The Wicked and the Warped

by Robert Rath

A Necrons Novel

Trazyn the Infinite and Orikan the Diviner return, continuing their rivalry for better or worse. Fate has given them a gift – an ancient world from the necrons' past has returned, but uncovering its secrets may prove more difficult than they anticipated.

READ IT BECAUSE
It's another chance to see the scintillating relationship between these two luminaries of the necron race, and another glimpse into their unique view of time and the upstarts that populate the galaxy.

THE STORY
Trazyn the Infinite and Orikan the Diviner hate each other. Orikan is a master astromancer, not content with merely observing the future when the opportunity to shape it is within his grasp. Trazyn is an egotistical historian and meddler, stealing people and events out of the present to forever preserve them in his gallery. Their feud has lasted millennia, destroyed worlds, and defined their immortality.

When the opening of the Great Rift delivers a mysterious world from the necrons' past back into realspace, Trazyn sees an opportunity – this is his chance to not only mend his quarrel with the embittered Orikan, but to uncover the fate of the last expedition to the Chaos-corrupted planet of Amenthis. What horrors of the past will they unearth in its depths, and what will their discoveries mean for their future?

Genres: 40k, Science Fiction, Fiction, Fantasy, Comedy, Audiobook, Space Opera

425 pages, Kindle Edition

Published August 15, 2026

About the author

Robert Rath is an author and screenwriter from Honolulu, Hawai'i.

As an author, he's known for working with the publisher Black Library, writing fiction set in the worlds of Warhammer. His work for them includes the necrons novel THE INFINITE AND THE DIVINE, the assassins novel ASSASSINORUM: KINGMAKER, the war epic THE FALL OF CADIA and numerous short stories.

Since 2018 he's served as Head Writer of the animated YouTube show Extra History, where his scripts have attracted over 200 million views

He lives in Hong Kong with his family, amid and a growing pile of models he *swears* are for research.

Reviews

[Steve Hughes]

My favourite clanker enemies to lovers yaoi sequel

[Mira]

ROBERT RATH YOU’VE DONE IT AGAIN! I didn’t think it was possible to top the Infinite and the Divine, but it is! I love these (canonically!) divorced necrons.

[Jordan]

*as always with new books, this will be spoiler free*

oh robert rath, you legend you. at what point do we collectively agree to put mr. rath on the rushmore of the best 40k authors? because he’s kiiiiilling it.

now i have to be honest, i always get nervous when it comes to the ‘sequel book’ when reading 40k. cause let’s be honest… they’re usually quite hit or miss.. with a vast majority of them falling into the miss category.. HOWEVER!
THIS WAS AWESOME.

where do i begin.
i guess first and foremost, the plot itself is absolutely incredible. it takes you on one hell of ride from beginning to end. we hit the ground running and it doesn’t stop! there will be times you think the story will do one thing, and mr. rath will take you the other way & leave you in complete awe. i don’t want to mention to much about the plot, since it’s a brand new book but all i’ll say is you’ll love it.

most important to the story, is we are finally reunited with our favourite bromance, trazyn and orkian! they are FANTASTIC (as always). the way these opposites compliment each other is such a treat. i could read novels upon novels of just them talking/arguing/denying they’re bffls.
also the tone of this book, paired with its pacing is 11/10. you’ll go from literally laughing out loud, to having a mild panic attack and everything in between. robert rath has mastered his art, and you can see it here.
another thing is the book is also surprisingly philosophical. there a certain quotes that a dropped that will genuinely have you re-reading them, writing them down, and make you look at life in a different way. it’s one thing i’ve loved about all necron books to be honest, these soulless ‘robot skeletons’ always have the most human-introspective books.

this was awesome. i can’t recommend it enough. it was totally worth the wait and im already excited for (hopefully) a third book!!

on a total side note, i would love to see robert rath take on a horror book. there is a beautifully ironic relationship between comedy and horror, and considering robert has mastered comedy - it’d be super interesting to see him take on some 40k
horror.

ANYWAYS. GO BUY THIS. BUY IT TWICE. YOU WONT BE DISAPPOINTED

[Dillon]

I <3 my space Egyptian undead robot Statler and Waldorf-esque old man yaoi

[Gabriel]

Superb.

It's not that I doubted that the book would be good, because I was pretty sure it would be, but The Infinite and the Divine set the bar so high for me that I felt like it would be pretty hard to match or top that. But it absolutely did.

[Kai]

It seems like mr. Rath has read one too many "old man yaoi eheheh" comments, and the result is a farcical, unserious story that reads like a Looney Tunes cartoon with a prolonged joke about assholes and the inability to not end a serious conversation with a joke. Trazyn and Orikan's relationship has lost all the charm it had in The Infinite and the Divine, and is instead reduced to them shouting insults at each other in a way that gets old within the first quarter of the book. The third act of the book is quite good, the two bickering morons are finally away from each other and the writing can actually focus on what's happening properly, but it doesn't save the book from being a one star failure in my eyes.

I understand how Orikan feels. He didn't want to be present for this expedition, and nor did I. TWaTW feels like it's catering to the loud shipper-fandom and I detest it with every fiber of my being.

[Charlie Hettrick]

The best old man yaoi (with robots) I’ve ever read

[Lillith Alonso]

It's an enjoyable story, I think that much can be expected from Robert Rath, and the work on the audiobook narration is exceptional... but it's a much weaker book than the first one. The human third wheel protagonist was unnecessary and brings down the quality of the story, dragging it down with the baggage of the poorly written setting that is post-Horus Heresy 40k.

The mocking view of the Imperium very briefly presented in the first book, which was largely unconcerned with humans, was reminiscent of old 40k/Rogue Trader, in which the Emperor was a corpse on a fancy chair from an age of myth instead of some immortal demigod with tacticool legions; is replaced here with a human inquisitor that takes up what feels like a third of the book, whose presence reframes the Necrons we already loved and related to as alien, and reminds the reader constantly that the setting is primarily about the Imperium (all but saying it textually at one point).

In addition to the human presence, the story this time around is centered around Chaos, easily the biggest fumble in the setting, despite Chaos being a concept that's supposed to reflect and amplify all emotion (positive and negative alike), we just get more of Unambiguously Evil saturday morning cartoon demons whose purpose in the plot is simply providing Bad Guys to shoot at, even the C'Tan which are supposed to be actually unambiguously evil gods have a more morally grey spot on the story than Chaos does. This is baffling given how easy the neutrality of chaos could have been worked into this story, and for the first two thirds of the story I really thought that was where it was going, instead it subverts expectations by just having the boring human inquisitor be right about how the warp's full of evil demons and nothing else.

[Parker Wintink]

So much more campy than the first one and it was to the benefit of everyone. This was extremely funny, very heartwarming at times, and just simply interesting and fun to read. He could make a thousand of these books and I’d need every one. These gay robots are some of the best characters in 40K.

[Andrew]

Robert Rath one minute delivering us pure slapstick hilarity, the next making you tear up with absurdly good emotional sequences.

My only criticism and this is an odd one but given the universe Valeria the Inquisitor is like WAY TOO LIKEABLE, she seemingly has not committed the usual sins of the Inquisition. Which given that the monstrous natures of both Trazyn, Orikan, and even Greyfax (prior works) were explored so deftly it just seemed notable. She is a great three dimensional character, she just lacked the edge I was expecting, which again maybe on a re-read won't stand out to me as much....book is still five stars as this is a ridiculous criticism.

Now I have to patiently wait 6 years for the next one.

[Tavi]

An absolutely fantastic sequel and just as emotional, frantic, and funny as the first. I can’t wait to see where some of the threads spun in this story lead for the greater 40K universe and to read whatever Robert Rath writes next.

[Marco]

Warhammer Romance at its finest

[Kalvin Relja]

Dissenting opinion here I think this book is excellent in some regards but over-rated a bit. The comedy and general writing are top tier but my major critcisim comes from the over all plot of this novel not really having any consequences and it serves more as a character driven novel where the plot is there to faciliate their development and then off to the next story. Now this might seem odd but the major plot point the novel wants to set up is that Necrons can be corrupted by Chaos via a Vashtorr demon and it kinda waffles around the issue of can they be corrupted and its like NO but also YES within the right circumstances. To me this seems contradictory and non-sensical like the author was trying to make interesting lore but also in general not having it last within the setting itself as it seems this major plot and expedition are all resolved and likely not to be talked about again. The characters face no consequences as Trazyn maintains his museum due to an unforseen back up that is pulled out of nowhere. There is no mention of Trazyn's perfect clone of Fulgrim which seems to likely be retconned out of existence via the author who created it not being involved with GW anymore.

Alot of this novel also revolves around mentioning parts of the other novel which im like ok great thats funny but i also barely remember that and im not going to re-read that entire novel to find one line with relevance to what hes talking about here.

Its a fun novel and well written but also speaks to a problem of say GW trying to market Warhammer as something more mainstream which includes a "Disneyfication" of Necrons. I'd be generous giving this book an 8.4/10 and thats only because I like Rath as an author and I find his writing is not only engaging and entertaining but I find overall this book could have been huge but completely fumbled the ball and is basically like saying the next one might be great and have long standing consequences. Worth a read but not as a good as some people are making it out to be.

[Brennan]

If you liked Rath’s original take on the Necrons, you’ll like this one. It’s still funny, and it’s at its best when it’s leaning into the fact that this story is really about the soap opera/rom-com (b)romance between these two. There’s also some interesting discussions of what the nature of the self is for these robotic copies of 65 million-years-dead aliens. Rath is always an entertaining writer, and does a great job at mixing humor and emotional storytelling.

That said, I do think this is the weakest of Rath’s Black Library offerings. In part, I think that comes from this feeling more like a story that the fans demanded than necessarily The Infinite and the Divine crying out for a sequel: frankly, I was surprised this one came out, because The Infinite and the Divine felt like an excellent self-contained book. There’s not really anything momentous on a galactic scale that occurs in this book (which is fine), and Trazyn and Orikan’s relationship comes out of it changed, but I think its a change by degree rather than kind. I thought the antagonist was also somewhat underwhelming, which is frustrating when I know Rath can write quite compelling antagonists! I also think the action was the weakest part of the book. It’s definitely a book that for me suffers in comparison to 1) Rath’s other work (there was nothing here that hit the same emotional highs/lows as “This world is a foxhole”/the fighter escort from Fall of Cadia or the charge and battle cries at the end of Kingmaker) and 2) Nate Crowley’s excellent Twice Dead King, which is to me the definitive exploration of Necron interior life and interpersonal relationships.

But that said…it’s a good, fun book! It’s just suffering by virtue of being in some excellent company.

[Gregory Rumeser]

Going into this book, I was cautiously optimistic. The Infinite and the Divine was so great and unique I didn’t think it could be matched, but this book absolutely nailed it. Equal parts hilarious and exciting, it takes the stuff that made the first book great and then adds more to it.

[Jorge Esquivel]

No he leído a una pareja de "casados" tan vieja escuela como estos dos

[Callum MacTavish]

3.5 Stars

The Wicked and the Warped certainly has its high-points - compelling action scenes, some humorous moments, and great pacing. However, in my estimation it doesn't really fit with the overall aesthetic of Warhammer 40k. This really felt like reading a book about superheroes more than anything else with the two old nemeses teaming up together to save the world with a series of improbable gambits.

I found myself getting frustrated with some of the contrived plot devices, which forced the hands of our main characters along the path of the story. What makes this worse is that during the Odyssey / Expedition that serves as the main story hook, we don't see them really try to benefit from their trials. One of my favorite parts of the first book (The Infinite and the Divine) is seeing how they try to one-up each other with Orikan hoarding knowledge to give him mastery over the cosmos and Trazyn relentlessly collecting items, gadgets and specimens. I felt that this was one of the critical elements in their rivalry. Disappointingly, they both seem to have abandoned this central part of their characters except for one or two scenes where they almost learn / gather something only for it to slip through their fingers.

Overall, I felt this book had its moments of fun action, but largely fell short of the expectations I had for Trazyn and Orikan. The Wicked and the Warped felt like a graphic novel where most moments of contemplation, plot, and character had been cut down for one climactic action sequence after another with the character motivations and plot lagging substantially behind.

[Vincent Knotley]

Perfect follow up to The Infinite and The Divine.

[slop savant]

A touch muddled compared to its predecessor but still delightful

[Sam]

Much less ‘Necron’ than the original. It lacks the time scale, chronomancy, kleptomania, tesseract vaults, politics, pocket armies, millennia long plots, reanimation, and most importantly the Infinite and the Divine.
Without all these things that helped differentiate the Necrons as aliens, they really felt quite human, which is not a good thing in my opinion. Unless 40k is going with the idea that necrons have had souls the whole time.
The beginning skips over a lot of the feud of the last book, and squeezes the two together just like last time. They act far less competent throughout this book, diminishing their titles and image.
I think this is a good story, but not for these two characters, as sending them to the warp deprives them of a lot of what makes them unique (Chronomancy and Data Override). There were still a lot of funny or profound parts, but it isn’t the masterpiece that its predecessor was.
I still do like the author, but I imagine writing professionally isn’t conducive to creativity at times, and that many things were hurdles for this sequel.
It seems there will be another, so I have hope that it will be good.

[Robert Müürsepp]

Well, that definitely was a book. It probably is perceived to exist on a more epic scale than it actually feels while reading it, but nevertheless it was a book, for sure. Alright, let’s get to it…

Sequel time! The grumpier old men are back. Sorry, Necrons. Based on the title I must conclude that the infinite Trazyn is the wicked one and the divinity of Orikan is left to deal with the title of warped. I guess it also fits the story, which is focused around Trazyn tricking Orikan into his mad expedition to an old Necron world that has reemerged from the Empyrean, with the goal of following in the footsteps of his mentor who once was dedicated to the mission of discovering the fate of the souls of the Necrontyr. Naturally this comes with the dream of restoring those lost souls to the mechanical heritage of their former owners. While Orikan is expected to clean up any unforeseen but absolutely predictable mess-ups when these two are involved.

As expected, we have the two main characters pickering once again. However, this time they go all in full frontal assault on the senses of the reader to tolerate this rather unimaginative and unfortunately too empty of a tirade that these two decide to throw at each other without end in sight. It goes on throughout the first half of the book without really serving any purpose. There is no substance to the conflict between the two Necrons. Sure, Trazyn schemed to get Orikan attached to his plan but that is about it. They just need some couples therapy. In addition to Trazyn’s daddy issues.

I suppose this jabbing between the protagonists could work if there was more to the setting of the story. But the action side stays true to your generic action sci-fi exploration episode. Quite similar to Guy Haley’s Belisarius Cawl: The Great Work. Unfortunately, it has not been written quite as well. Even Archmagos has a more interesting plot. I guess the main problem is that there is too much focus on the two Necrons just blabbering, instead of going deeper into their character or providing a more compelling story about discovering everything they come across in the warp.

Fortunately, this all comes to a halt. One could even say that this could have, or even should have been two books. In the third act the book finally comes alive and by doing that it shines extra light on everything that was wrong in the first two.

The third act is really good. There is drama, twists in the story. Suspense. Character progressions and revelations about the relationship between Trazyn and Orikan. Even the final chase-battle sequence through various locations is quite well done. And herein lies the problem. All this could have been set up better than it was. There were some hints during the first acts and they made me occasionally guess where the story could possibly go. But it was all so sporadic and inconsistent that I just forgot about it.

If I were to review only the final act I would consider the book amongst the best ones I have read from the Warhammer universe. It even seems quite a bit more than just a miniature game fantasy. It raises interesting questions about the souls of mechanical constructs. It delves a bit on the morality and consequences of cloning one self. It ponders on the continuity of time and the classic time singularity of meeting your future self. With some extra sprinkling of relationship dynamics and healthy communication.

This really makes me think that Rath pretty much should have thrown out the first two acts and elaborated more extensively on the third act. There would be no need to go all Frank Herbert with it, but there is some similar potential there.

It does seem that Rath took the feedback from the previous book to heart. And then decided to double down on it. This would explain the heavy focus on banter between the Necrons. And while the action sequences are way more tolerable as well this time around, they still contain direct advertisements for multiple new recently released models. There is also the possibility that this is exactly what Games Workshop asked of him and in the third act he finally had more creative freedom or comfort.

All in all I do not really know how to evaluate this book. Putting it lower than Infinite and Divine seem like an injustice. Simultaneously, rating it on the same level feels like a reach and makes me feel like I’m the first half of the book way too much. It is after all a significant part of the work.

I suppose if I had to suggest either of the books, I would probably go with the previous one. It had a better structure and a more consistent storytelling. But anyone who has read the first one and was on board with it, I would definitely suggest reading the third act of The Wicked and The Warped. I enjoyed very much. Just the road to get there seems too much of an ask.

P.S. Considering the fan feedback, seems we will get more of the same. As already kind of promised in the epilogue.

[Chris Bunch]

A worthy successor to the much-loved Infinite and the Divine. Some quick things worth covering:

* Both Trazyn and Orikan get good arcs, but I feel like Orikan really has the bigger amount of change. Trazyn wants peace from the get-go but is also a huge liar and does whatever he wants, which makes peace practically quite difficult. Orikan continues to be a loner and bitter about life, and ultimately gets some tough love from Trazyn, who says that nobody wants to be around him because he’s condescending and in fact it is Orikan who doesn’t listen to anyone else, so why would they listen to him?
* The core cast expands since last time and gives us more pieces to play with. Valeria gets a good amount of screentime and we get a lot of fun humor from her being the sole human in the group (with her asking if Trazyn/Orikan are married, needing to go to the bathroom/eat/sleep, etc), and Philias is there to push the plot along (she incites the main events in the book).
* The inclusion of Chaos into the book helps take us in a lot of fun and interesting new directions. The Necrons believe themselves to be pure of the warp, and this might have been true, but there is a compelling case to be made that this is bullshit. Even if they have no warp connection, their impact on the materium has a ton of impact on the immaterium, and Pestamutadis (our main baddie) is well portrayed.
* Lots of familial connections. Sothka sells himself as Trazyn’s father, Pestamutadius as Trazyn’s son, and these are used to manipulate Trazyn, whereas it has absolutely no effect on Orikan.
* We also get a lot of good discussion about why change is hard (this was the main complaint people had with the ending of book 1), and while Orikan is MIA, this is a more satisfying ending this time around.
* We also get a really nice set of philosophical conversations around both Trazyn and Orikan’s powers that directly occurs later on in the book, and this was seeded very nicely.
* All the pieces come together really nicely with the battle on Solemnace and the C’tan versus Pestamutadis is a really nice set piece that my brain was visualizing through the tabletop experience.

[Frank Ayers]

This book is absolutely excellent. The Infinite and the Divine is one of the best Black Library books, and Robert Rath has outdone himself with The Wicked and the Warped. I had a difficult time putting this one down. He manages to keep the rivalry between our two man characters engaging and developing them without it feeling like a reskin and repeat of The Infinite and the Divine. The plot has a lot of twists and turns and Rath brings the storyline to a close in a familiar place.

I’d highly recommend this book, and it instantly made it to my top 5 BL books of all time.

The epilogue suggests there will be a third installment, which I certainly trust Rath with.

[M-]

Orikan BDSM scene, Orikan dreaming of Trazyn "stood as close as a lover" while staring directly into his eyes, Orikan going "I choose to make a future with you in it."

Is this just the gay fan service book?

Any chance for both the fan service AND more character competency next time?

Or more Necron culture stuff instead of just characters who act like humans within human timeframes?

Or a version of Chaos that isn't just evil daemons and flat as a pancake?

[Ulv Foerlev]

The worst part of Robert Raths books, is that they have to exist inside 40k. It feels like almost a bolter-porn quota, and a 'reference other work' quota, exists. And it makes what could be a 5/5 book into a 3/5, because it is SO GOOD until I'm forced into a multiple page battle where nothing happens, or are forced to care about characters, I'm sure are important, just not in the story I am reading.

[Urgewyrm]

Robert Rath knocks it out of the park again with everyone's favorite Odd Couple necrons. The books hits the ground running and just does not stop.

The banter is on point, the story is fantastic and engaging and while the ending is a bit of a cliffhanger, it promises great things for the necrons as a whole ( and it means we get another book! ).

[Samantha]

Just let Robert Rath continue to write for Trazyn and Orikan for all time okay? Hell let him write about all the Necrons. I love love love his take on them and this sequel continues what The Infinite and the Divine started and hit the gas even harder if that was even possible! No serious spoilers, you just have to dive in, but i cannot wait for the next adventure!

[Catdad90000]

Divorced people have never had anything this good, thank YOU Robert Rath. Hits a lot of the same points as Infinite and Divine but also builds on them more I feel. Trazyn always being the sentimentalist getting into fuckass situations and needing to be airlifted out by Orikan’s pessimism. It’s beautiful though <3 I’ve always loved the way they love. Orikan faking his death twice is crazy though. Girl whatever. Who cares (Trazyn cares). These books always have the wildest tea. Ready for number 3!

[Aleister Davidson]

The Best Warahmmer 40K book yet!

This book is so good it is ridiculous. I have read so many 40K books I can’t even count, and am a Warhammer 40K loretuber by trade. So trust me when I say that the Wicked and the Warped is as good as it gets.

[Ben Sulton]

A true blast from beginning to end. So much beautiful depth and HILARIOUS character writing. Got genuinely touching at the end. Rath does it again.