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

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The only con I can say this book has is its frequent use of WH40k and (mostly) necron terms and names. If you’re already a fan, you’ll recognise all the units, wargear, and esoteric technologies found on the tabletop woven into with a deeper exploration of their inner lives and culture.

I should probably mention that Oltyx has five partitioned minds of his own, which are all partial copies of his own consciousness. He has a very strained relationship with them.” Peer into the into the bizarre culture and motivations of the Necrons in this great novel from Nate Crowley. 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.Nate tells a story on an epic scale with humour, reality and respect for the Necron protagonists - they are all believable and engaging individuals, and you are immediately drawn into their reality. And the reality Nate has crafted is the really impressive thing here. It would be absolutely wrong to say that this book humanises Necrons, because it doesn’t. That would do a disservice to the care Nate has taken to craft a reality and lived experience that is uniquely Necron, in the way the characters perceive the world, their plight, their past, their future and how they communicate, the memories and emotions that remain and how they process them. Djoseras had remembered their deeds for them. Oltyx knew he would never understand why. But if he had to guess, he would have said this was his elder’s way of paying silent penance for those legionaries who had died, in that training yard all those years ago, to teach his younger brother that life held no value. Then the necrons, on hidden tomb worlds scattered through the galaxy, could awake (earlier than intended, if disturbed . . .), ready to restore their ancient dynasties – and rid the galaxy of all that hated upstart life that had flourished in their absence. That’s a recipe for abject madness if ever there was one, and I don’t think it’s something which, as a species, they have any idea how to cope with. It’s something every individual has to either find their own solution to or else lose their minds.”

The later necron Games Workshop miniatures looked a lot more interesting, stylised and varied than their first range. In the chaotic and war-striven future of the 41 st 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.Following on from The Twice-Dead King: Ruin, this sees Oltyx – now king of Ithakas – attempting to lead what remains of his dynasty to safety. Aboard a deteriorating flagship, and pursued by a vast fleet of vengeful humans, Oltyx has to come to terms with his newfound power, while bearing the responsibility of finding a way to safeguard his people. The pressures of leadership are great though, and as well as the external threats he also has to maintain the loyalty of his subordinates, and come to terms with who he really wants to be. This immortality involved ‘biotransference’ – giving the necrontyr (all of them) advanced self-repairing metal bodies and in the process incinerating their mortal organic forms . . . and, as it happened, also their souls. They would no longer have hearts to beat, lungs to breath with. All of this proved much to the necrontyr’s eternal regret – but they were now no longer the necrontyr: they were the necrons. From now on they would forever wake up in a hollow metal shell and see the world through oculars instead of eyes. The extent to which they ‘miss’ – to put it in the mildest possible way – their organic selves is part of the body horror themes of this novel. 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.) 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.

If I'd have to boil down what Crowley's writing excels at - in this and his other works - I'd point to three aspects that particularly stand out to me.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. Unexpected" might be the one word that best sums up my experience of the story. Had I payed more attention to the name printed under the title, I should have realized that this came from the same hand which penned the amazing and absolutely hilarious tale of "Ghazghkull Thraka: Prophet of the Waaagh!" And after the first quarter of the book I more and more often felt reminded of the amazing silliness of Mogworld (an entertaining snipe at MMO games telling the story of an undead wizard apprentice seriously missing his nose). 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. No sé qué pasó, pero aunque me gustó mucho el libro, no me atrapó la lectura tanto como el anterior. Aún así, el final sobre todo es realmente impresionante. En comparación con la anterior entrega, este se siente un poco repetitivo a veces y en ocasiones parece que se extiende mucho en ciertas situaciones. Algunas cosas no las terminé de entender y no hay mucha información por ahora en línea. Pero en general, esos detallitos no arruinan la experiencia.

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) If you’re not familiar with the Necrons beyond the fact that they’re metal skeletons who aren’t very happy, these books will – hopefully – give you a hefty insight into what they’re about,” he adds. At times it felt like Crowley was trying to do a bit too much with what he had, given that he was also trying to appease the normal WH40K audience who probably just turned up to read about pseudo-Egyptian alien robots zapping their way through humans & Orks. Portions of this novel legitimately reminded of a fusion of "Rashomon" and "The Remains of the Day," and I'm still just processing that experience. Again, because it was in a novel about pseduo-Egyptian alien robots at war with Space Orks. But far be it from me to fault someone for ambition. I'm at least intrigued enough to look into the second novel in the series. I have been having a lot of fun listening to a bunch of awesome Warhammer 40,000 (W arhammer 40K) novels over the last year, with some great examples including Deathwatch: Shadowbreaker by Steve Parker, Kal Jerico: Sinner’s Bounty by Joshua Reynolds, Fire Made Flesh by Denny Flowers, and First and Only by Dan Abnett. While I have deeply enjoyed all these novels, I felt that it was time to go outside of the novels that typically focus on this universe’s human characters and instead read something with a more unique subject matter. As such, when I saw that The Twice-Dead King: Ruin had recently been released, I instantly grabbed a copy, and I am really glad that I did.Once a minor lord from one of Ithakas’ most powerful subsidiary houses, he had woken from the Great Sleep suddenly free of the burden of social understanding, and had immediately decided to assassinate every other noble on his coreworld as they slept.