The Other McCain

"One should either write ruthlessly what one believes to be the truth, or else shut up." — Arthur Koestler

Quick Hits

Posted on | January 13, 2015 | 5 Comments

–by Wombat-socho


Noticed this in passing: the extremely weird fantasy novel by Mary Gentle, Grunts, is available for $1.99 on the Kindle. For those unfamiliar with it, Grunts is about a bunch of orcs about to lose the Last Battle against the forces of Good, despite having the numerical, strategic and tactical advantages…until they find some strange weapons from another world in a dragon’s hoard. As one commenter at Amazon remarked, these orcs are more like the fungoid brawlers from Warhammer 40K than Tolkien’s bog-standard humanoid minions of evil, but it’s still a fun read.


A related freebie: Saruman of Many Devices, in which Saruman the White looks into the palantir of Isengard and finds Center (from Drake & Stirling’s Raj Whitehall novels) looking back. Amusing crossing of the streams.


Category: Books

Comments

5 Responses to “Quick Hits”

  1. richard mcenroe
    January 13th, 2015 @ 5:52 pm

    Grunts is a fun and funny read.

  2. Ruy Diaz
    January 13th, 2015 @ 10:29 pm

    My grip with ‘Grunts’ is that Ms. Gentle… completely misreads Tolkien. Mr. Tolkien was a believer in the Catholic doctrine of subsidiarity: he felt nothing like ‘contempt’ for the underclass; he believed that the underclass could do much better.

    But, yes, her book is a fun read. Ms. Gentle did well for herself.

  3. Cas
    January 13th, 2015 @ 10:52 pm

    Amusing crossing of the streams…

    Important Safety Tip, avoid Total Protonic reversal!

  4. Wombat_socho
    January 13th, 2015 @ 11:10 pm

    Fortunately fanfic writers aren’t working with backpack proton accelerators.

  5. Eric Ashley
    January 16th, 2015 @ 11:49 am

    Not sure if it was Grunts, but one of her books hit the Ick-O-Meter hard enough for her to go on the Don’t Read List.