‘War in the Museum’ – Robert Rath (Black Library)



My Warhammer 40K reading invariably sees humanity being used as the lens through which everything plays out. That’s fair enough to a point (when you’re looking at decades of focus on the fight to save the human Imperium, you’re going to show these stories through human eyes. There are other species out there though and while I don’t think you’d get a particularly coherent story from an Ork’s viewpoint, the tales of other species could be interesting. That was my line of thinking when I was browsing Amazon, looking for a little treat, yesterday. I saw ‘War in the Museum’ thought to myself, ‘I’ve read about Necrons but never seen a story told from their viewpoint, should I…?’ And promptly did. It’s not a bad read either. It’s fairly clear that ‘War in the Museum’ is written for Necron gamers but there is still enough here for casual accquaintances of Black Library/Warhammer 40K to have fun with…

On the shadowy world of Solemnace, Trazyn the Infinite tends to his ever-growing museum of curiosities from across space and time. Each exhibit is an exquisite recreation of a great moment in the galaxy, heroes and villains locked in time at the moment of their triumph or defeat. Now, his greatest exhibit nears completion as a mighty hive tyrant is prepared as the centrepiece of the Tyrannic Wars display. Careful preparations have been made to keep it safe… but the real threat lurks elsewhere, waiting for the chance to strike.

So… what does a Necron do with eternity…? If you’re Trazyn the Infinite, you go and make your own museum because, why not? You’ve got to kill all that time somehow although in a war torn universe of the far future, I wouldn’t have thought that people’s favourite weekend activity would be to go to Trazyn the Infinite’s museum. I personally think that Trazyn the Infinite has more money than sense but going off on a tangent isn’t going to get this story reviewed. Back to it Graeme…

‘War in the Museum’ is part mystery, part ‘all those scary bits from Alien’ and it’s a really good mix. The mystery kept me thinking and ‘all those scary bits’ helped drive the story when it needed to be driven. Which wasn’t that often actually so a lot of the scary bits ended up just being really cool and there to make you jump. Rath really captured the feeling of being all on your own with a vicious xenos monster hiding in plain sight, it was just like all the good ‘Alien’ films (look, I liked ‘Alien 3’…) where you realise the alien was standing there the whole time… and then it tries to eat someone’s face off. I think a little too much was made of Trazyn’s ability to cheat death, I’m not a big fan of overkill so once really would have been enough for me. I can’t deny that it still made me chuckle though.

So ‘War in the Museum’ isn’t a bad read in that respect, plenty going on and a mystery to make you think at the same time. I also really enjoyed how the museum itself becomes part of the ongoing fight with exhibits waking up and proceeding to fire on each other. The big reveal was a little too obvious for me but I was having a lot of fun, with all the other stuff so was happy to let that one go.
Having said that though, I think enjoyment of ‘War in the Museum’ will depend on how much you are into Necrons in the 40K game. I have a  passing knowledge of the Necron faction so was able to enjoy the tale based on that. ‘War in the Museum’ does demand a passing knowledge as the absolute minimum though (which is fair enough given that it is so short, there’s literally no room for massive doses of explanation…) so if you don’t have that then you will struggle a bit. I did… I know it’s an odd thing to pick up on but there’s more to the Necron nobility than just being emotionless robots and I had real trouble getting my head round that, given the little that I knew. Trazyn the Infinite is just the right kind of devious character to spend time with in a story like this though, I wouldn’t mind reading more about him.

‘War in the Museum’ isn’t as accessible as it wants to be but still ended up being a lot of fun with just about every faction in the WH40K universe piling on and shooting the hell out of each other and an intriguing mystery happening at the same time. Not bad for a half hour read…

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