The Wicked and the Warped by Robert Rath

[Aramis K]

It's here, and I'm very excited to get started. Early impressions sound good.

 

But the Black Library app is a miserable reading experience, constantly losing the page. I've tried a few books and switch back to other apps whenever possible. (And sent GW product feedback)

Sadly it's not on Google Books, and I don't use Kindle.

 

Has anyone found any legit source of Black Library eBooks for the post-app era?

 

 

[darkhorse0607]

Started the audio version this morning (glad to see Richard Reed back narrating), so far its good but Ive only done the first two chapters. 

 

Spoiler

I did really enjoy the tie-in to the end of Fall of Cadia in the prologue

 

Edited August 15 by darkhorse0607

[Alpharius902]

1 hour ago, Aramis K said:

Has anyone found any legit source of Black Library eBooks for the post-app era?

If you do some “research,” there’s a tool online that lets you download books from the app after purchasing them onto your PC. Been using it since the app came out with no issues

[Krelious]

Usually for me being in Canada it takes until monday for the book to be delivered because it comes from Memphis which is actually an Egyptian name. Now I'm actually really enjoying Robert Rath's other book Assasinorium King Maker (which has unfortunately been on my shelf for a few years untouched) which is just insanely good. I hope they consider Rath to do some serious stories or saga work like the Scouring Series because id put him up there with ADB and Wraight. 

 

Anyone else having an issue with this website, it seems to take an awful long time to load?

Edited August 15 by Krelious

[darkhorse0607]

11 minutes ago, Krelious said:

 I hope they consider Rath to do some serious stories or saga work like the Scouring Series because id put him up there with ADB and Wraight. 

 

Yes please

 

12 minutes ago, Krelious said:

Anyone else having an issue with this website, it seems to take an awful long time to load?

 

Also yes, it's been bad for me for the last month or two. Half the time it takes forever to load, the other half I get connection errors on the server side

[darkhorse0607]

Sorry for the double comment, but I got through Act 1 today, and wanted to share some preliminary thoughts.

 

-If you haven't read Infinite and the Divine, I wouldn't jump straight to this one. At least the first part of this book is very connected to book one rather than a completely separate adventure. 

 

-With that, I would recommend reading War in the Museum if you can get your hands on it. It's not 100% necessary, but they do reference those events a few times. At least give it a Google if you can't get the short story

 

-I haven't laughed this hard in a BL novel in years. If you liked the comedy/writing style of the first novel, you'll be fine here, it's very similar. 

 

-If you have any interest in audiobooks at all, or enjoy good narration, please get this one. Richard Reed also did Infinite and the Divine but his performance here is really next level. His voice is the voice of characters for me now, in the same way that the Caphias Cain crew are. 

[theSpirea]

Someone scanned the Introduction 

I find it cheap tactic from BL to include intro/foreword/afterword only in LEs. Cheap move, instead of investing into providing extra art, etc. BL LEs pale in comparison to what some indie authors offer on Kickstarter, for the same price!

 

https://www.reddit.com/r/Blacklibrary/comments/1vpbaby/comment/p3x7at0/?context=1&screen_view_count=2&ext-referrer=DIRECT

 

[sitnam]

On 8/15/2026 at 12:19 PM, Krelious said:

. I hope they consider Rath to do some serious stories or saga work like the Scouring Series because id put him up there with ADB and Wraight. 

 

I sincerely hope not, I generally have not enjoyed these big collaborative efforts. 40k fiction is at its best when authors get to tinker with their own sections of lore.

[wecanhaveallthree]

I don't want to say 'this is the good kind of gay', because this implies there's a bad kind, but hell yeah: that's the good kind of gay. Doomed toxic yaoi. 

 

The best thing BL has done in recent years has been to ease up substantially on both romantic plots and romantic inferences. It opens up a whole new vista of unhealthy male relationships which I am absolutely 100% there for. A natural progression, really, but a welcome one. 

 

 

[Krelious]

Im halfway through and its already like another GOAT novel from Rath. 

"Whats an arsehole?"

"If you dont go I'll tell you how we make cheese."

"The human is right the universe is stupid"

Edited August 19 by Krelious

[Nagashsnee]

Ok so my first comment (which had been held for approval and approved) got deleted in the night by the mods with no explanation (good thing it was held and APPROVED before posting or it might have broken some kind of rule....sigh). 

 

So lets try this again, not a review but having finished it my single greatest feeling on the book.

 

Spoiler

Much more then the first book, this book is powered but the 'will they wont they energy' between Orikan and Tarzyn, which is strong enough to power a sun. They join Mulder and Scully, Ross and Rachel and other great will they wont they couples in popular media as partially keeping the reader glued to the book just to find out if ANYONE will tell them to get a room already. 

 

Nothing anyone will ever say will change my mind that the single greatest betting pot in the Necron Infinite Empire is not tied to when they will finally just settle down together and be the grouchy old couple they are clearly born to be. 

 

65 Million year old asexual robots they may be, but the ending is clearly just the Silent King trying to settle the matter so the Necron Royal courts can move on to ANY other topic of gosip. 

 

Edited August 20 by Nagashsnee

[DarkChaplain]

The hell? Your post was completely inoffensive and in complete good faith. There's no reason why it should have been retroactively removed. Moderation here truly is more arcane than 40k's bureaucracy....

 

If anything, I'm more excited having read that comment yesterday to get that book onto my reading pile than I already was.

[Nagashsnee]

Ok full review. Its going to be a short and sweet non spoiler review, and if after that you click on the spoilers thats on you.

 

For a comedy this book deals with some heavy stuff, namely the existence and importance of a creatures soul, the ability of beings to change, and the importance of finding purpose and happiness in the here and know.  There is also humour, lots and lots of humour, it is well done. The book carries the Tarzyn/Orikan story onwards BUILDING on the first book and progressing them from where we left them. I cant stress this enough, i was prepared for a reset and replay of book 1 because of its popularity, but instrad we have actualy character growth based on past events, in a BL book? Madness. 

 

Now necrons are asexual robots, they lack souls but posses emotions. Can they love? Can they romance? My opion was given earlier in this thread, read the book, you decide.  What is super clear is that they CAN and DO care about things/places/people, and these can be new experiences not tied to their personalities before the soul leaching. The manners, capacity and level of such emotions is part of what this book explores. 

 

9/10 It avoided the traps i expected from a sequel and for a BL book does allot of adult themes (not just Yaoi love, but also philosophical stuff). 

 

Spoiler

This is a great book, it is for a start a very funny book, there is allot of fun banter, one liners, jokes and call backs.  Call backs oh god, book one is not forgotten, it is instead refrence thru out the book but in ways that show the writer is better then just throwing in member berries. Orikan is ANGRY, angry that he got burried under a mountain and had to claw his way out. Sure they have buried the past, but like a actual emotional being that ANGER still rushes out when he remebers it, he is still bitter, he is just a adult and had to get on with life rather then paint his armor black and spend 10k years beating his issues out on others. And Tarzyn...Tarzyn knows he is missing something, and like most people he is unsure how to fill that emotional void. His hobby helped, and it still does, but its not enough, and his void is growing. 

 

Enter the Yaoi haha. Tarzyn likes Orikan, now what that means for asexual million year old robots is....ultimatly up to you, and i dont for a moment think he is in love with him in the human sense. But what i think this book does is show for the first time NECRON LOVE. Not the type from when they were alive, ROBOT NECRON LOVE. And the community will make sure it descends into artwork and memes that can never be posted here. But i found it fascinating. Tarzyn looks at Orikan and sees someone he likes, whose company he enjoys (even if he drives him crazy in that way couples often do) and is trying to CHANGE to become the person he thinks Orikan wants him to be.  For his part Orikan is forced to confront the fact that the STARS themshelves want him and Tarzyn together ( for this adventure) and has grown his own twisted version of admiration and care for Tarzyn. And i love the fact that they have these very different sets of feelings for each other, which ultimatly still mean that they grow to genuinly care for each other. Again in the way asexual million year old souless robots might. 

 

But Tarzyns quest to fill his void (har har) and really what kicks this all off ( that and him clearly wanting to spend time with Orikan) is his growing belief that the loss of their souls stole a key part of what made Necrons who they were. And while the book never super focusses on it, it does deal with the heavy questions of what is a soul? What does it lack means? What does that make the Necrons now? Can you truly enjoy music you know you like even if when hearing it now it moves nothing inside you? Is your favourite painting still worth anything when you feel nothing looking at it? Etc etc, And again we have Orikan and Tarzyn aproching this from very diferent paths and beliefs. Great stuff. 

 

What this book also does, and i am already DREADING the videos is refrences, oh god statues of missing primarchs, Creed coming back to lead the guard, endless warhammer lore winks and refrences. This book did more to move Eldar lore forward then ANYTHING else in years, and its literally a nothing plot buried under 18 other plots.   The scence where they land on Cadia and Tarzyn knows ecactly where and when they are as he makes Orikan look at the crashing Talisman of Vaul was perfect. Perfect. 

 

 

But wait theres more? Holy :cuss: they explore chaos lore too? For reals? We get what i will call a greater Deamon of the Arkifane experimenting with chaos and Necrons and anything else it can get its claws onto.  And honestly i need to re read the section before coming to conlusion but there is meat on them bones, and enough grey areas to have people arguying for YEARS.  This book does SO MUCH in its pages that you look at other warhammer books and wonder what the hell they were playing at. Million year going ongoing necron funerals, necrons willingly joining chaos, necrons resisting chaos, Multi dynasty destroyer armies, the Silent king and his political moves. There is allot going on and it never feels forced or unatural. 

 

This book like the first one will for me go down as a instant warhammer classic and one of the best things BL has put out in years. And i dint even talk about its actual plot. LMAO space marine bolter pew pew books. 

 

 

[darkhorse0607]

6 minutes ago, Nagashsnee said:

For a comedy this book deals with some heavy stuff

 

Yeah, I haven't finished it so I am not diving into your spoiler section just yet (about halfway through act 2)

But

 

I do appreciate

 

Spoiler

That Rath takes Trazyn's collection which is basically a running joke at this point and paints it in a heavier lens through the Inquisitor's eyes. Is it funny to the reader that Trazyn just steals everything? Sure. But he makes sure to point out that it's horrifying from an in-universe perspective and while I do really appreciate the comedy (Orikan during the reanimation of the Inquisitor was hilarious "Cadia, what is a Cadia?," I also appreciate him stopping to say "jokes aside this is pretty dark" 

 

[grailkeeper]

Im about 2/3rds of the way through. It has some great moments but doesnt feel as special as the Infinite and the Divine. 

 

It spends a lot of time tackling some pretty heavy concepts. Maybe its because i'm on holiday, or a a bit dense, but I dont feel smart enough to take them in. 

[Krelious]

I'd give it a 9/10 based on the writing and comedy but overall it kind of felt like a self help book/relationship advice where the main plot served as a vehicle for the main characters to get over their differences and grow while I found the plot itself involving the warp and necrons to be convuluted, non-sensical and contradicting. It felt rather pointless as the main plot basically has no overall bearing on a larger trajectory and its just a means to get characters into different places and I'm guessing they cant even allow the musuem to be shut down because then that would force GW to acknowledge the perfect Fulgrim clone which they never do even though im sure Trazyn would be extremely proud of it and it would be a major piece of his collection. 

Spoiler

To me while there is mystery in the plot it feels kinda lazy as it retreads similar paths as the last book where Trazyn is decieved and Orikan saves the day and it even ends basically with oh (I forgot) there was another back up shard so the Museum doesnt get shut down and even Orikan doesnt  die so the next book can be about a Necron civil war. 

To me this book is kind of all over the place in terms of I really like certain parts of it, the writing and comedy are top tier but at the same its not really a book that is about its main plot point and is more about the characters.  I'm not sure what kind of literary device that is but there it is. The plot or Mcguffin driving it has no actual real bearing over the conclusion and both characters more or less are at the same point as they started with some bits of character development and it inches the plot 1cm forward by saying the Silent King is now involved where im sure thats more of a GW thing more than a Rath thing as the Silent King is a major plot point/figure they want to develop and be a centre piece/focal point likely of Cawl/Gulliman stories and now Trazyn and Orikan. The next bit I could see I guess is Abbadon and Vashtorr getting involved with the Silent King oh yes and I guess possibly even Fabius showing up again. 

Spoiler

 

 

[wecanhaveallthree]

SOULS.

 

Quote

'The effects [of losing one's soul]? Well, nothing one would really notice. A little depression of mood. A pleasing melancholy here and there. Perhaps a lessening in appreciation of beauty. But does not beauty cause so much of the world's difficulties? Look at these things - the contents of pockets and such. The detritus of spirifage. Are they beautiful? No. But they have value nonetheless

 

 

I WILL BUY A BOOK ABOUT SOULS. I LOVE SOULS. I HAVE SOLD MY SOUL IN EVERY PIECE OF FICTIONAL MEDIA THAT ALLOWS ME TO DO SO. ROBOTS GAZING AT THEIR METALLIC NAVELS ABOUT THEIR NON-EXISTENT SOULS IS EXACTLY WHAT I CRAVE.

 

Thank you for the reviews, fraters. I've been hurt by Black Library before, but... but... maybe this time, things will be d-different.

[Termalatur_Timmy]

The Wicked and The Warped was great. I keep thinking about how the humor in both it and The Infinite and The Divine lean heavily on the juxtaposition created by other books depicting Necrons as soulless, passionless murder machines. Trazyn's few interactions with non-Necrons do remind the reader that they are alien horrors with incredible powers in the material world, but I worry that Necrons feel more and more like Looney Tunes.

Edited August 21 by Termalatur_Timmy

[wecanhaveallthree]

Quote

but I worry that Necrons feel more and more like Looney Tunes.

 

Go on... (SOULS)

[darkhorse0607]

45 minutes ago, wecanhaveallthree said:

 

Go on... (SOULS)

 

I wouldn't go so far as to say they're Looney Tunes. They're more Tomb Kingish (kind of), like how the Tomb Kings will still eat even though it's pointless and just falls through them. It's just how they are. 

 

Most of the comedy from the book just comes from the fact that they're so disconnected from other species/the rest of the galaxy that it ends up being comical from the reader's perspective. There is some slapstick, like 

Spoiler

Orikans severed arm slapping Trayzn as a distraction so Orikan can escape

but some of the funniest moments come from the fact that the way the Necrons are, and how they consider the galaxy is normal to them, and they couldn't care less about how the rest of the galaxy sees something or functions. Some minor examples (spoilers in case someone cares, but I'm not giving a lot away here)

 

Spoiler

They go about reanimating an Inquisitor from Trazyn's collection. They're bringing her up to speed and tell her about the fall of Cadia, she panics to the point where she almost has a heart attack, but Orikan has no idea what Cadia even is, until he's told that it's Spatial Point 93 or whatever they named it (I almost certainly got that wrong but you get the gyst). She then goes on to faint when they tell her very matter of factly that Guilliman woke up like it's not anything new or special, because to them it isn't. 

The whole sequence is one of the funniest parts of the book, not because Trazyn is chasing Orikan with an Acme anvil, but because they're so within their own spheres that anything else is so foreign to them that they couldn't process it. Even down to the point where

 

Spoiler

Orikan gets mad at the same Inquistor for "cannibalism" and it being wasteful when she was nervously biting her nails. Normal to us, alien to the Necrons 

 

[Krelious]

I think its funnier because I had to backtrack because he said she was practicing some form of meditation that involved consuming her own energy and I'm just thinking to myself that Necrons meditate weirdly because they have their own internal power source and then you find out from them calling it self cannibalism that shes biting her finger nails.   

 

But again I think the best part is when she threatens to tell Orikan how we make cheese. 

[Nagashsnee]

On 8/20/2026 at 6:58 PM, grailkeeper said:

Im about 2/3rds of the way through. It has some great moments but doesnt feel as special as the Infinite and the Divine. 

Its the problem with sequels, you can never re create the sheer novelty of the first work, as the audience is expecting it. 

 

23 hours ago, wecanhaveallthree said:

Thank you for the reviews, fraters. I've been hurt by Black Library before, but... but... maybe this time, things will be d-different.

If you liked the first book you will likely at least enjoy this one. 

 

17 hours ago, Termalatur_Timmy said:

but I worry that Necrons feel more and more like Looney Tunes.

 

But they kind of are, Necrons have that looney tune feeling where you drop a bomb on one, and he just walks out of door (portal) dusting his shoulders off. They have that looney tune feeling of them running off a cliff only to fall a huge height, and slowly get up with a giant OUCH while taking no real damage. In many ways Necrons horror to humans is that like looney tunes they dont play by what we consider the core rules of reality. 

 

In many many ways necrons are real life looney tunes, and it is horrifying. Having a mechanical elmer fudd declare its hunting season and chase you down using a utterly alien set of rules while making a joke of natural law is horrifying. Its the classic looney tunes set up where a character runs into a house and dramatically nails shut all the doors and windows and goes thru increasingly ridiculous  security measures only to find bugs (a deathmark) waiting behind him the entire time.

 

They combine the feeling of the terminator a unstopable force that will get you with the humour of the terminator having the personality of 65 year butterfly collector who isnt all there upstairs. Sure he will invade your world and kill your people, but if even one gaus beam lands on the forests where the butterfly he wants lives he will stop the entire invasion to lecture his armies on this UNNECAPTABLE use of force. 

Edited August 22 by Nagashsnee

[LSM]

Quick question for those who have read it (waiting for the paperback myself): does it take place entirely in M42?

 

Or, I suppose... there's an excerpt floating around, referencing a certain character, and I'm wondering if it's retconning/adding something or if it fits with what has been previously established.

 

Spoiler

Basically, allusions to Doomrider escaping from Solemnace at one point in the book.

 

In Josh Reynold's 2014 Master of the Hunt, Kor'sarro Khan pulls off Doomrider's (still living) head in what one assumes is late M41, with the intent to take it back to Chogoris.

 

Then in Josh Reynold's 2017 Fabius Bile: Clonelord, he mentions (amongst Solemnace's galleries) an exhibit named 'Doomrider's Folly'. Technically, Doomrider might not have been present - it could have been something that he did rather than the Wolf of the Exhaust himself, but the implication was that Doomrider was probably in Solemnace. 

 

But Clonelord is set pre-M38, if one considers that its sequel Manflaer is dated to 991-993.M37. So Doomrider being stuck in Solemnace cM36 fits with him heading to Chogoris in M41; he got out somehow.

 

Except if he's in Solemnace in M42... maybe Trazyn stole him back from the White Scars? This is his second escape?

 

[grailkeeper]

1 hour ago, LSM said:

Quick question for those who have read it (waiting for the paperback myself): does it take place entirely in M42?

 

Or, I suppose... there's an excerpt floating around, referencing a certain character, and I'm wondering if it's retconning/adding something or if it fits with what has been previously established.

 

  Reveal hidden contents

Basically, allusions to Doomrider escaping from Solemnace at one point in the book.

 

In Josh Reynold's 2014 Master of the Hunt, Kor'sarro Khan pulls off Doomrider's (still living) head in what one assumes is late M41, with the intent to take it back to Chogoris.

 

Then in Josh Reynold's 2017 Fabius Bile: Clonelord, he mentions (amongst Solemnace's galleries) an exhibit named 'Doomrider's Folly'. Technically, Doomrider might not have been present - it could have been something that he did rather than the Wolf of the Exhaust himself, but the implication was that Doomrider was probably in Solemnace. 

 

But Clonelord is set pre-M38, if one considers that its sequel Manflaer is dated to 991-993.M37. So Doomrider being stuck in Solemnace cM36 fits with him heading to Chogoris in M41; he got out somehow.

 

Except if he's in Solemnace in M42... maybe Trazyn stole him back from the White Scars? This is his second escape?

 

 

 

Spoiler

Yeah he escapes. It's a very chaotic scene and well written. I had to read it twice to be sure it was him. He isn't specifically named, so there's plausible deniability, but it absolutely matches as him. Similarly there's another more major character who isn't named but is absolutely Creed.

 

[LSM]

28 minutes ago, grailkeeper said:

  Hide contents

Yeah he escapes. It's a very chaotic scene and well written. I had to read it twice to be sure it was him. He isn't specifically named, so there's plausible deniability, but it absolutely matches as him. Similarly there's another more major character who isn't named but is absolutely Creed.

 

 

I was more wondering if it was M42.

 

(As, per another story, said event perhaps should have already happened before late M41.)

 

I've elsewhere been told that the book indeed takes place after the fall of Cadia/creation of the Great Rift. So... a small retcon/fudge of what had come before.