Available as a standalone novella or as part of the Sanctus Reach anthology in the Space Marine Battles series, Evil Sun Rising sees Guy Haley tapping into his orky side for a tale of Stompas and mekboy politics in the Red Waaagh! Big Mek Uggrim and his Red Sunz, along with their Stompa Fat Mork, have joined Warlord Grukk’s Waaagh! but are finding it more complicated than they expected. As they jealously guard the technorkology behind Fat Mork from the prying eyes of fellow meks, all they really want to do is get in the field and krump some humies.
Despite its short length, this loosely covers a range of events from across the Sanctus Reach campaign, from the greenskin perspective – specifically Uggrim’s perspective. In true orkish fashion that means skipping quickly over all the boring bits (i.e. when he’s not taking part in the fighting) and focusing on what he’s most interested in, which is maintaining, defending and fighting with Fat Mork. We watch as rivalries develop amongst Grukk’s coterie of Big Meks, gathered from across the range of greenskin clans, and Uggrim and his mates try to navigate the murky waters of ork politics before finally taking to the field and pitting the fruits of their orky knowhow against the human defenders of Alaric Prime in typically boisterous fashion.
It’s hugely satisfying spending time with these characters, not least with the amped-up, gleeful schadenfreude they display at the sight of fellow greenskins getting mangled, but it’s the choice of Mekboys as protagonists that really makes this story work. It’s great fun watching Uggrim and the gang cast their ‘professional’ eye over each other’s work, speculating on the relative effectiveness of orkish technology, while the occasional unconscious outpouring of baffling innate technological know-how nicely harks back to early theories of the roots of the orks and their unique genetic makeup. Focusing on the slightly more intellectual orks also means that the dialogue and descriptive language doesn’t need to be toned down too much, even if there’s the occasional description you need to let slide for the sake of the reader’s mental picture (not sure orks would recognise the colour of burned sugar, for example, but it paints a useful picture for the reader).
Stories with greenskin protagonists are invariably entertaining, but they risk getting the balance wrong and focusing too much on the comedic to the detriment of the dark, gritty heart of 40k. Haley’s got form writing greenskins, however, and while this does veer more towards the lighter side of 40k there’s enough casual brutality and barely (if at all) contained violence within these orks to comfortably counterbalance the irreverent banter and all the daft humour. At novella length it’s overall a comfortably short and sweet story with a relatively narrow focus, but there’s enough room to bring in some entertaining secondary characters (not least a couple of warring grots) and, as mentioned earlier, provide some context for the wider scope of the Waaagh! taking place outside this particular tale. It’s pacy and action-packed as you’d expect, but while you can certainly enjoy it just for the fighting there’s plenty more to dig into beneath the surface, and it’s definitely worth getting hold of if you fancy a change of pace from human-centric stories.
I found Overfiend in the SMB series a very different species. They were fearce, and clever. I liked that there was no comedy within that book