Warhammer 40k: The Infinite and the Divine by Robert Rath
- Fiction Fans
- 35 minutes ago
- 19 min read
Episode 222
Release Date: Jan 21, 2026
Your hosts delve into the grimdark (ish) world of Warhammer 40k with The Infinite and the Divine, a tie-in novel by Robert Rath. They discuss their familiarity with the world (next to none) and how approachable the book was for newbies. They also talk about the ratio of academic rivalry to fight scenes, the complex relationship between main characters, and what this book revealed about their reading preferences.
Listen to Vishani’s Song of Serenade on YouTube.
Thanks to the following musicians for the use of their songs:
- Amarià for the use of “Sérénade à Notre Dame de Paris”
- Josh Woodward for the use of “Electric Sunrise”
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License
Episode Transcript*
*this transcript is generated by Descript, please excuse the mess.
Lilly: 0:04
Hello and welcome to Fiction Fans, a podcast where we read books and other words too. I'm Lily,
Sara: 0:10
I'm Sarah, and today we are going to be talking about War Hammer 40 K, the Infinite and the Divine by Robert Wrath
Lilly: 0:18
but first we have our quick five minute introduction starting with Sarah. What's something great that happened recently?
Sara: 0:25
Cookie turned one.
Lilly: 0:27
Oh, happy Birthday Cookie.
Sara: 0:29
so she is not any more mature of a terror, but she is a one-year-old terror.
Lilly: 0:35
And what do pugs get for their birthdays in your house?
Sara: 0:39
Lots of love and,
Lilly: 0:42
wonderful.
Sara: 0:43
some extra treats maybe.
Lilly: 0:45
My good thing I think, is that I made the biggest crockpot of chili. On Monday, and I have been eating it ever since.
Sara: 0:56
delightful.
Lilly: 0:58
It's wonderful. I really love the cook once and then never again approach.
Sara: 1:02
It's great.
Lilly: 1:03
Mm-hmm. What are you drinking tonight?
Sara: 1:07
I have some very un thematic leftover holiday punch.
Lilly: 1:14
I also am drinking non thematic sleepy time tea. I think the right beverage for this book, though, honestly. Red wine,
Sara: 1:23
I
Lilly: 1:23
the, the bitchy rivalry vibes. It's red wine right.
Sara: 1:28
It's absolutely red wine. And also wine is one of the only beverages mentioned in the novel because Tren, one of our main characters collects wine even if he does not drink it.
Lilly: 1:42
Yes. There that, that was actually a very funny scene. He was like, I can't drink it. It's a investment or something like that. also, he's a nron who does not consume food or beverage, but we'll talk about that a little bit more in a second. Actually, first, I actually, no, not first. We'll get there. Have you read anything good lately? Extracurricular.
Sara: 2:05
I've been going back to Tolkien's letters which is fun. I I kind of went on hiatus for a while, but I'm back to reading them. I'm about 50% of the way through the revised version, I should say. And I, I continue to enjoy it, but it's not an exciting answer because it's been my answer for however many podcasts now.
Lilly: 2:25
It's a more exciting answer than mine because, no, I have not. Alright, moving on. So I think we have to start with War Hammer 40 K. That is an intellectual property. It's a tabletop game, not a tabletop. RPG. You're very specifically not role-playing when you play War Hammer or at least that's my very biased opinion, but it's uh, it's army management and we're reading a book. So whenever we read a, an IP book, which we have a couple of times before, I think it's worth establishing like, what is our previous knowledge of this world?
Sara: 3:07
Well, for me the answer is very easy. I know that Warhammer is a game that one can play because your husband plays it. And that is about the extent of my knowledge,
Lilly: 3:20
My husband specifically, not the proverbial you,
Sara: 3:24
Right, right.
Lilly: 3:25
is how I heard that at first and I was like, yeah, that is.
Sara: 3:29
your husband specifically. I guess some kind of knowledge must have been imparted to me by osmosis because they talk about. In, in the novel they mentioned the phrase Horace heresy very, very briefly, and I recognize that as a Warhammer thing. I know that Warhammer is a thing. I couldn't have told you before reading this book what the different factions were or anything about the, the setting whatsoever. But,
Lilly: 4:00
I have some information that I have learned against my will. I played one game, although that was actually War machine, which is a different company. But it's also army management. We don't need to get into all of it. I've never actually, well, I've never actually genuinely played a full game of War Hammer. It's not for me
Sara: 4:22
you have been in the room while your husband and his friends play.
Lilly: 4:26
extensively and I hear a lot of conversations about it. So I, what I was going to bring up earlier that I stopped myself,'cause this was moments away. There are ways that my husband and his friends pronounce names. They would be the first to insist that they are not, the authority on pronunciations, which is very sweet of them because yes, they are they play so much. They watch videos of other people playing. They watch videos produced by the company that makes war hammer about war hammer. Like, I think if anyone knows how to pronounce these names, it's them.
Sara: 5:05
They're, they're deep into it.
Lilly: 5:07
So rein is how I
Sara: 5:09
Ah. Ah,
Lilly: 5:11
Not that that matters at all, but
Sara: 5:14
I mean, as I think I've mentioned on the podcast, I do default to an awe sound, not an a sound, when I am, in front of a word that I don't know.
Lilly: 5:24
yeah, it, it doesn't matter that much. But so I, I am going to correct you because I'm stealing their authority.
Sara: 5:30
does that mean that it's oran instead of oracon?
Lilly: 5:33
No. Because Tradein has a, a vowel in it after the a totally different
Sara: 5:39
No, it doesn't. It's T-R-A-Z-Y-N.
Lilly: 5:42
A ZYN. Yeah. A ZY.
Sara: 5:45
Okay. I guess I was thinking when you said after you meant immediately after,
Lilly: 5:49
Mm. Mm-hmm.
Sara: 5:50
if it was a YI would understand that, that A, there'd be, there'd be no arguments.
Lilly: 5:55
sure. I don't, that doesn't matter that much.
Sara: 5:57
No, it, it doesn't.
Lilly: 5:58
But Warhammer is, well, other than we read a book, so it's relevant. This was a book. however, it is also kind of interestingly overlapping with some of the conversations we've had because the, term Grim Dark was coined by Warhammer. And that is a, a huge movement in, in genre right now. And a lot of people are talking about like, what is grim dark? What counts as grim dark? This book is not grim dark.
Sara: 6:28
So the phrase comes, my understanding is that the phrase comes from a bit at the beginning of the novel, or I'm assuming all novels.
Lilly: 6:37
it's like the, the world establishing poem. It's not from this novel.
Sara: 6:41
yeah. There is no peace amongst the stars for in the grim darkness of the far future. There is only war. And I would agree with you that this book. Did not fit my personal definition of grim dark.
Lilly: 6:58
It also doesn't fit any that I've heard. I, it's okay. A lot of bad stuff happens. Sure. But the tone is actually quite silly in parts and, and lighthearted. The book does not take itself too seriously now, resin and or definitely take themselves very seriously, but the book is kind of making fun of them for that the whole time.
Sara: 7:25
Yeah. The, there are, like you say, there are bad things that happen but it's not grim and depressing the entire time. There is humor in the prose in the novel. I would say that sometimes it was too silly. Not necessarily the writing itself, but just like. Some of the inherent war hammer concepts were a little much for me sometimes. Like the,
Lilly: 7:56
over the top, right.
Sara: 7:58
it was so over the top. Like, like some of the weapons, like they use a surkin pistol and, and Trayson uses an empathic obliteration. And sometimes I found myself going, this is like a 13-year-old saying, you know what, elves are cool, but what's even cooler? Elves riding dinosaurs. No wait. Elves riding dinosaurs, shooting lasers. And sure he can pistols. And it was, it was just as I was getting into the book, it was too much. It, it did like even out eventually for me. But it was a, it was a hard start.
Lilly: 8:36
I wonder if part of that is because, so war Hammer the game. Different players play as different factions. And so theoretically the people developing, I should know their name. I've been there. Games workshop, theoretically games workshop is trying to keep all of the factions balanced so that there's not like, oh, well if you just play this faction, then you win. Now there's quite a bit of discourse around if they succeed, but when it comes to everything feeling like a hat on a hat and just being like more and more just trying to be cool and badass, I think it's because all of the factions need to be main character energy, right.
Sara: 9:26
It's, it's possible. And. Maybe if I was more immersed in, in the world, like I wouldn't have had as much issue with it. Like I said, I didn't actually have that much issue with it by the end of, of the book, it, it just dropping in as someone with essentially no context for any of this. It was a lot.
Lilly: 9:50
It was a lot. For me, it was kind of a relief because Warhammer can be a little exhausting, but opening up the first page, or it's not the first page.'cause first there's a lizard race that I latched onto and every time a new character was introduced, I was like, clearly these are the lizard people. No,
Sara: 10:12
We don't, we don't
Lilly: 10:13
was just the intro. Yeah. But having this like reson off the bat, being an absolute insufferable ass and the elves shooting sugar can on their dinosaur mounts, I was like, oh, this is the kind of slapstick that I can get behind. This is gonna be fine.
Sara: 10:33
I think, I think slapstick is a very apt phrase for it.'cause I mean, you can't, you can't say elves writing dinosaurs, shooting Rican from their guns. Like you can't say that with a straight face.
Lilly: 10:45
No you can't, which is delightful. But when you are reading that and comparing it to gr like what you consider the grim dark genre today, it is so different like night and day.
Sara: 11:00
Yeah. Very, very different.
Lilly: 11:03
There is also quite a bit of gender discourse going around about War Hammer and more around space, Marines and video games. But I felt like this book did actually a very good job of balancing characters from like a male and female perspective, at least
Sara: 11:21
yeah, I agree. I mean, obviously Trayson and orcon are, I guess both male. I mean, they're also robots essentially. Kind
Lilly: 11:32
consider themselves men.
Sara: 11:33
true. But we do, we do see women neons we see other female characters. Like it didn't feel that
Lilly: 11:42
It was not a boys
Sara: 11:44
Yeah.
Lilly: 11:45
Which we Great. Good job. Gold Star. We don't have to get into it because this book did it. Fine.
Sara: 11:51
Yeah, like it was, it was about on par with what I would expect from any other genre book.
Lilly: 11:56
There's just a lot of space marine conversations that I do not know enough about to talk about except that people are wrong. And of course there can be lady space brains. Anyway, moving on. So this is a Nron book, which is not, I would say the most pop culture relevant faction out of War Hammer. That's obviously Space Marines. You don't have to agree with me, Sarah. It's nearly fact.
Sara: 12:25
I mean, I'm not disagreeing because I know nothing about
Lilly: 12:28
Yeah. So we're following two Nron main characters and we get a lot more of that civilization than we do of the other ones. And so I felt like that information was imparted much more understandably. At least for me who went in knowing, approaching Lee Zero
Sara: 12:51
yeah, I would agree with that. For me, who went in knowing actually zero. I felt that the, there, there were one or two things about the ne Run society. I would've liked explained a little more in the beginning, but by the end of it, I felt that I had a pretty good handle on what had happened with them, more or less.
Lilly: 13:16
I.
Sara: 13:16
and I liked the way that bits of their lore or hints, hints about what had happened to them were, woven into the story. Like it didn't make me feel like I was missing anything. Whereas in contrast when they talked about the other, I guess, playable factions, it was a little more jarring because you didn't get any of that additional context. And so I was like, well, if I knew what you were talking about, this would be a great reference, but I know it's a reference and that's it. And that's kind of the worst place to be.
Lilly: 13:54
Yeah, you're clearly referencing something and I have no idea. I called those the cameo factions in my notes.
Sara: 14:01
Yeah.
Lilly: 14:02
They, they kind of zoomed in for a cameo, had at least one fight scene each and then we're never heard of again, or were heard from again. But I learned nothing about them except for what their guns are called, which, I mean, that's just war hammer at its heart. That, that kind of perfectly encapsulates why I prefer Dungeons and Dragons over war. Hammer.
Sara: 14:28
Yeah, I can, I can see that. I will say that and I think this is just a, a me thing or my personality in particular. I did want to go and look up all of the things on Wikipedia. it was very hard for me not to because I knew that there are Wikipedia articles. I knew that that. was referencing things that had Wikipedia articles. I could just go and read those articles and then I would have all of the context that I needed for this, you know, one line reference
Lilly: 15:00
Why didn't you? May I ask?
Sara: 15:02
because I wanted to go into this novel as someone who did not know Warhammer.
Lilly: 15:09
That's fair. I definitely asked my husband Daniel questions often. Although for the most part it was, they've mentioned an infection, which faction is that now? And he would, he would tell me, and then I would go, oh yeah, that's the one that friend plays. And he would say yes. And then I would say, great. But I had a, a reference, a very enthusiastic reference right at my fingertips. So I mean, it would've been cruel if I hadn't asked questions. I'm gonna be honest.
Sara: 15:43
Oh, you absolutely had to ask
Lilly: 15:45
Yeah. And also actually for listeners who are going, oh, why do I care what you think of this book? You know, nothing. Daniel is going to be joining us for a bonus Coda conversation. will probably be out within a week of this episode. But we wanted to have our, the first episode just from the perspective of can you approach this book without background information? And so that's what this episode is going to be. and then our, our follow up one is going to be what is the book like from the perspective of someone who knows things about War Hammer because this novel is considered the best war Hammer novelization, and that that's not I don't think that's, well, it might be biased, but I think that's like pretty universally the, the case
Sara: 16:35
I will take your word for that, or rather your husband's word for that. Because I, as I have said, no, nothing did no research for this book,
Lilly: 16:44
I, when I say it's considered, I don't just mean like our buddy says so, and he's read all 60 of the Horace heresy novels, so he probably knows no, like, like it's. In war hammer circles, it is considered that.
Sara: 16:58
No, I, I guess, I guess what I mean is I, I trust your husband to have done the research to know that, that people say that, not that him and his friends think this is the best.
Lilly: 17:08
Yeah. They both is true. So neons backs interesting. Well, I'm gonna keep saying faction just because that's the war hammer word for the different, like armies you can play as and also calling them a a species or a race feels weird.
Sara: 17:27
I mean, they, they were originally erased though.
Lilly: 17:30
That's true. And I mean, they, they still are, they're just robot versions
Sara: 17:35
yeah. They're, they're living robots without souls now.
Lilly: 17:39
But before then, they were kind of this like vaguely ancient Egyptian culture. There's a lot of scarabs and pyramids and cartes and things like that. I mean more from a, well, not entirely aesthetic. they went through the effort of becoming immortal robots because of their various death mythologies. So that, you know, that focus on the afterlife, but I would say it's mostly aesthetic.
Sara: 18:11
Yeah, I would agree.
Lilly: 18:13
However, uh, Sorein would you reon and or are both the main characters, but reon a little bit more so just because we meet him first?
Sara: 18:25
I think Ren gets a little more page time
Lilly: 18:28
Yeah.
Sara: 18:29
than Orkin, and we follow him a little more. He is slightly more sympathetic than, or not by much. they're both pretty terrible. But I, I do think that for the most part, if I had to choose. One character who is the main character? It would be him.
Lilly: 18:48
He is an archeologist. He does that by like freezing living creatures in place and making dioramas out of them because he has no respect for other creatures.
Sara: 19:01
I would argue he's actually more of an archivist than an archeologist. Maybe that's splitting hairs.
Lilly: 19:08
I just think there's something interesting about the, the Nron character. Being an archeologist with, you know, ancient Egypt having been so exploited by British archeologists. And Warhammer is a, is a British IP games workshop, is based in Nottingham, but the author of this book is American. And maybe I'm reading too much into it, but it does feel like he gets some jabs in there.
Sara: 19:38
Okay. But, but I mean, the author of this book didn't make up these characters.
Lilly: 19:43
True.
Sara: 19:44
Reson and Reson and Oran were preexisting characters. Yes.
Lilly: 19:49
I believe so. Good question. I. Yes,
Sara: 19:54
They
Lilly: 19:54
yes, he existed before.
Sara: 19:57
And, and so presumably Reson was an, they call him an archeovist. Presumably that was not a character trait that RAF developed for this novel.
Lilly: 20:09
That's true. And, and maybe Wraths influence. I'm overstating, but I do think there's something very interesting of in the, the British story of the archeologist. And then, I mean, trayson does not look good in this book. Or, and so maybe the lore as a whole, I don't know how this compares to other depictions of trayson. Like the, what he is doing is not like, yeah. Good for you. And you're preserving history and this is great. Like it's pretty clear that this story thinks he's an ass for what he's doing.
Sara: 20:46
Yes, that's true.
Lilly: 20:47
I actually, that was one of the things that I thought was very funny at the beginning was how clear the book made it like it wanted, well, wrath, he's a person, not a inanimate object book. He wanted there to be no doubt that these were douche bags that you were reading about, and it was, I thought it was fun to read about them. I enjoy unlikeable characters more than you, I think typically.
Sara: 21:13
You do like an unlikeable characters more than I do. I actually quite liked reading about Trayson and, or mostly because their academic rivalry, as you have termed it in our notes kept it very engaging. Unfortunately there were also a lot of battles. This, this book went from battle scene to battle scene to battle scene. And that didn't work for me, but the, the characters did.
Lilly: 21:43
It, I would say was at least 80% fight scenes,
Sara: 21:47
was so many fight scenes.
Lilly: 21:49
which is just not my jam now. That is purely me being the type of reader that I am. If this had been the exact same plot, everything had happened and it had just been 80% sex scenes, that would've been fine. Fight scenes just aren't what bring me to a book.
Sara: 22:06
If it had had more of the political maneuverings between the two of'em, that would've been my jam.
Lilly: 22:12
Oh, that also would've been more compelling. Their banter was great. I loved them interacting.
Sara: 22:18
I really enjoyed seeing their interactions and seeing the way that they tried to maneuver around each other like that was excellent.
Lilly: 22:27
See, and that's why I, I wasn't counting that'cause that would've been a great book. I was just saying I'm a hypocrite for 80% of it being filler fight scenes, thumbs down, 80% of it being filler sex scenes, thumbs up. And so it, it truly is just my tastes being the issue there. And not that I need the book to be mentally engaging, but yeah, if, if they had had more of their interactions and then the way they manipulated people around them just Oh, so much fun.
Sara: 22:56
Yeah, the, they were completely unlikable, but very compelling to read about.
Lilly: 23:02
Yeah. Now not rivals to lovers, unfortunately,
Sara: 23:07
I did send you at least one message saying, I just want them to kiss already.
Lilly: 23:13
That was, oh my God. One of the first things. So, Daniel read this book before me, but was very careful to not say anything to not like color my impression of it going into it. Except the one thing he did say was, I bet there is an a o three for these two.
Sara: 23:30
I am sure he's right.
Lilly: 23:33
He is, I checked.
Sara: 23:34
Oh, oh, good.
Lilly: 23:36
So it, it is, uh, yeah, they're chemistry
Sara: 23:41
I mean, it's, it's there, man. I, I do have some spoilery thoughts on the relationship, so I don't wanna talk about them too much because otherwise I will wanna talk about the spoilery thing.
Lilly: 23:53
fair. I did find. Neons themselves a very interesting, and I loved the way that wrath truly made these two characters feel other, like they were definitely alien in a way that I found like very enjoyable and very well done. Just for the first part, the sense of scale. Like they're sitting around thinking about a problem for three decades before they go do anything
Sara: 24:23
Yeah, that was wild. Realizing just how large the scale of this novel was gonna be. Because I, I went in not knowing anything. So that revelation probably wasn't a revelation for anyone else, but for me it was.
Lilly: 24:40
I. I had a vague understanding of neons being some kind of undead thing, uh, which is not super accurate,
Sara: 24:50
I mean, linguistically. I see, I see where you got that
Lilly: 24:52
Yeah. And they always got like skeletons and stuff just like when you see art of them. But yeah, so like when you start digging into the story and you're getting, oh, like they finished their conversation 200 years later. Like, what the fuck? And then also their thought processes too. They just, their perception was very zoomed out, large scale because of this. And I thought that was just done really well and made the book like a, a different experience to read. It wasn't just like your standard, alright, it's magic in space. Alright, let's go.
Sara: 25:35
I mean, it, it did feel like an alien culture. And it, it did feel, even though it was very much magic in space, it did feel sci-fi which magic in space doesn't always manage to do.
Lilly: 25:48
It was, it was pretty magical.
Sara: 25:50
There's, there's a lot of magic in space,
Lilly: 25:53
They're casting hexes, like it doesn't even pretend
Sara: 25:57
but it, but it still had that sci-fi feel because of the neons.
Lilly: 26:02
I accept. I don't know if I entirely agree, but, oh, there were also really fun timeline like manipulations in the story. So, or is I think they used the phrase chronomancer in the book.
Sara: 26:18
Yes, they do. On the back of the book,
Lilly: 26:21
Oh,
Sara: 26:21
call him a chrono answer.
Lilly: 26:23
So the, I didn't really catch on to the implications of that until the first time that you're reading a scene over again and you're going, wait, I just read this, and then it's a little bit different this time. And I was like, oh shit.
Sara: 26:41
Yeah. We hear about him doing it before we see him do it. And seeing him do it was really fun.
Lilly: 26:51
The way the reader experiences it on the page, I loved like, what a, what a cool way to communicate that to us without just being like, and then he casts a spill and it's five seconds earlier.
Sara: 27:04
Yeah. I mean, I, I think wrath did a great job writing this book.
Lilly: 27:08
I think it's, I mean, I would agree it's a really good book. It's just I am not the reader who appreciates the fight scenes.
Sara: 27:16
I, this book was not for me because of the plethora of fight scenes the, the overwhelming number of fight scenes. But I don't think that that was a problem with the writing. I think that's just, I mean, my understanding is that, is that that's just Warhammer.
Lilly: 27:33
Yeah, that's gotta be the target audience, right? War hammer players who want to see all of the fun guns and the different units and the neat ships. I get that. It's not me, but I get it. Who should read this book? Okay. I think this book is for me in a sense, I know I just said it wasn't, and not because of the content of the book itself, but it is a way for me, a reader to interact with Warhammer without having to play it.
Sara: 28:07
I mean, I, I think that this book is for people who want to enjoy Warhammer in some way. Whether that's because they're fans of, of the tabletop game or because you know, a fan and, and want to interact with a thing that they love. I think this is a good book for that kind of person. I don't necessarily think it's a good book for someone who has no interest in Warhammer.
Lilly: 28:32
No, like you, you have to want to interact with the the world. And in, in my case, it was to connect with the people around me. Not because I want to actually play War Hammer myself,
Sara: 28:45
Yeah,
Lilly: 28:46
But in that way it was kind of perfect. It gave me that opportunity and. Daniel was so excited. He specifically requested that we put this book on our schedule so that he could talk to us about it. That's how excited he was.
Sara: 29:00
you even got it for me for Christmas so that we would have it on the schedule.
Lilly: 29:06
That was all him. We had to go to like three different bookstores. The enthusiasm was high, and so just that energy going into a book means that I was going to have a good time no matter what. That was actually on the page. The fact that it was a well done book was just like gravy.
Sara: 29:23
And like, don't get me wrong, I enjoyed reading this book. I stayed up late to finish it. Like I had a good reading experience. It's just not a book that I would've picked up otherwise. And it's not a book that I will go back to because I'm not interested in like War Hammer as an ip.
Lilly: 29:42
100%. It was really hard for me to focus on some of those long, protracted battles.
Sara: 29:48
were so many battles.
Lilly: 29:49
I kept zoning out. It was bad.
Sara: 29:51
Yeah.
Lilly: 29:53
It was like just not, not engaging. And I don't think it's a spoiler to say that the climax of this book is a fight and the listener, it fell very flat for me.
Sara: 30:08
We're gonna talk about that in the spoiler section.
Lilly: 30:11
Okay. Okay. So if if you play Warhammer and you want more, definitely read this book.
Sara: 30:17
Or if you know a Warhammer player and want to, to interact with things that they love, read this book.
Lilly: 30:23
A much better way to do it than sitting through an eight hour game, if not longer.
Sara: 30:30
Yeah, I'd, I'd much rather read this book than do that.
Lilly: 30:33
So much.
