The Twice-Dead King: Ruin (Warhammer 40,000) [Paperback] Crowley, Nate

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Ruin was also a pretty impressive entry in the overall Warhammer 40K canon, especially as it contains an outstanding look at one of the franchises more unique races, the Necrons, who are extremely underrepresented in the extended fiction. Crowley has done a brilliant job here with Ruin, and I loved the distinctive and compelling Warhammer 40K story it contained. The author has made sure to load up this book with a ton of detail, information and settings unique to this massive franchise, and fans will no doubt love immersing themselves in this cool lore. Ruin also contains several massive and well-written battle sequences that will easily remind readers of the table-top games that this franchise is built around and which really increase the epic nature of this novel. The immense amount of somewhat more obscure lore may turn off readers new to Warhammer 40K fiction. However, I think that most new readers can probably follow along pretty well here, especially as Crowley has a very descriptive and accessible writing style, and Ruin proves to be an excellent and compelling introduction to the Necrons.

I don't know if I'm going to finish this. Author Nate Crowley has somehow found a way to make a story involving cannibal robots boring. The few interesting character moments cannot save just how dull the narrative and action is. My eyes glazed over at every action scene. I find it funny how the race of immortal robots at times seem to be the most "human" of all the races in 40k.But also a treatise on the long term effects of trauma and how no matter how far you run you eventually have to own up to it - including interest accrued in the interim. While the plot of Ruin is really a vehicle for adding to the Necron's lore in a more readable way than tabletop-friendly Codex, I enjoyed it alot for the diversions and the relationships. Freed a little from the drudgery of service that a human character tends to be subject to in Warhammer 40K, Oltyx (the single POV for the story) has a wry humour and reflectiveness that is memorable. It's believable that he can play the bad hands he gets dealt well. Theres both a sense of reolstuon and harbinger for a story where he doesn't even win! For the best viewing experience, we recommend using old reddit version - https://old.reddit.com/r/40kLore/ The fate of Oltyx and his necron dynasty is revealed in Reign, the epic and impressive second entry in The Twice-Dead King series of Warhammer 40,000 novels by Nate Crowley.

This book is so good I've defected to the Necrons now and don't want to hear any more organic nonsense out of any of you. But "The Twice-Dead King: Ruin" is neither a comedy nor a parody. It's a very serious story with real emotion and convincing character development. The Necrons, one of the two most exotic races in the 40k universe, have always been hard to grasp as a species so obsessed with death, even before their ascendance into immortal machines. (At least in my opinion, they and the Tyranids are the only factions that truly deserve to be called alien.)

There was more combat in this book, but that had the strange aspect of actually making it less interesting and exciting, as opposed to the doomy introspection and weird alienness of Ruin. Directions (or level of pacing) I wanted the book to take, it didn't take, instead dwelling on an extremely drawn out space chase (The Last Jedi anyone?). Almost the entire book takes place on a ship - and the ship itself is barely explored. Some of it takes place on another ship. A couple of brief slices of it takes place on land. Nate’s fresh perspective offers readers a very different view of the Warhammer 40,000 universe. He promises “familiar factions and concepts presented in a surprising new light”. Fantastic audiobook, great narration by Richard Reed, he’s does a great job with all the characters.

I was genuinely surprised with how good it was. don't get me wrong, it is not that I expected it to be bad, but Nate Crowley elevated the setting, characters to that illustrious four star level of quality. As I have mentioned before when commenting on the necrons as characters, it is easy to write them badly. As either malfunctioning AI or as individuals who just happened to inhabit metallic bodies controlled In this book Crowley does an amazing job at conveying the fact the necron (nobility) are individuals that just happen to exist in robotic bodies. The way the different characters are seen struggling with the accumulated weight of anxiety, pettiness and/or vindictiveness that has piled during their immortal wake makes for a very interesting read as they struggle to hold on to their selves, keep themselves sane and all the while deal with an ever more hostile universe. Contrasted with this is his penchant for Horror. Despite the levity of its humor and the apparent enthusiasm for the more absurd sides of necrons society, this is a grim, dark book. The necrons are not just a horror to the puny humans that rose up in their wake, but their existence itself is a horror *to them*. Oltyx in particular struggles with the memories of his time as a biological being and the trauma of his whole civilization being lured into the furnaces of the C'tan to be transformed into unchanging, unfeeling beings of metal and energy. Many chapters are pure body- and existential horror which really got under my skin.The first book was better. This one takes too long. It seems like half the book is a ship being chased. It couldn't grip me the way the first book did and as a result it took me way too long to finish it. To be honest I was inching towards a lower rating then the previous book but the last chapters turned me about and set me on course for a second 4 star rating, well done Nate Crowley for your contribution to necron lore! having read the book while in the grasp of a dark mood, I felt at times ill at ease to read the titular twice dead king Oltyx's woes and sorrow, his dark mood an at times uncomfortable mirror to my own bleakness surrounding new year. But, on the other hand that made it resonate stronger with me and the catharsis in the end I felt wholeheartedly. The necrons have no facial expressions or inflections of voice, so instead they found more technological ways to express emotional nuance in their new bodies: through the intensity of their core-fluxes, their ocular flaring, discharge node patterns, vocal buzz-tones, actuator signals, and the glyph-signifiers (e.g. a glyph for earnestness or hostility - essentially emojis!) and interstitial codes appended to their communication relays. While still good, this wasn't as amazing to me as the first book. The pacing was off, there was less atmosphere and dread, less effective body horror. I wasn't anywhere near as enraptured as I was in the first book when Oltyx explores Antikef and finds Unnas. I also noticed the fascinatingly obtuse communication technobabble was reduced in this book, but not to its benefit. The conversations seemed a lot more ordinary and human. Likewise, I missed Oltyx's subminds, a uniquely strange and entertaining aspect to the first book's POV.