Two Necrons, one galaxy-spanning grudge, and sixty million years of history to argue about. Trazyn the Infinite is a data-hoarding collector who's stashed away the galaxy's rarest treasures (and more than a few people) in his private gallery; Orikan the Diviner reads the future in starlight and bends fate to suit his own ambitions. Robert Rath's debut Black Library novel sets two of the necrons' strangest, funniest personalities loose on each other across millennia — and somehow makes ancient robot skeletons the most human characters in the room.
What it's about
When Orikan's schemes threaten the survival of the necron race, Trazyn does what he does best: intervenes, meddles, and generally makes himself impossible to ignore. What follows tears through thousands of years of necron history, jumping from tomb worlds to lost civilisations as the pair's rivalry escalates from petty one-upmanship into something that could reshape their species' fate — all without losing sight of two leads who are prickly, vain, brilliant, and (despite being ancient robotic warlords) weirdly relatable.
Why it's a fan favourite
- Black Library's wittiest read to date — genuinely funny where most 40k fiction plays it grimdark
- A rare deep dive into necron culture, history and psychology
- Works as a starting point for the faction with zero prior Black Library reading required
By the end you'll have picked a side — and immediately want to argue the case for the other one. It's the rare tie-in novel that stands up as a proper character study, no prior 40k knowledge required.
English-language paperback, 347 pages. Fancy the army behind the fiction? Our Necrons army analysis covers the tabletop side, and the rest of the Black Library range has plenty more Warhammer 40,000 fiction to get stuck into.
