Bloody Books Review - Brutal Kunnin’ (By Mike Brooks)

Warhammer 40k is THE grimdark setting, a grinding unending bleak spire that rises above it's own shadow, eclipsing all light that may fall on the surroundings. All aspire to nothing more than survival, and within that darkness, 40k can, is and will always be able to have something of a twinge of bleak humour, a sense of the silly and the surreal. Huge swathes of what make up 40k's history is either parody or outright homage*. whilst 40k moved on into the ever deepening darkness, the Orks alone have refused to let go of their grip on the goofball greatness that 40k's bedrock is made off.  Recently however, the leash on lunacy has been loosened somewhat, with Cawl: The Great Work being followed by the mechanised madcappery of The Infinite and the Divine. Whilst both are laugh out loud funny, for very different reasons,  Brutal Kunnin' by Mike Brooks appears to have taken this challenge to heart by not only producing a highly hillarious read, but one that holds up a mirror to 40k, and the Imperium in general, and uses the Orks to take the absolute piss out of it all.  

How could you not revel in a book where the author, the reader and the characters are all having as much fun as each other, let alone one where Brooks manages to make the Orks the most fun they've been since 2nd Ed 40k.  Brooks creates an Orkish tone that is both highly readable and highly infectious,  It's raucous and ridiculous  and rambunctious . One particular scene involves the scaling , invasion  and exploration of a Titan, where our green heroes marvel at humanity's mad, weird and bizarre ways, which honestly conjures feelings of where the Orks were much more openly comedic, and the platform to fire away the bullets of satire into the universe. Brutal Kunnin' cycles back into an earlier time, throwing more inventive properties into the mix than a lot of the more serious takes on the genre.