The Infinite and the Divine
I’ve given this book a rating of ★★☆☆☆, but that doesn’t mean it’s as bad as all that. Remember that many books I don’t bother finishing, and they don’t get a ranking at all. I gave The Hallmarked Man ★★★★☆, which I quite enjoyed and ate up fairly quickly compared to this book. This book needs a gulf between it and that.
It took me way too long to read this book. I had hoped to read 14 pages a day, and then be done in a month, but that didn’t work out. It took a few weeks longer than that.
The Infinite and The Divine suffers from what I expect all Warhammer 40,000 books do, which is way too many made-up words. Or possibly using made-up words from one of the other 40K books, which is a bit of fan service to those who recognise it. But this was my first story set in this world and there were so many things that went over my head. It’s quite hard to get through a sentence when there aren’t enough context clues.
I’ve enjoyed being introduced to the bits I was introduced to though (and not just name-dropped and never explained). I picked this book up because I wanted to learn more about my Killteam faction: the Necrons. It definitely did do that. More than I expected actually. I realised that I’ve been playing my Deathmarks wrong, for instance. Watching their tactics in this book has made me think about using them differently. (More jumping around the map with the help of the leader.)
The book makes some interesting insights into what a species that is so long-lived would do. Their theatre performances can last multiple years (what’s the rush?). They’re quite happy to sit and think on a topic for a few hundred years too. Or millions of years building a museum of other civilisations.
I’ve realised that in stories of all kinds, movies included, I’m not all that interested in action scenes which are used to prolong tension. I don’t like feeling tense. This book has a few action scenes. I was very interested in these because I found writing action difficult. Unfortunately, these were the paragraphs I found myself skipping over wholesale. The climactic last chapter… well, I really only skimmed it to see how it ended. The action wasn’t for me.
I enjoyed this book most of the time I was reading it. I’m terribly glad I can move on now though.