Brutal Kunnin'

The temptation to write this review entirely in Orky pseudo cockney slang is extreme, but I'll do my best to resist.

That's the thing about this book, Orks are so joyfully Orky that you just want to get involved. You got a Squig called ‘Princess'; an Ork catapulting himself into an Imperial Knight then accidentally blowing it up with a stick bomb; a grot hero-worshipping an Ork which keeps trying to kill him; plus, (obviously) loads of good ol' fightin'.

What makes this really work is Brook's narrating. It's bags of fun and doesn't at all take itself too seriously. It isn't just played for laughs, however. Brooks captures what the Orks care about (mainly getting stuck into a big scrap) and describes the world the way an Ork would think about it. Everything is very approximate and boiled down to only the essential facts needed for starting and winning a fight. We, of course, know a bit more about what is going on so we get a brilliant contrast between our more ‘sophisticated' take of the situation and the Orks' brutal but efficient word-view.

This works so well because it means the book still feels like Black Library. The Orks are not comic figures per se. They don't stick out like a green thumb in a world of super serious super-soldiers. You still get a very strong sense that you wouldn't want to meet one down a dark alley. They're not going to seem very funny when they try to krump your head in with a ‘uge choppa. But when we get a look inside their world from the comfort of the page, they bring a wonderfully fresh perspective to the grimdark 41st millennium. Instead of the relentless, punishing war toil of the Astra Millitarum, the stoicism of the Space Marines or the zealousness of the Adepta Sororitas, it is basically just one big violent party. After all, for a race of thugs that just love a good scrap, 40k's endless war is kind of like heaven.

The Ork sections of this book are a great romp and absolutely brilliant. Unfortunately, we only spend about half the book with them. The rest is mainly with the Ad Mech that the Orks are intent on krumpin. It's really in these sections that the actual plot of the novel occurs. Here is where we get the stakes, the suspense and the plot twists. That's a real shame because this is supposed to be a book about Orks when, really, at its core, it is a book about some kinda annoying robot people.

I think I get it. Building a satisfying narrative around the brutal and simplistic Orks sounds like a real challenge for an author. I see why Brooks wanted to keep a more traditional Black Library style plot in here too. It also is not a bad story at all. I think in another book I'd have really liked it. But when it is set against the riot which is the Orks sections, it feels like leaving a party to go study in the library. Each time the Ad Mech pop back up there is just a bit of a feeling of deflation and I'm just waiting until we can get back to the Orks.

I really enjoyed this book, I just wanted more Orks. I hope this book did well and Black Library is encouraged to commission more books from the perspective of non-humans. I hope next time, too, they feel that the Orks can drive the story forward.

The ork portion of the story is enjoyable and fun to read once it gets going. The mechanicus portions are a hard slog though. Particularly in the middle to latter stages of the book where they take a lot of the prime focus away from the orks.