vain and conceited High Elf-lord and so on, and the conceit of the orcs robbing a dragon-horde which is composed of Kalashikovs, RPGs and the like is funny and well done. She also depicts very graphic violence and sex, both of which are, of course, only coyly hinted at in high language in Tolkien, throwing a rather scathing light on the High Deeds usually depicted in the genre.
There was enough to keep me going here for a couple of hundred pages, but it did begin to pall a bit and I thought the book could have done with some firm trimming. I think that the difficulty with this sort of satire is that the story itself needs to be not only a parody of the usual fantasy, but gripping in itself and for me this one wasn’t really.
For me, Grunts is good but not brilliant. I’m glad I’ve tried Mary Gentle and I may give Ash a go at some point, but I can only give this a rather qualified recommendation.
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