This is especially true for our protagonist Oltyx, once second in line for the throne, who is biding his time exiled from the heart of his kingdom set to watch over tombs of sleeping soldiers, increasingly infested with accursed Necrons who have lost their sanity and crave to eat flesh that their mechanical bodies can never process. These subminds – named Doctrinal, Analytical, Strategic, Combat and Xenology – all speak in different fonts. The outcome of the conflict actually surprised me and it also impressed me due to the sheer martial ability of the Necrons. First if this is your warhammer book I WOULD NOT recommend this, it uses a lot of in universe technical jargon, if you want a good starter for our robot boys you would be better off reading the divine and infinite.

but this and the infinite and the divine were much better than the other ponderous books I've tried to read from the 40k setting. Yes, as you read you’ll relate to the experiences of impossibly ancient Xenos murder-bots only to be reminded in the next sentence of ways in which they’re still incomprehensible.

The approach to killer robot skeletons as empathetic creatures with feelings is not a standard warhammer approach, but I liked it.

Both books do feel distinct and have satisfying endings all by themselves, but are one story split in half, so don't worry if a number of interesting secondary characters are seemingly abandoned halfway through Ruin - they'll all get their due in the sequel. There's also no engrammatic resistance for killing most Flayed Ones whether noble or not; Oltyx only recognizes one's nobility when he looks at the dynastic markings on it. 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.Each beam was a malediction written in neutrinos: a simple hekatic proclamation, decreeing the non-existence of the target's mind. Is it me, or did it seem like, throughout the book, Valgul was used sort of like a legend, and was implied not to ever have really existed? The horror aspects of the novel work so well to me because Crowley manages to make me care so much about the characters and gives me the opportunity to really *get* what makes them tick so that I really empathize and squirm along when the horror happens to them.

Y es que la tecnología de esta gente está tan fuera de liga que literalmente cualquier cosa puede pasar y la explicación es tan sencilla como “es que ellos pueden hacer eso”.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). 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.