Grunts!



Grunts! is a a fantasy novel by British author Mary Gentle and originally published in 1992. It is told from the point of view of a band of Orcs (the titular "grunts"). It riffs on the ideas explored by Gentle and others in the anthology, Villains: Who Needs Heroes Anyway? published in the same year, writing High Fantasy from the perspective of the Villains. At the time, this was a new idea in fantasy writing and Villains and Grunts! were considered pretty innovative for it.

Samhain is fast approaching and the Last Battle between the forces of Light and Darkness with it. Mighty armies and noble heroes gather. The Dark Lord's forces are legion and the wings of his dragons and wyverns shall blot out the sky. The forces of Light are outnumbered and full of reckless, headstrong heroes whose idea of tactical thought is discussing which way they're going to charge. They'll win, of course. And orcs, the poor dumb sword fodder on the frontline for the Dark Lord will die in droves. This is the way of things. So it has been and so it shall be.

Ashnak, a War Captain of the Agaku, is ordered by the Nameless Necromancer to steal powerful artifacts from a dragon's hoard. It turns out that said dragon is dead, and that the dragon with her dying breath cursed the hoard, to turn every thief into that which was stolen. The dragon was also the multiverse's keenest collector of weapons and militaria. Guess what the orcs steal.

The novel involves a lot of Dead Baby Comedy, Refuge in Audacity, and generally reveling in subverting a bunch of fantasy and Hollywood war and action movie stereotypes. Gentle wrote the novel while recovering from injuries she suffered in a car crash, which caused chronic pain.

Tropes seen in this work include:
""Sir! Ready for action, sir! Shoot at me the bastards now sir!""
 * Abnormal Ammo: Tech-Captain Ugarit comes up with a lot of this in his attempt to get around the vulnerability of the orcs' modern firearms to simple magic; ceramic swords, teflon-coated arrowheads. Later, during a Shout-Out to Aliens a sentry gun is loaded with smart bullets.

- A smart bullet, Grunts!

""The good news is, you made the Orcball team! The bad news is...as the ball.""
 * Alien Blood: The orcs have green blood.
 * Alternate Universe: Dagurashibanipal's cave also contained several stable portals to other worlds / universes, which is where the dragon collected her militaria from.
 * Anti-Magic: Talismans which create a field of this are how
 * Armed Farces: Military joking aplenty, oddly enough. From the hapless recruits under Gunnery Sergeant Ashnak early in the evolution of the Orc Marines to the equally hapless elf recruits and their orc trainer Sgt. Dakashnit later on. Dakashnit's advice for her recruits on what to do if their parachute fails, in particular.
 * Barbarian Hero: Lord Blond Wolf, is a northern barbarian; complete with wolf-fur boots and cloak, huge blond braids and a really big axe. However, he's only 2' 7".
 * Bathe Him And Bring Him To Me: Poor Sgt. Stryker.
 * Black Comedy: As anthracite. War crimes trials, rape, torture and eating your own wounded played for laughs.
 * Black Comedy Rape: "Pass me another elf, this one's split" also qualifies as Harmful to Minors.
 * Blood Sport: Orcball a game strongly resembling American Football and / or Rugby and played with the severed head of a fallen enemy. Or sometimes, when you want a game and there's a paucity of fallen enemies...

- Sgt.Major Guzrak, Grunts!

""Sir! Permission to call this squad Black Squad, sir!" "Denied. We already have fifteen Black Squads, twelve Dark Squads, four Raven Sqauds, three Midnight Squads, one Sable Squad, one Ebony Squad and one," she glanced at a sheet of paper, "Pink Squad. Yes...we're all a little worried about Pink Squad.""
 * Bug War: Near the end, when a race of insectoid aliens appear.
 * Butch Lesbian: Sgt. Varimnak and her unit of Badgurlz. Non-feminine job or attire? Well, soldiering is generally considered less than feminine and guns, fatigues, tattoos, mohawks and belts covered in spikes aren't either.
 * Chronic Backstabbing Disorder: Will and Ned Brandiman, halfling thieves. Backstabbed Ashnak and his small band who were escorting them to start with and promptly sold the Nameless Necromancer's plans to the Named shortly after. Moved on to double-crossing the forces of Light. They were trying to double-cross the orcs again when they brought the  to Nin-Edin, but hadn't banked on Ashnak still being alive and recognising them.
 * Comedic Sociopathy: Most of the major characters invoke this to some degree - Ashnak and the orcs savagery, rape, cannibalism and cheerful commission of war crimes and election rigging are definitely being played for laughs.
 * Crapsack World:
 * Curse: Dagurashibanipal's horde of weapons came equipped with a powerful curse, "You Will Become What You Steal," causing the orcs to take on the mannerisms of the original owners of the stolen arms. It was also flavoured with a geas encouraging them to teach others their ways and thus, spread the curse further.
 * Dark Is Evil: Exaggerated with the Dark Lord, whose footsteps kill flowers and cause flagstones to crack from age and conversed early on:

""They aren't history, they're field rations.""
 * Dartboard of Hate: In this case, the orcs don't use a picture; they nail one of their own to the wall and paint a target on her belly.
 * Dead Baby Comedy: Pretty much the whole book, to the point where, if you don't like that kind of humor, you won't like it.
 * It's not a case of getting past the cannibalistic rapist burglar hobbits and orcs with machine guns riffing off Full Metal Jacket; these sorts of things are the the point of the book.
 * Demonic Possession: It's what the Dark Lord does to.
 * Died in Your Arms Tonight: During the Siege of Nin-Edin
 * Drill Sergeant Nasty: Immediately after falling victim to Dagurashibanipal's curse, self-appointed Gunnery Sergeant Ashnak turns into a classic case of this.
 * I'm a Humanitarian:

- Major Ashnak, Grunts!

""Hordes of spear-chuckin' greenies from Bongo-Bongo land.""
 * Evil Twin: The Named and the Nameless Necromancer are twins. The former is female and on the side of Light, in case the Necromancer part hadn't given away which side the Nameless was on.
 * Evil Versus Evil: The Light is a bunch of monumental jerks, the orcs are at best Faux Affably Evil. Played for laughs.
 * Fantastic Racism: Where to start? Well, let's see...everyone?
 * Fantastic Slurs: "Greenies" (for orcs) and "squeakies" (for elves) are what immediately springs to mind.

- High-King Celtos Magorian, Grunts!

""I don't care if it is ''orders, Sergeant! Marines never retreat!" "Not, L.t., course not. Just think of it as advancing to the rear."''"
 * Fantasy Kitchen Sink: Orcs, humans, wizards, halflings, elves, dwarves, trolls and horrible aliens from space.
 * Faux Affably Evil: The orcs.
 * Infant Immortality: Averted, so very, very hard.
 * Light Is Not Good: Light is, on the contrary, incredibly Jerkass-ish.
 * Living Weapon: the aforementioned Aliens grow chitin machine guns from special organs on their stomachs.
 * The Magic Versus Technology War: It starts after the Orcs get their hands on a cache of modern weaponry from our world, which is cursed so that they become Marines ...
 * Medals for Everyone: Barashkukor really, really wants this to happen.
 * Mordor: A glance at the maps in the frontispieces of Grunts! quickly tell you where the Dark Lord lives. Yep, over there, in the East. Where it says "The Dark Lands"; separated from the rest of the world by a huge mountain range littered with orc forts and a Necromancer's Tower.
 * No Except Yes:

- Lt. Gilmuriel and Sgt. Dakashnit, Grunts!

""I don't know but I've been told" "Orcs is[sic] vicious, mean and bold!""
 * Obligatory War Crime Scene: After the breaking of the siege at, the Orcs attack the Light's baggage train, supposed to be sacrosanct under the Rules Of War in retaliation for hardships suffered.
 * Our Dragons Are Different: Because we've fitted them with a cloaking device and turned them into a stealth bomber.
 * Our Orcs Are Different: Not so much Warhammer orcs, per se, as an odd blend of the Tolkien and Warhammer varieties with modern military influences.
 * Pint-Sized Powerhouse: Will and Ned Brandiman and Barashkukor turns into one after
 * The Political Officer: Having spent a lot of time reading over the political philosophy texts in Dagurashibanipal's hoard, Marine Razitshakra turns into Marine Commissar Razitshakra, complete with Commissar Cap and Russian Army greatcoat, monitoring her fellow orcs for "idealogical instability".
 * Science Fantasy
 * Shout-Out. So. Many.
 * To give a few examples, no 80's sci-fi/action movie is left unscathed. Alien and Terminator references figure prominently.
 * The "man-smart, fighting Agaku" are an Expy for Tolkien's "fighting Uruk-hai!," i.e a breed of Orc smarter, larger and nastier than the common greenskin.
 * Orcball, a violent version of American Football played by orcs, halflings, elves and other fantasy races. Sounds famiilar....
 * Sound Off:

""Orcs!" "You called?" "Your mother wears combat boots, and pisses standing up!" "Doesn't everyone's?""
 * Swirly Energy Thingy: It's how a United States Marine finds himself transported to the Orcs world.
 * The Undead: Unsurprisingly, given they work for the Nameless Necromancer (at least initially) there are some Undead Orcs. They, being magical, can't use the nullity talismans and decide to devote themselves to covert commando operations, forming the Special Undead Services, Motto: "Death Then Glory."
 * Vote Early, Vote Often: Upon his return, the Dark Lord declares that war is passe and he wishes to conquer the world via politics instead. Eager to please their Evil Overlord, and ensure his victory and their own continued success, Ashnak and the orcs get down to some serious ballot box stuffing.
 * Your Mom: