Tombworld – Jonathan D. Beer

[Roomsky]

Tombworld – Jonathan D. Beer

 

Is there anything more frustrating than a story that’s less than the sum of its parts?

 

I enjoy Beer’s writing style, but this reads like an enthusiastic first draft. It’s the sort of solid base that should still be coming back to the author with a laundry list of notes before even approaching the printing stage. Very disappointing.

 

This book has several problems, but the main one is its protagonist. Triarch Praetorian Khemet is a fine character to feature in this story, but as its protagonist she's boring as sin. Her goal is to act in accordance with her station. Her personality is that she is humourless and motivated solely by duty. This is simply not enough to carry a story, especially when Praetorians are so physically powerful. About 50 pages at the start of the book are devoted to her backstory, all of which adds zero complexity to her as an individual. She floats through the book making intelligent judgments, restraining herself from killing the idiots she’s surrounded by, and defeating whoever she’s fighting with ease.

 

I do want inhuman xenos in my 40k fiction, but when you’re writing the inhuman as a protagonist, it’s important to retain at least one relatable human element while making the rest of their personality alien. Khemet doesn’t have that element. She has a place in the story being told, she just shouldn’t be the centre of it.

Every other main character is more interesting than Khemet. Hekasun, whom every other Necron ostensibly works for in this story, has zero redeeming qualities, but I still think he’d have been a better protagonist. He, at least, is motivated by trying to reclaim what he’s owed, and the indignity of having to claw his way back into his own fiefdom. Kamoteph is probably the most interesting Necron here, being a bit eccentric and just as competent as Khemet, if in a less cautious manner. Ahnuret too is fun – so much attention is usually given to the Flayer Virus that it’s a nice contrast to see a Necron instead descending into the Destroyer mentality (and by doing so, suddenly becoming very bad at her job.)

 

Meanwhile, on the human side, we get Arbitrator Sinos. I like Sinos quite a bit. She’s nothing terribly special as a character, but she shares the protagonist role with Khemet for the middle ~100 pages of the book, so has the benefit of contrast with the uninteresting metal skeleton. Her portions, unfortunately, suffer from another narrative misstep: she’s investigating something we already know the answer to. “Who could it be?” she asks, beside the suspiciously Necron-shaped adjacent chapters. I think the intent here was to make the reader wonder if Sinos will discover Necron involvement in time for it to make a difference. But so many words are spent on the actual dead-end investigating that it just comes across as wheel-spinning.

 

So, the first third is character building for a flat character. The second third is investigating a mystery we already know the answer to. Is the final third better? I think so, but it’s still, ultimately, a war the Necrons have no chance of losing.

 

So, I’m not saying I wanted the Necrons to lose in their own book. However. An internal conflict for the Necrons is that Khemet knows how dangerous humans can be, and opts for a slow but assured strategy for victory. Hekasun, arrogant brat that he is, chafes against this and, combined with a miscalculation by Kamoteph, blows their figurative load early and turns the fight for the planet into an actual war. There are no meaningful consequences to this turn of events. The Necrons walk onto the surface, annihilate any and all resistance, none of the Necron POVs face any real threat from the humans, and then Khemet kills the 7 Deathwatch marines who show up in an attempt to help.

 

Now, the story’s actual climax is a purely internal affair for the Necrons (and it’s quite good.) But Hekasun loses nothing for his impatience. I’m not asking for any major defeat here, but losing even one resource that otherwise would have been spared would've been enough. If you’re going to devote so much time to Khemet saying “don’t take unnecessary risks,” then there should be a consequence to ignoring that, because otherwise it just makes Khemet annoyingly over-cautious, on top of being boring. Again, if Khemet were a supporting character, this dynamic would have been fine, as it would balance out the incredibly overpowered nature of Praetorians with the flaw of excessive caution.

 

I won’t detail the actual climax beyond reiterating that I think it’s very good, probably the best part of the story. It’s a good ending to what is, on paper, a good story. Everything leading up to it is just mishandled. A better version of this book would probably still have that same climax, and it would have hit even better.

 

What else did I like? Well, I like Beer’s writing style. I like all the supporting characters, and despite Sinos and the Deathwatch all having “shoot the shaggy dog” stories, I enjoyed reading about them as people. I like the elements of Necron culture Beer drew attention to: the aforementioned Destroyer cult, Khemet’s complete indifference to the Necrontyr lower classes having their personalities erased, and the supreme importance of heirarchy in their society. As mentioned, Hekasun is a useless idiot, but he wears the crown and thus it is seen as morally correct to do his bidding. Individualism is a sin if you’re not nobility to the Necrons, and that theme is a good contrast against the Necron protagonists of other books. The action, while flaccid, never carries on too long just to be more “exciting”, and it is nice to see a defiant final action by humanity end in abject failure for once.

 

But that just makes the flaws more frustrating. King of the Spoil and Dominion Genesis are both great. This book has great elements, but the narrative style is schizophrenic, and vast swathes of pages are devoted to things we already know don’t matter. This is what good editors are supposed to send back for a redo. Backing up my suspicion this book was barely edited: the Cryptek called Ptah is agender when they’re first introduced, but is then referred to as a man when they next appear. Editors? Hello? Anyone in there?

 

Ultimately, unless you’re a die hard for Necrons, this book isn’t worth the frustration. Go read Twice-Dead King or The Infinite and the Divine instead. Hopefully this is just a mis-step and Beer’s next book is back up to his usual quality.

[1ncarnadine]

The bizarre build-up of the Deathwatch, spending time with them, and the Arbitrator Sinos, only for them to conduct a raid that sees them wiped out and accomplishing nothing.. that's kind of 40k? But also why. There's a discussion to be had about good vs bad negative story arcs, where things go wrong and that's just how it goes. I really liked Sea of Souls. I think that book is a master class in . This one just kind of had them around, and I can't decipher what the point was or what kind of lesson anyone should take away from it. 

 

But then what was this? The middle act almost should have been its own story, entirely divorced from the Necron plot and left as a mystery on this world where humans slowly get wise to a Necron tomb awakening and come to terms with that doom in various ways. It's like a novella inserted into the middle of a different book. I felt the horror was effective, though, even though it didn't end up servicing any point greater than "Necrons can be scary." 

I still think I'd recommend this if you're a Necron fan. Twice-Dead King is insanely good and makes it difficult to compare other works. Infinite and the Divine is fun but I think the very unique nature of its subject characters can readily distort your view of the Necrons as a race. Tomb King is trying to find its place distinct from those (both tough acts to follow), and despite being disjointed as its own story, it still has a lot of little hooks for someone who's looking for insights into the faction.

Edited Tuesday at 05:27 AM by 1ncarnadine