Bloody Books -The Wicked And The Warped by Robert Rath

There are certain books that make reviewing the sequel rather awkward. The Infinite and the Divine is one of them. Robert Rath's 2020 novel somehow managed the apparently impossible: it took two ancient robot skeletons, gave them a ten-thousand-year argument over an ancient Necron artefact, and turned the whole thing into one of the funniest, strangest and most unexpectedly affecting books in the Black Library catalogue. It was a book that arrived with a premise that sounded like an extended joke and somehow turned that joke into an enormous story about obsession, memory, pride, mortality and friendship. So when a sequel arrives, the obvious danger is simply doing the same thing again, because there is only so much mileage you can get from Trazyn and Orikan arguing, betraying one another, attempting to murder one another and then discovering that being effectively immortal makes holding a grudge remarkably easy. Thankfully, The Wicked and the Warped avoids that trap, because rather than simply giving us The Infinite and the Divine 2: Still Bitching, Rath takes these characters somewhere rather different.

We once again follow Trazyn the Infinite and Orikan the Diviner, the two Necron Lords who have spent several thousand years demonstrating that immortality does not necessarily bring wisdom, emotional maturity or the ability to let a bloody argument go. This time Rath moves away from the historical feud of the first novel and into something much closer to a classic rip-roaring adventure. When the opening of the Great Rift delivers a mysterious world from the Necrons' distant past back into realspace, Trazyn sees an opportunity to uncover the fate of a lost expedition to Amenthis. Unfortunately, Amenthis hasn't exactly been sitting around waiting to be excavated. It has ended up in the Warp, because apparently an ancient world disappearing into an alternate dimension is exactly the sort of thing that happens when you leave a civilisation unattended for several million years. The result is a gloriously excessive adventure drawing on pretty much every Boy's Own story involving explorers wandering somewhere they absolutely shouldn't. Rath simply replaces the dinosaurs, lost tribes and hostile natives of those old adventures with the Warp, which feels like the sort of escalation only Warhammer could consider perfectly sensible.

The real reason the book works, however, is still Trazyn and Orikan. Rath could have spent the entire novel attempting to recreate the chemistry of the first book, but instead he actually develops their relationship. The bickering remains, as do the insults, betrayals and egos roughly the size of small moons, but something has changed. After the events of the first novel, there is a genuine sense that these two have been forced to reconsider what the other means to them. Two immortal beings who have spent millennia trying to murder, humiliate and inconvenience one another are now, rather reluctantly, stumbling towards something resembling friendship, and that development gives the novel considerably more emotional weight than its ridiculous premise might suggest. The Necrons may technically be soulless machines, but Rath continues to find an extraordinary amount of humanity in them. Pride, jealousy, obsession, loneliness, the desire to be remembered and the desperate need to prove that they are right have all survived the removal of their flesh. Immortality hasn't freed them from human weaknesses; it has simply given them several million years to become exceptionally good at them. There is something rather wonderful about the fact that after all the horror and tragedy of the Necron biotransference, what survives most stubbornly isn't necessarily their biological humanity but their ability to be petty bastards.

This is also where Rath's humour remains so effective. He can spend a page dealing with something fundamentally ridiculous, then suddenly turn around and deliver a genuinely thoughtful observation about memory, companionship or the meaning of an existence that has lasted longer than entire civilisations. The comedy works because nobody in the story treats Trazyn and Orikan as a joke. They genuinely believe their arguments are important, which somehow makes them considerably funnier. Trazyn isn't funny because Rath is standing outside the story telling us that he's an eccentric collector; he's funny because Trazyn considers his collecting, his reputation and his place in history to be matters of profound importance. Orikan isn't funny because he's simply an arrogant wizard in a metal body; he's funny because he genuinely believes that his understanding of the universe places him several intellectual tiers above everyone around him. Their absurdity comes from the absolute seriousness with which they approach their own ridiculousness, and Rath understands that the best way to make them funny is to allow them to remain completely convinced that they are the sensible ones in the room.

The expedition itself pushes them into situations where their usual advantages become less reliable. Reality, memory, space and metaphysics all start behaving badly, and being an almost impossibly powerful Necron Lord isn't always enough to get them out of trouble. That vulnerability is important because it forces them to rely upon one another, which is obviously the last thing either of them wants to admit. The first book could largely allow their feud to exist within the enormous span of Necron history, whereas this story places them together in a situation where cooperation is increasingly unavoidable. The joke therefore becomes slightly different. Previously, the question was essentially how long these two could continue trying to ruin each other's lives; here, the question becomes what happens when they discover that the person they have spent millions of years trying to defeat is also the person who understands them best. It is still funny, because these are Trazyn and Orikan and neither of them is remotely capable of expressing affection like a normal being, but there is something surprisingly touching underneath it.

The supporting characters of Phillias and Valeria help provide an outsider's perspective on the increasingly bizarre relationship between the Necrons. Valeria is particularly likeable and well developed, although I occasionally found her perhaps a little too likeable for an Inquisitor. Rath has previously been very good at exploring the unpleasant and occasionally monstrous aspects of Imperial characters, and compared with some of his other Inquisitorial creations, Valeria can sometimes feel as though she's wandered in from a slightly more optimistic version of the Imperium. It is a minor complaint, because she works well within the story and provides a useful counterbalance to the two metallic lunatics at its centre, but there were moments when I found myself wishing for a little more of the unpleasantness and moral ambiguity that makes the Imperium such an interesting setting. Phillias is similarly useful in giving the reader a perspective outside the increasingly incomprehensible relationship between Trazyn and Orikan, and the human characters help remind us just how utterly bizarre these two ancient machines actually are.

The bigger question is whether The Wicked and the Warped is as good as The Infinite and the Divine. I'm not convinced that is entirely the right comparison. The first novel is built almost entirely around Trazyn and Orikan's feud, with ten thousand years of history allowing Rath to turn their petty rivalry into an enormous historical farce. The Wicked and the Warped is faster, more adventurous and much more interested in putting them through increasingly bizarre situations, and that necessarily means some of the things that made the first book so distinctive aren't quite as central here. Trazyn's obsessive collecting and Orikan's relentless pursuit of knowledge are still present, but there are moments when the plot needs them to do something spectacular rather than something particularly characteristic. The action can occasionally overwhelm the quieter character work, and there are times when another few pages exploring the characters might have been preferable to another enormous set-piece. The first book had the luxury of allowing its central joke to develop over centuries and millennia, whereas the sequel has a much more conventional adventure structure, and occasionally that makes it feel slightly less distinctive than its predecessor. But ultimately I think that trade-off works because the thing Rath is actually interested in developing isn't their rivalry, but their relationship.

The first book was, in many ways, about two immortals who refused to change. The Wicked and the Warped is about what happens when they finally do. Their understanding of one another changes, their relationship moves forward and the consequences of their actions extend beyond the immediate adventure. Beneath all the impossible geometries, ancient worlds and metaphysical nonsense, this is ultimately a story about companionship and what it means for beings who have effectively lived forever to discover that perhaps the thing they were looking for wasn't another artefact, another secret or another victory. That is an unexpectedly human idea to put at the centre of a story about Necrons, particularly because the Necrons are supposed to represent something that has deliberately abandoned almost everything human about itself. Rath nevertheless keeps finding those human impulses buried beneath the metal: the need to be remembered, the fear of becoming irrelevant, the desire to have somebody who understands you and the rather less noble desire to have somebody around who can appreciate just how spectacularly clever you are.

Rath is still exceptionally good at balancing that seriousness with comedy. One minute the book is delivering outright slapstick, the next it is dealing with genuine danger or unexpectedly emotional material, before throwing in some philosophical observation about existence that makes you want to underline a sentence before remembering that you are reading about two robot skeletons arguing over the metaphysical equivalent of whose toys are better. The best moments are those where the comedy and tragedy occupy the same space. You can laugh at Trazyn and Orikan while simultaneously recognising something genuinely sad about two beings who have survived almost everything except the consequences of having to exist forever. There is something inherently bleak about immortality when you stop thinking about it as an endless opportunity and start considering the sheer accumulation of everything that comes with it: every friendship lost, every civilisation that disappears, every familiar place that becomes unrecognisable and every argument that somehow remains important after everyone else involved has been dead for several million years. Trazyn and Orikan have effectively outlived the entire context in which their lives once made sense, and yet they still manage to find reasons to be annoyed with each other.

And that is ultimately why the sequel succeeds. The easiest thing Rath could have done was reproduce the formula of the first book: Trazyn wants something, Orikan wants something else, they argue, somebody dies, somebody comes back, they betray one another and everyone gets increasingly annoyed. Instead, Rath takes the characters somewhere new. It isn't quite the lightning strike that was The Infinite and the Divine, but it doesn't need to be. It is a different sort of book, and a sequel willing to develop its characters is considerably more interesting than one that simply imitates its predecessor.* The action occasionally gets in the way, and I would have liked a little more of the obsessive collector and the maddeningly smug astromancer that made the first novel so distinctive, but those are complaints about a very good book rather than evidence of a bad one. The important thing is that by the end of it, Trazyn and Orikan aren't quite the same pair of idiots we met in the first novel. They have changed, albeit in the extremely limited manner available to two ancient Necron Lords who have spent millions of years being absolute bastards to one another.

There is also something wonderfully appropriate about two ancient Necron Lords spending millions of years trying to destroy** one another only to eventually discover that they might actually be friends. It is almost unbearably sentimental until you remember that these are Trazyn and Orikan, so the friendship will inevitably involve insults, betrayal, metaphysical horrors and probably the destruction of several museums. The fact that the relationship has moved from outright hatred towards something approaching genuine companionship is perhaps the most ridiculous part of the entire story, precisely because it feels believable. Rath doesn't suddenly turn them into best mates who have learned the error of their ways; they're still petty, vain, selfish and spectacularly incapable of communicating like functioning adults. They simply reach the point where, after several million years of experience, they begin to understand that perhaps the other idiot is worth keeping around.

And then there is the epilogue, which very strongly suggests that Rath isn't finished with them yet. Quite how many times two beings who have already been alive for several million years can be described as having another chapter ahead of them is a question best left to the Necrons, but I'm certainly not going to complain. The Wicked and the Warped isn't quite the lightning strike that was The Infinite and the Divine, but it is a bloody good sequel. It is funny, inventive, surprisingly heartfelt and packed with enough metaphysical nonsense, ancient history and spectacularly bad decisions to make it feel thoroughly at home in Warhammer 40,000. Most importantly, it doesn't simply repeat the first book; it moves its characters forward, develops the strange relationship at the heart of the story and manages to find something genuinely human underneath all the impossible geometries and ancient Necron nonsense. Robert Rath has once again managed to make two soulless robot skeletons feel more human than half the Imperium, but judging by these two, they certainly didn't lose their capacity for being absolute bastards.

* The subtext of the previous book is just text now.

** There's a joke there. If they had bodies.