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

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The Twice-Dead King comes hot on the heels of another inspired take on the 'tomb kings in space' that we've been gifted with lately, Robert Rath's fan-favorite 'The Infinite and the Divine'. I'd be hard pressed to decide upon a favorite between the two, and I do feel that despite contrasting in their respective focus on comedy and tragedy, both authors approach the necrons from the same root and are in touch with all of their epic, entertaining, absurd, tragic and horrifying aspects.

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! In one sense, this is part of his tragic story: Oltyx doesn't know how to be a king and truly has no plan for his people who, in addition to suffering from a pursuing army, are going mad from a plague and are burdened with an outdated mode of fighting and a rigid command hierarchy that requires absolute devotion to a king. And with the last king having gone insane, that doesn't put the kingdom in a very stable place. The line to get your attention is ‘Ancient Egyptian-styled alien androids’. But if you want just a little more to go on, here’s a simplified primer. The Twice-Dead King: Ruin is just plain fun, while also being littered with blood and viscera and the horror of the taboos of flesh and the ways your family can break your heart.

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Oltyx has taken his small fleet of surviving vessels out from the destruction of their crown world to flee a cleansing crusade by the Imperium of Man that doggedly pursues him at every turn. He narrowly escapes thier clutches multiple times, but never in a way that was set up in a satisfying manner. His drive is broken, but then he is saved by the presence of an ally from another kingdom that happens to have drive technology. He doesn't know where to go, but then is informed by a mentor that there is somewhere to go. Oltyx is floundering. It’s as if Crowley skimmed the online wiki for some footnotes on the 40k universe and just used this as a canvas to write his own teen drama. As with ‘The Infinite and the Divine’ the alien immortal cyborgs behave exactly how humans would. It is bad writing on the part of the author, and a large stab to the nuts of the Necron race as a whole, as they’re finally given one of their own few novels to feature in - and it’s just Dune, but with the ‘human’ tag replaced with synonyms that Crowley dragged from the wiki.

Oltyx must travel to Ithakas and face his King, Unnas, and a hostile court far too self-absorbed to understand the true scope of the danger. What follows is a great look at the dynastic politics within a Necron court, as well as a great insight into how their minds work in regard to their "subminds", each designated for a particular thought process (Combat, Diplomacy, Xenology, etc). 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.) Pride is everything for the dynastic kings of the Necron race, who have awakened after millennia to see their empires occupied by foul beasts and simple minds. For the Necron Lord Oltyx, the Ithakas dynasty was his by right, but the machinations of the court see him stripped of his position and exiled to a forgotten world. Oltyx, the protagonist, is an exiled Necron princeling unable to understand the truths of his relationships because he is so wrapped up in his own despair and envy and bitterness that he’s warped his own memories to support his misery, unable to appreciate even the facets of his own subconscious that don’t support his narrative, until he is forced, again and again, to confront his own past. But can we talk specifically about the ending, and how it low-key changes/enhances a pretty large part of Necron lore? We've had multiple references, since 5th edition, of Valgul the Bone King, and his kingdom of flayers on Drazak.

I dunno. I can allow talking, if it's weird and emotionless enough. Hard to write a book without it, unless necrons are antagonists. I just think necrons should never, ever, shrug. The later necron Games Workshop miniatures looked a lot more interesting, stylised and varied than their first range. 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. That’s just the beginning. “Our protagonist eventually realises the Ork horde assailing him is not an invasion force but an exodus, driven ahead of an even more cataclysmic threat.”

In the chaotic and war-striven future of the 41st millennium, many powerful and dangerous races fight for domination and destruction. However, no race is more mysterious or feared than the immortal beings known as the Necrons. The Necrons are an ancient and ruthless race who, thousands of years ago, sacrificed their mortality and humanity to defeat a powerful enemy as well as death itself. Forced into thousands of years of hibernation after their great victory, the Necrons are now slowly awakening to reclaim their empire by destroying all life in the galaxy. Oh and small note here, tachyon arrows are hella OP in this book. Djoseras takes out an Imperial Titan with his (don't ask me what class of Titan, the book doesn't say, but it's the largest of three so we're at least talking a Reaver). And apparently there are multishot variants too, though this OBVIOUSLY isn't reflected in the tabletop, but with things as OP as ahemaheamhammerheadrailgunahemahem I can't think of why that would be.

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The Necrons are the Warhammers Undead race like in traditional fantasy but because its Warhammer they mixed them with terminators and threw in Egyptian mythology and out came a wholly original alien species. The mythos is well crafted and a ton of fun and the protagonist in this book is well written and you care for him and want him to succeed. That's right you care for an undead terminator with multiple personalities if that is not enough to make you realize this was well written I'm not sure what is. The story is about a necron dynasty falling into entropy, and is from the perspective of outcast Necron Lord Oltyx. As Oltyx dreams about vengeance and reclaiming his birthright, he finds himself facing an immense threat that could spell the doom of his dynasty and the entire Necron race. The invading Orks are only the precursor of a larger and much more powerful enemy, one his small force has no chance of defeating. With no other option, Oltyx is forced to return to his dynasty’s crownworld and beg for reinforcements from the court who cast him out. However, his return uncovers something far more disturbing than he could have ever imagined. A twisted horror now lies within the heart of Oltyx’s dynasty, bringing only madness and bloodshed with it. To ensure his people’s survival, Oltyx must face the curse of the Necrons and the pure horror of a twice-dead king.

See also: my review of The Carbis Incident and my interview with Victoria (and 3 other authors) talking about Warhammer Crime and women in Warhammer. Nate Crowley is a fantastic writer, so I'm very happy to have read his perspective on murderous skeleton robots with existential angst. Warhammer 40k is fundamentally a pulpy setting, but Crowley does an exceptional job wringing pathos from what seem to be a fairly flat caricature in the form of the Necrons. While I'm not a stranger to the setting, I'm unfamiliar to the Necrons, but that's ok! I admit doing a little wiki-investigation to assuage some of my curiosity, but really Crowley does a good job establishing everything a reader needs to know without ever dipping into "deep lore" or a gratuitous use of in-universe jargon. Phaeron, Overlord, Lord, it gets wayyyyy more complicated than that now. Some dynasties even appear to use their own ranks as equivalents to these known ones. Ithakas' phaeron holds the title of Dynast, which was used in a more general sense in Devourer to describe most nobles. What's very different in Ithakas is rather than succession for Phaeron/Dynast to Nemesor/Overlord to Lord is that familial succession is still a thing here. The Ithakan Dynast had two sons before biotransference, and they remain his heirs after as well. Theirs is a previously unheard of rank--Kynazh--conferring status second only to the Dynast. There are also a myriad of other ranks--Nomarch, essentially it's Egyptian meaning i.e. a provincial governor or in this case a planetary governor; Praetor, commander of a planetary garrison; Duke of Deathmarks, Agoranomos, Polemarch, Dikast, Master of Monoliths (not much is elaborated on these) realmente maravillado al ver cómo el autor logra una descripción tan clara y a la vez tan compleja de los necron, sus costumbres, su forma de pensar, y su tecnología. La historia tiene una continuidad y ha sido bien planeada desde el inicio, y al final terminas entendiendo cosas que ocurrieron en el libro anterior.The Necron lord Oltyx has finally ascended to the throne of the Ithakas Dynasty - on a battleship fleeing the ruins of his crownworld. With the Imperium behind him and a hideous curse festering in the bowels of his ship, will Oltyx be able to find salvation? [2] Sources 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