Rob Aug 06, 2012

it was ok 's review

The Piles



“Fuck this shit” grumbled Slicker Gutwruck as he wearily limped up the hill, bile tickling his tonsils. “I couldn't give an arse about war anymore,” he spat. How ironic that I'm so good at it he mused, as his rag-tag squad of soldiers showed off their cool moves on a group of unfortunate peons they got the drop on. There was Broody McBrooderson, master of the garotte; Slicker's second-in-command, Little Miss Sunshine, tougher than any man, and more than capable of commanding Serenity, er, the squad, on her own; wise-cracking Esposito from Brooklyn; Ole Five-Finger Discount; the triplets, Gramps, and the rest. A hard bunch. Sick of fuckin' war. But fuckin' good at it.



Back at HQ, the Big Chief grimly sat in conference, looking over the hardest men of the North like a hamster considering pellets of its own shit. There was Brandis Bowel-burster, clawed face fixed in a rictus of hate, scowling while he stroked his axe made of sharpened pelvic bones. Next to him loomed the always dangerous Farnsbury Flopper, commander of the 3rd Signal Corps, as hard as un-rinsed oatmeal that has dried on a bowl for two days. And eyeing them all cynically from the back of the tent was the Gooch, another complete arsehole.



The last to enter the tent was He-Who-Heaves, green of face and unsteady of gait. The other war chiefs inched away warily, vomit frothing in their gullets.



“We have to show the Confederacy who's boss,” growled Brandis. “Those fucking arseholes are too effete and corrupt for my liking. And they're a perfect stock antagonist for our hard Northmen trope.”



The Farnsbury Flopper swirled his granite eyeball in a mug of lager and hissed “Fucking retard, we don't know where the arseholes are.”



“Retard?” queried the Gooch from the shadows. “What's with the anachronism?”



“This is a gritty fantasy story, playing with the genre conventions by mashing up movie, television, and other source material familiar to its audience,” growled Brandis. “Just enjoy the story, you butthead.”



“So there's no internal consistency, even within the conventions of the setting as depicted by the author?”



“Nope,” sneered the Flopper. “That shit don't fly with our crew.”



The Big Chief raised his mangled hand menacingly. “Enough! We do know where the Confederate forces are” he gloated. “Slicker Gutwruck's expert scout/commando/spy/hand-to-hand combat squad has found the whole fucking Confederate army. They're south of Toad Hall, split into three divisions, marching in mutually-supporting columns, converging on this obscure hill called the Piles.”



“The fuck,” interjected the Gooch. “The division was introduced during the Napoleonic era as a military unit containing all the necessary arms – infantry, cavalry, artillery - to sustain independent combat. It was facilitated by the tremendous growth in the size of armies nations could field at the time, owing to improved roads, conscription, the mass production of arms, innovations like canning -”



“Shut it!” shouted the Big Chief. He resumed, glowering. “As I was saying, the first division is commanded by Harold Lacksack. The second, by Marshal Fritz Loober and his chief of staff Colonel Quiff.”



“Whoa, whoa – his chief of staff? What kind of staff work is necessary in a pre-gunpowder army living off the land, without the logistical network, let alone the command and control capabilities, that would support a system of centralized staff planning?”



“Stop thinking and just enjoy the story, you fucking douchebag!” bellowed the Big Chief. He ripped out his own kidneys and waved them in the Gooch's face menacingly. “Any more chirping out of you, mate, and it'll be your kidneys next time.”



The Gooch raised his hands. “Whatever,” he murmured. “Mellow the fuck out.”



The Big Chief resumed. “They're supported by two brigades of conscript cavalry -”



The Gooch couldn't help himself “Conscript cavalry? You mean civilians drafted to fight on hugely expensive animals that take years of training to simply learn how to ride properly, let alone manage in battle? There's a reason every fucking cavalryman in the history of warfare was either born to the saddle, or was an aristocrat who had the means and time to raise his own horses and gallivant around on them all day. And you're suggesting some out-of-work bakers assistant will be assigned to the cavalry, like learning to be a mounted soldier is as easy as cleaning latrines.”



Shaking with fury, the Big Chief drew his dread sword Dreadblade, shimmering in the torchlight, and brandished it balefully before the mouthy critic.



The Gooch carried on, heedlessly. “This is supposed to be a gritty military story, about armies and warfare and all that cool shit. Shouldn't it have at least the basics right in regards to military structures and tactics? I mean, if the author has free license to go completely off the grid about this stuff, why not include jeeps and predator drones? That's about as plausible as an ostensibly renaissance-era army set up like a - “



The Farsnsbury Flopper whipped out a twinned pair of repeating crossbows and shot several bolts into each of the Gooch's eyes, which burst in sprays of glistening gore. The Gooch groaned and sunk to his knees, clawing at his eyes, as puke jabbed his molars.



The Big Chief stepped forward and grunted in rage as he swung Dreadblade in a murderous arc, cleaving the Gooch in two. He shit himself and collapsed on the ground with a deafening crash, lifeblood streaming out of his shit-stinking body like the rivers of beer pissed in Northern halls on the eve of hard-won victories.



“Fucking troll” growled the Big Chief.



Slicker Gutwruck, who had a knack for being at the right place at the right time, stepped out of the shadows and spat. “Waste of a good man. A good, hard man. The poor bastard didn't know how to suspend his sense of disbelief and overlook lazy cliche and awful prose. But those are the times.”



He scowled at the blood-oozing body. “I'm sick of genre fiction,” he grumbled. Sick to my arse of it.