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Title:
The Twice Dead King: Ruin
Series: Warhammer
40K: Necrons
Author: Nate Crowley
Rating:
3.5 of 5 Stars
Genre: SF
Pages:
306
Words: 108K
I
am wicked glad I read The
Infinite and the Divine before diving into this The Twice
Dead King duology. While
Crowley (the author) does a great job of using flashbacks to explain
how the Necrontyr (the people) became the Necrons (immortal metal
beings), already knowing the basics helped me process other parts of
the story better. Also, being familiar with the Shards and how they
affect Necrons explained a lot that wasn’t explained here.
What we get here is the first part of a duology that shows why the Necrons haven’t taken over the entire universe, even being as powerful as they are. It shows their degradation over the millions of years that they slept in their tombs, to awaken, or to awaken insane or to not awaken at all. Factor in that there can never be any more little baby Necrons, well, you have a race of beings that don’t want to die but were tricked into committing long term race suicide and are now going insane over the issue.
Literally insane. Like, eating humans to try to get flesh into their metal bodies, even though they have no mouths or digestive organs. The main character also has an episode, which I guess is common to Necrons, where his brain “remembers” being flesh and has what amounts to a killer panic attack because he can’t “breathe” even though he’s a robot.
How messed up is all of that? Very messed up, that’s how much. And it fits perfectly within the Warhammer 40K grimdark universe. You think you are getting immortality and the chance to rule the universe and BAM, you’re totally boned by some nasty other race. And even if you kill them all, they still bone you for millions of years because they were that nasty.
The Empire of Man makes an appearance and boy howdy, do they do a number on the Necrons. They are on a Crusade and are wiping out the Necrons one world at a time and Oltyx (the main Necron character) is trying to save his House (Necrons are divided up into factions based upon Family and it is as messy as anything humans ever experienced). Which is when he discovers his King has gone insane and is eating people and “stuff”. He manages to make it off his home planet with a small contingent of survivors by the book’s end, but I am not sure what the next book will entail. Without the ability to increase his forces, he is ultimately doomed, even if it takes another million years.
I was impressed with how well Crowley wrote this story. It was a good story (within the framework of the WH:40K universe I mean) and didn’t read like a game codex turned into a book in 3 days.
To close, I’d like to talk about that cover. Terminator looking machines with glow’y axes. How cool is that? It’s WICKED cool, that’s how cool it is! Definitely going to be a strong contender for cover love at the end of the month.
★★★✬☆
From the Publisher
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.
Exiled to the miserable world of Sedh, the disgraced Necron Lord Oltyx is consumed with bitterness. Once heir to the throne of a dynasty, he now commands nothing but a dwindling garrison of warriors, in a never-ending struggle against Ork invaders. Oltyx can think of nothing but the prospect of vengeance against his betrayers, and the reclamation of his birthright. But the Orks are merely the harbingers of a truly unstoppable force. Unless Oltyx acts to save his dynasty, revenge will win him only ashes. And so he must return to the crownworld, and to the heart of the very court which cast him out. But what awaits there is a horror more profound than any invader, whose roots are tangled with the dark origins of the Necrons themselves.
