MB: This was probably the easiest and most fun novel I’ve ever written, and I had an absolute blast! In part I think it’s because I already knew the characters: Ufthak and his ladz have been the subject of various pieces of flash fiction which I would write down and upload into the Facebook groups of whatever campaign they were appearing in at the time, so I already had a handle on how they act. Ufthak’s smart in a sort of counter-intuitive way; Mogrot Redtoof is a beast in combat but about as intelligent as a concussed squig; Nizkwik the grot is simultaneously eager to please and terrified; I even got to include Ufthak’s pet squig Princess, about which I am utterly delighted (yes, there is a reason the squig is called Princess, but you’ll have to read the novel to find out: also yes, this might just have been me finding a vaguely plausible reason for why Ufthak’s pet squig has always been called Princess). Honestly, I don't quite know how to feel about this novel. On the one hand the Orky parts are great and fun to read. On the other you've got the Mechanicum sections, that are at times just unreadable. Listen to it because: get into the heads of a band of orks in the first-ever novel from their point of view. Discover what it takes to be part of the Waaagh! and carve out your own little piece of glory amidst the mayhem in a novel that's brutal, kunnin' - and darkly hilarious. Mike Brooks: It’s a novel about the orks of the TekWaaagh! invading the forge world of Hephaesto. It’s primarily told from the point of view of the orks, although there are also Adeptus Mechanicus POV characters. There’s one scene in particular which would have been utter bloody horror for the humans involved, but for Ufthak it’s just a brief, slightly confusing diversion. A Chaos Space Marine, for example, might have gloried in the slaughter and the terror: Ufthak just kills a few humans and then looks around for a more challenging fight. So far as orks are concerned, fighting is the best thing in the galaxy, and they’re not sure why few other species seem to enjoy it as much, or aren’t very good at it, or even want to avoid it entirely.

CONTEXT: During an Orkish invasion of a Forge World, Te'Kannaroth — a greater daemon of Khorne now bound into a daemon engine — looks over the battlefield. This prompts the daemon to think about each of the galaxy's major 1 races, particularly "the abhorrence" (AKA the Orks). More potential spoilers below: read at your own risk! Like all Orks, this giant walker is even better at killing stuff up close and personal, with its advanced mega-choppa technology.** Those Imperial Knights will soon be nothing but chivalrous scrap. A full length followup to the short Where Dere’s da Warp Dere’s a Way, this one follows the story of a WAAAGH! way to loot the shiniest, most technological gear they can find. WHAT I LIKED : The internal dialogue and thinking process of the Orkz. It wasn't meant to be comedy, quite brutal actually, but god damn did I laugh at some bits of Ork logic. I also loved the side story with the tech priests. I don't want to spoil the entire book, but there is also some narration by another character which is just as good.This story shows the fight from both sides, and it does a good job of showing the contrasting views. For the orks, it's humorous. They're having fun and getting into shenanigans as they butcher their way through the defenders. On the other side, you have a palpable sense of the desperation and hopelessness of the AdMech as they desperately try to save as much as they can while they're being ground down by overwhelming ork numbers and power, while being hampered by their own incompetent leadership and an insidious third party. With that in mind, it should be noted that this is as much a Mechanicus book as an Ork one, despite what the cover implies (according to Brooks, this was mandated.) But he uses that split extremely effectively – I’m always looking for a good AdMech book and this one was all the sweeter for being unexpected. Each chapter in the book is from the perspective of a different character, roughly 40% Ufthak, and another 40% from the perspective of Zaefa Varaz, Hephaesto’s Lexico Arcanus. The remaining chapters are divided between other characters which would be spoilers, which we won’t be discussing here.

The setup for this book is comedic genius. The non-ork POVs play the orkish invasion completely straight. It’s pure unpredictable destruction and murder and their desperation feels very real as the orks seem to outdo their defenses through pure savagery at every turn. While this is happening we alternate frequently to the orks – and see that all their victories are either exceedingly simple or complete accidents. The juxtaposition is hilarious. Princeps Arlost Vast (gets a single chapter before being killed by Ufthak, which robs Daelin of the revenge he wanted)Brooks handles writing from an Ork perspective fantastically; we see through Ufthak’s eyes, encounter his thoughts and manage to relate to his desires. When he is the focus, Imperial Knights are humie walkers, armed with Kannons and Scorchas, though all of the boyz keep their Mork-given names- the text, however, is clearly written *about* an Ork rather than *by* one, so we get actual description and story rather than a jumbled blur of emotion and explosion. It’s a nice inversion of the death-by-Codex entry that can sometimes detract from a BL story. In his first appearance, Ufthak occupies a relatively lowly role in his Waagh, I’m hoping it’s not giving to much away to say that this book is an account of his ascent through what pass for ranks in Ork society; Brooks is clearly enthused by Ork Kultur, and while we don’t see much about the various Klans, he certainly nails the dynamics of mobs and the mindset of the faction. This is one of the best 40k novels in a long time and I'll be recommending it to everyone. It's fun, exciting, and I genuinely didn't know what would happen next. You can probably already guess that the orks are very funny, but it also shows how formidable and terrifying they can be, as well as getting plenty of laughs out of me for the Adeptus Mechanicus characters. The two 'sides' (though both orks and AdMech clearly aren't united sides and there's as much fighting amongst themselves as there is against each other)) are both funny and potent in their own ways, it was a great choice of dichotomy.

The audio narration of the book is done by Tom Allenby. His gripping voice and ability to understand the mood of the characters made this narration so special. Everyone will have a fantastic time with the perfect narration of this book by Tom Allenby. In everyone of Mikes story he seems to use plural pronouns to generate a singular non-gendered pronoun. This would be well and good if this didn't come at the cost of collapsing the difference between singular and plural. This is especially frustrating when one person works in conjuncture with a group (Skitarii in this case) or for interactions between two people that use this "new" pronoun. The worst part is that it isn't even necessary to get the idea across, just use "it". It's not that Mechanicum personnel will mind, after all getting refereed to as "it" would bring the even closer to the holy machine. Plus the ease of using the proper genderless pronoun "it" is also demonstrated in this novel during the chapters about Te'Kannaroth. Which are a joy to read. In the end I hoped that I would get used to it but even at chapter 24 I still needed to pause every time to make sure I didn't misinterpreted anything. Brutal Kunnin’ is a science fiction and fantasy novel. It is written by Mike Brooks. He is an excellent writer of science fiction and space opera novels. If you are looking for more novels from the author then try out his Alpharius: Head of the Hydra novel.MB: I think Guy Haley has said it before, but the key to orks is that they seem funny, unless you’re the one they’re happening to. It was interesting approaching it from the ork POV however, because of course to orks, what they’re doing isn’t horrific, it’s normal. So I was describing fights and scenes of slaughter for which, had it been from a human perspective, I would have been using words that really brought home the gruesomeness of what was occurring. When seeing the same events from an ork perspective, it’s much more matter-of-fact. I found this passage particularly intriguing, as it gives a short blurb about each race's relation to Chaos from the perspective of Chaos (or at least a greater Daemon, which is as close as we're ever likely to get). While nothing seems exactly groundbreaking, I think it's an excellent little summary. The most surprising thing, to me, is the hatred that this Khornate daemon feels for the Orks. They are, well, abhorrent to it! In a way, it makes sense: Orks really seem like they should be super easy to turn to Khorne, but they're just... not. That frustration evidently builds resentment among the Blood God's servants. I also like how this excerpt dovetails with the idea that Gork and Mork (or is that Mork and Gork?) are what keep the greenskins from falling to chaos, which I've seen on here a number of times. In true Orkish fashion, however, it's not some kind of mystical purity protecting Da Boyz (a la Grey Knights or Battle Sisters)... they're just having so much fun with their current deities that, well, why would they want to try anyone else's? Like Te'Kannaroth says, there's nothing the Big Four can offer that Orks both want and don't already have. Now, again, I don't think any off that is truly brand new, but it's cool to see it from the Chaos PoV as well as the Greenskin one. Another thing I loved was the total dumpster fire an Ork war is. Nothing ever works quite like it should for either side. The Mechanicus keeps getting blind sided by the shitshow that is the Orkz. Now, it isn't to say some of their plans worked, they certainly did, but because the Orkz are insane, things always seem to devolve into a total meat grinder which of course the Orkz love. The description of the battles is also great, especially the Titan legion going up against the Gargant.