Grunts - Mary Gentle

1992; 480 pages. Genre : High Fantasy; Parody. New Author? : No. Overall Rating : 7½*/10.

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Sing along now. "Orcs! HUNH! What are they good for? Absolutely nothing!"

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Well not quite. They're good for cannon-fodder in Good-vs.-Evil battles. A bunch of big, hybrid, stupid, mean-tempered hamburger meat for elves, dwarves, and other good guys to use for target practice. Exceedingly expendable. Expected to last for one battle only.

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But what if orcs got tired of all that? What if circumstances turned them into a squad of highly-trained US marines, with AK-47's, bazookas, stealth jets, and tanks? How would they then fare against the Forces of Light? That's what Mary Gentle examines in Grunts!

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What's To Like...

Grunts! takes a playful poke at all those epic fantasies we've read, enjoyed, and gotten tired of for having the same old plotline. There are elves and halflings, Aes Sedai, and secret "finger-talking" (from - I think - some David Eddings series that I now only vaguely recall). There's a dragon to be slain, mages with spells, and even a Balrog and a Gandalf knock-off.

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But things aren't as usual. The elves are bigoted; the orcs are tired of gettng killed; and the halflings are positively nasty. The Evil Lord wants to win - but via the electoral process.

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To me, Grunts! had the feel like a well-run D&D quest or a Warhammer campaign. There was lots of action, a goodly amount of humor, and enough twists to keep you wondering which sacred cow Ms. Gentle would slay next. But keep in mind that war in general, and orcs in particular, are brutal and merciless. The language is coarse, and the violence is profuse and graphic. This is not a book for the kiddies.

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Excerpts...

The orc encampment steamed gently in the sunshine.

Barashkukor, leaning scabby elbows on the parapet of the Nin-Edin fort, gazed down from the mountainside at a wilderness only the vultures could love. He tilted his dented helmet back on his head. "So what do you get if you cut the legs off a warrior?"

Marukka gave a baritone chuckle, waving her jagged sword in the air for emphasis. "A low-down bum!" (pg. 16)

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"You don't like elves, do you, orc - I mean, gunnery Sergeant?"

"Me?" The orc grinned and shrugged, massive shoulders rising almost to her pricked ears. "Man, I just love elf! You can't beat roast and basted elf-haunch. Unless it's breast-of-elf with chilli peppers." (pg. 243)

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The Dark Lord surveyed the benches to left and right of the Throne. Her delicate profile turned to Ashnak. "Shall I preside well, do you think, little orc? This power has been so long in the achieving, I think I have forgotten what it was I would do with it."

"Buck up, Ma'am!" Ashnak removed his forage cap, coming solidly to attention. "You just do what every other Ruler of the World's done and You'll be all right - reward a few, hang a few, and tax everything that moves." (pgs. 448-449)

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A sucking chest wound is Nature's way of telling you to stay out of a firefight. (pg. 322)

My impression is that this was not a serious literary effort by Mary Gentle. The plot is a tad disjointed - the orc-transformation is glossed over, and a human from our dimension gets sucked into the story for little discernible reason. A little bit of re-write might've tightenend things up considerably.

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But that doesn't mean I didn't enjoy Grunts! It entertained me throughout, as the Ash series is likewise doing. It is not for the prudish or those who deem Tolkien to be sacrosanct. But if you loved those "off-beat" D&D quests, or just want to see the Orcs come out on the winning side for once, Grunts! is for you. 7½ Stars.

Grendel - John Gardner

1971; 174 pages. New Author? : Yes. Genre : Contemporary Fiction. Overall Rating : 5½*/10.

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This is John Gardner's retelling of the classic epic, Beowulf; save that this time, it is told from the Beast's POV. The author assumes you're familiar with the story; if you aren't, here's the link to Wiki article on it.

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What's To Like...

This is a meticulously structured novel. Each chapter has a different motif. Indeed, according to Wiki's article on the book here, each chapter corresponds to a different house of the Zodiac. Grendel ponders a lot of different "isms" - nihilism, existentialism, solipsism, fatalism. It's fun to see how Gardner weaves all of these into the story.

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Although the story is told from Grendel's POV, Gardner doesn't try to rehabilitate him. Grendel is still a monster, and his thoughts and deeds are often monstrous. It's neat to see how he rationalizes his actions. But keep in mind that the book therefore has some violence, adult situations, and coarse language.

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My favorite parts of the book were two extended conversations Grendel has. The first is with the Dragon; the second with a blind priest. There also is a subtle flow of humor throughout the book, which nevertheless blends nicely with the beastly goings-on.

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Alas, while the philosophizing is cool, the story-telling is not. There's no suspense, since you already know the ending; and Beowulf doesn't show up until there's only 25 pages to go. The "ism"-musings seem to overwhlem the plotline, so those who need a tale to be told (and that would include me), may find this a dry read in places.

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Excerpts...

I understood that, finally and absolutely, I alone exist. All the rest, I saw, is merely what pushes me, or what I push againt, blindly - as blindly as all that is not myself pushes back. I create the whole universe blink by blink. (pg. 22; and a good example of how Gardner introduces an "ism")

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From now on I'd stay clear of them (the humans). It was one thing to eat one from time to time - that was only natural: kept them from overpopulating, maybe starving to death come winter - but it was another thing to scare them, give them heart attacks, fill their nights with nightmares, just for sport. (pg. 60-61)

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"The gods made this world for our joy!" the young priest squeals. The people listen to him dutifully, heads bowed. It does not impress them, one way or the other, that he's crazy. (pg. 138)

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I have eaten several priests. They sit on the stomach like duck eggs. (pg. 129)

Grendel is a lot like Wicked, but predates it. Maybe Greg Maguire read this, saw its shortcomings, and figured out how to improve the alternate-POV technique. Some reviewers say Grendel is a lot better the second or third time you read it, but life's too short to re-read books.

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So read it for the philosophical discourses, and not for the storyline. That way it's a good book, and you only have to go through it once. 5½ Stars.

Voyage to the Red Planet - Terry Bisson

1990; 236 pages. New Author? : No. Genre : Sci-Fi; Sub-Genre : Space Opera. Overall Rating : 6½*/10.

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The book's title says it all - a hardy little troupe of spacefarers blast off on the good ship Mary Poppins, with the goal of becoming the first earthlings to set foot on Mars. But they aren't astronauts (NASA's been sold to the private commercial conglomerate, Chase-Gillette); they're going to Mars to shoot a movie.

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What's To Like...

Yet again, Terry Bisson creates a fascinating universe and lets you spend some time there. The USA has just come out of a major depression, and the government has had to sell most of its assets - including the National Parks Department, the US Navy, and NASA. In industry, mergers are the key to survival, and it makes for some strange-but-powerful bedfellows. There is a rumor that Disney-Gerber wants to buy the United Nations.

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There is a curious blend of "hard" and "soft" science-fiction here. On one hand, Bisson correctly accounts for time delays due to the huge distances in the solar system. A phone message takes 15 minutes to relay; and the crew of the Mary Poppins goes into hibernation to slow down the aging involved in a several-year trip to Mars.

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OTOH, Mars is made out to be a rather temperate planet, with enough oxygen in its atmosphere to allow our heroes to take off their space helmets for short periods of time. Uh-uh. I don't think so.

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The storyline is okay. Things don't go as planned (naturally); some amazing things are discovered on Mars; and there's even a "too many folks in the lifeboat" dilemma to be resolved.

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Excerpts...

"Kirov?" It was Markson again.

"She's, uh" - Kirov was shaking her head and waving her hands - "consulting with Ranger Johnson, the station chief," Jeffries said.

"Then Bass."

"He's consulting with them." Bass was shaking his head.

"Then Jeffries."

"Speaking, dammit."

"Good. You're just the man I wanted to talk to." (pg. 48)

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"I can't imagine what it was like in those days," Greetings said. "The government doing everything for you. Building streets, delivering mail; how did people develop any initiative at all? They must have been like robots."

"Wasn't all that bad," said Jeffries as he passed through on his way to the bridge. (pg. 107)

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Gravity is the enemy of every boy. (Ray Bradbury)

Voyage to the Red Planet has some weaknesses. The pacing is poor - more than half the book is done before we land on Mars; and there are some major loose ends left unresolved. This screams either for a sequel or a better editor.

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But those weaknesses are more than offset by the underlying humor, the neat cast of characters, and most of all, the fabulous world laid out for you. You don't read Bisson novels for their storylines; you read them for their settings.

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I enjoyed VTTRP, but if you've never read anything by Terry Bisson, this is probably not the book to start with. 6½ Stars.

Maskerade - Terry Pratchett

1995; 358 pages. Genre : Comedic Fantasy. #18 in the DiscWorld series. New Author? : No. Overall Rating : 8*/10.

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Maskerade is Terry Pratchett's tribute to opera in general, and to Phantom of the Opera in particular. Agnes Nitt comes to the Ankh-Morpork Opera House to make her musical mark, armed with a rich, full voice and a poorer, fuller body.

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Alas, dead bodies are dropping all around the opera house like ...well... dead bodies. And there's a ghost wafting around, wearing a white mask. Could these things possibly be inter-connected? Hmmm.

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What's To Like...

The DiscWorld witches have starring roles here, and some feel they are Pratchett's strongest characters. The Librarian (ook!) also has a major presence. There's a one-eyed mongrel tomcat named Greebo, whom I had never met before. And because of the bodies, DEATH shows up a number of times.

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The humor is less yuk-yuks and more topical. I was left wondering what Pratchett's personal opinion of opera really is. He lampoons it a lot, but he's also well-versed on the subject. Maskerade is also a well-crafted whodunit, once again showing off Pratchett's versatility.

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Finally, there's a recurring philosophical question by which Granny Weatherwax evaluates a person's mental faculties : "If your house was on fire, what's the first thing you'd try to take out?" Think before you answer.

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Excerpts...

"Says here that Dame Timpani, who sings the part of Quizella, is a diva," said Nanny. "So I reckon this is like a part-time job, then. Prob'ly quite a good idea, on account of you'd have to be able to hold your breath. Good trainin' for the singin'." (pg. 147)

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The Ghost danced along the edge of the balcony, scattering hats and opera glasses. The audience watched in astonishment, and then began to clap. They couldn't quite see how it fitted into the plot of the opera - but this was an opera, after all. (pg. 273)

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You needed at least three witches for a coven. Two witches was just an argument. (pg. 13)

Although #18 in the series, this would be a good starting book for readers new to DiscWorld. Some reviewers feel Maskerade isn't funny enough, but it's probably hard to do a joke-a-minute when the main themes are serial killings, mystery, and opera. The storyline kept my attention, and I'm really not a fan of musicals at all.

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Overall then, Maskerade is a well-constructed and well-paced, and was sufficiently humorous for me. A solid effort by Terry Pratchett. 8 Stars.

Perdido Street Station - China Miéville

2000; 710 pages. Genre : Steampunk Horror. Laurels : 2001 Arthur C. Clarke Award; 2001 British Fantasy Award, just to name a few. New Author? : No. Overall Rating : 8½*/10.

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Welcome to New Crobuzon, a huge, dark, steampunk city-state that bears an eerie resemblance to a post-holocaust London. It hosts a variety of weird satient species, and is run by a semi-repressive government.

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Isaac Dan der Grimnebulin is a geeky tinkerer who is visited one day by a garuda. Garudas are birdmen, but this one has had his wings savagely ripped from him as punishment for an unspecified crime. His plea to Isaac : "Make me fly again."

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What's To Like...

Perdido Street Station is a dark, complex saga with three major plotlines; the main one of which doesn't get started until around page 200. They all get resolved, although not simultaneously, and perhaps not in the way you would anticipate.

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What really shines here, though, is the world (called "Bas-Lag") that Miéville convincingly paints. You can "see" the various species that inhabit Bas-Lag (and there are a bunch of them), and you can touch and taste the dark, the grit, and the grime of New Crobuzon.

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The individual characters are 3-D and lushly detailed. Miéville spins the horror tale with a deft touch. One of the plotlines is an inter-species love story. There is a sprinkling of dark humor, as well as a bit of Miéville's insightful social and political views.

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Excerpts...

Lin got half to her feet, her headlegs bristling with astonishment and terror. She gazed at him.

Scraps of skin and fur and feathers swung as he moved; tiny limbs clutched; eyes rolled from obscure niches; antlers and protusions of bone jutted precariously; feelers twitched and mouths glistened. Many-coloured skeins of skin collided. A cloven hoof thumped gently against the wood floor. Tides of flesh washed against each other in violent currents. Muscles tethered by alien tendons to alien bones worked together in uneasy truce, in slow, tense motion. Scales gleamed. Fins quivered. Wings fluttered brokenly. Insect claws folded and unfolded. (...)

Mr. Motley paced towards her like a hunter.

"So," he said, from one of the grinning human mouths. "Which do you think is my best side?" (pg. 42)

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I will hear the sounds of Perrick violining or the Gnurr Kett funeral dirge or a Chet stone-riddle, or I will smell the goat porridge they eat in Neovadan or see a doorway painted with the symbols of a Cobsea printer-captain... A long, long way from their homes. Homeless. Home. All around me will be New Crobuzon, seeping through my skin. (pg. 506)

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"I do not know where I will be, Grimnebulin. I shun this city. It hunts me." (pg. 50)

Perdido Street Station is not for everyone. The descriptiveness is superb, but often lengthy, and it sometimes overshadows the story itself. 700+ pages may be too long for some readers. You could probably cull a couple hundred pages from this novel and still tell the story. But then you'd miss the vividness and the detail, and IMHO, that would be a serious loss.
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In a world of copycat writers, China Miéville goes his own literary way. Perdido Street Station was my third Miéville book (see here and here for the other two), and I've enjoyed them all. 8½ Stars.