Warhammer Adventures: Attack of the Necron

Warped Galaxies, Book 1

By: Cavan Scott

Narrated by: David Tennant

Length: 2 hrs and 45 mins

Publisher's Summary

Get ready for Attack of the Necron, the first action-packed story in the Warhammer Adventures: Warped Galaxy series, brilliantly read by David Tennant, the tenth incarnation of television's Doctor Who.

The adventure begins....

Zelia Lor's life changes when alien Necrons attack her home planet and tear it apart! Separated from her mother, Zelia must escape the doomed world, her only hope a scrambled transmission promising safety at a mysterious place known only as the Emperor's Seat. She is joined by a ragtag group of survivors: the street-tough Talen, gadget-obsessed Martian boy Mekki and superintelligent alien-ape Fleapit. 

©2019 Games Workshop Limited (P)2019 Games Workshop Limited

Critic Reviews

"A fantastic science fiction adventure." (David Tennant)

"A story with as many twists as it has spills, and it has plenty of spills!" (Sarawat Chadda, author of the Ash Mistry series of children's books) 

"Pitch perfect introduction to the Warhammer universe." (Robin Brooks, geekdad.com) 

Great performance, but for a VERY young crowd

I love warhammer and I love David Tennant. I thought he did a great job portraying this adventure of young people being brought together to fight adversity. The story itself really wasn't that bad, it was just written for such a young crowd that it ends up lacking much imagination. Still, it is a great book for that young crowd. There is no swearing, sex/nudity, or even any blood. The violence that there is only leaves damaged robots or the occasional person turned to dust from some over powered weapon.

Great book, but if you aren't younger than a teenager, go into it realizing that it is written for very young kids. If you can accept that, it is completely worth the listen.

Good but way too short

Good story but it's a waste of a credit for less than 3hours of story. it's GW chopping a normal length story into 10 pieces and charging full price for each like they do with game rules.

Warhammer 40k for the kids.

I got this on a whim, and had no real expectations. It is an introduction to 40k aimed at younger audiences. The story itself is very straightforward and keeps the "grim dark" and political intrigue to a minimum, without sacrificing the universe's atmosphere entirely. Overall, this is a good introduction to the 40k universe for its intended audience.

A great start!

This is a nice series for teens and teens that isn't a bad listen for adults either. There are 4 main characters, the protagonist being a 12 year-old girl. It's nice for me, a 45year-old woman, I'm really excited to see female characters as intelligent, strong, competent and (most of all) self-rescuing in stories for girls changing from children into young women. It shows that they don't have to wait around for someone else to help them -- they do have the abilities to help themselves.
The fact that Scottish actor David Tennant does the narrating helps make it more enjoyable for the whole family to sit and listen as a group, like on a car trip, or in the evening for family time.

All in all an enjoyable listen.

Great story for the future warhammer fans

David Tennant does a wonderful job, and the story was just right at capturing the Warhammer universe without having to get overly graphic for little ones out there.

not bad

It was a nice surprise. I expected it to be bad, but it is actually pretty good. Manages to stay authentic 40k despite it being written for kids.

Excellent Middle Grade 40K

I was skeptical about GW and Black Library bringing the Grim Darkness of Warhammer to a young audience. Wow. Well done. I can’t wait to gift this to a bunch of young readers I know will love it.

A great story my daughter loved it

This is a great kids adventure set in the 40k universe My 8 year old loves it and has read the paperback version too. It is nowhere near as heavy-going as most of the other titles from Games Workshop Because it is aimed at children. I bought this to listen to on a long car journey to stop her getting bored but she will sit and listen to it whilst painting miniatures with me. Her favourite characters are Zelia and Fleapit. and she can't wait for the next book.

Great warhammer story for younglings!

Great story for young ones not yet ready for the grimdark, the only downside is the cliffhanger ending. Book two here we come!

Good but short

Quite good story, trying and succeeding in finding a balance between being faithful to the 40k vision and a story that is suitable for younger viewers.

Enjoyable

Very good- aimed at young adults but I enjoyed it- a good adventure with not too much gore. The compendium would have been better at the beginning- to set the scene. David Tennant’s narration excellent

Good and I like it

very good I think David is the best narrator coz he is good at doing different voices, coz he is an actor
It is still REALLLY GOOOOD since I have made a lot of Warhammer figures and I have read some of the books s
For older people
❤️It⭐⭐⭐⭐🌟 it was worth the money get it now :D
Only downside, it's a bit short

A very entertaining introduction to Warhammer.

Warhammer Adventures: Warped Galaxies Book 1 – Attack Of The Necron

Hello once again to my readers! I have a guest for this particular review. Namely my inquisitorial friend who appears occasionally. We have teamed up to write a review for the Warhammer Adventures series of children’s adventures novels. But before we discuss the plot we should discuss the history of the concept.

Announced back in 2018, the announcement of children’s books set in the universe that created the term grimdark lead to a almost universal statement of "WHAT!?" You can’t really blame us, given all the horrible stuff that happens in the 41st and 42nd millennium. The best way to describe it is we had a lot of funny joke images made – I particularly like the image of Erebus diving the children characters round in the magic school bus. Now I should point out Warhammer Adventures is the name of the branch of Warhammer books aimed at younger people and not just Warhammer 40k as the Warhammer Age of Sigmar setting is also receiving books in the line (and that setting is probably a little more child friendly, not overly but there are more clear good guys in that one.)

Thinking rationally though all hobbies do need to have a means for new people to come into it so the idea of a book aimed at a younger audience to help them get into the lore is in theory a good idea. Plus at no point is it removing the lore for everyone else to enjoy. It’s not replacing anything. In fact since the announcement of Warhammer Adventures, the Warhammer Horror and Warhammer Crime sub genres have also been announced so we are both all for having sub genres in Warhammer fiction for different groups.

The plot is as follows: Zelia Lor – daughter of a famous archeologist who excavates devices and historical finds from the infamous Dark Age Of Technology – has her life altered forever when the unthinkable happens. A Necron fleet has come for her homeworld. A Necron fleet in simple terms is an incredibly ancient army of robot skeletons that have an Egyptian theme. As she escapes with her mother and the Martian boy Mekki who acts as assistant on excavations, they find themselves forced to team up with the fledgling gang member Talen in order to escape into the warp. And yet as they rely on each other for survival they will discover a terrible secret about the attack of the Necrons.

The story is very entertainingly written for a children’s adventure story. Each of the children are given distinctly different personalities. Zelia clearly seems to think she should be the leader of the group as well as generally being the voice of reason although this group doesn’t seem to actually have a leader just a character who somewhat feels like she should be. She also appears to have a distinct hatred of guns.

Mekki the Martian child is definitely the group techie as well as having a semi-logical mind although not being too far above it because he is definitely a child so he still acts like one just one who is very blunt at times. He may possibly be fascinated by and horrified by Necrons in equal measure?

Talen the would be Hive gang child likes to act tough when he can, but is clearly a lot more scared than he lets on. He can be very easy to rile which can cause issues. It seems there’s more to him - and the others as well – than you initially think which will probably be slowly revealed over the course of the series.

I did however expect the story to be considerably toned down in content. I think no one expected the forces of Chaos to appear, a person mutating into a Chaos spawn is probably above the range of young readers. (Seriously be thankful the child characters will probably never encounter the Emperor’s Children or ANYTHING involving Tzeentch!) However the opening of the story felt very true to the dark nature of the 41st and 42nd millennium as they show just how dangerous the Necrons are, and the full consequences of what they do as the Ultramarines are defeated by them. On the other hand if it was the great Salamanders chapter they would have been stopped (VULKAN LIVES!)

The second half of the book however is much more in line with a standard children’s adventure story as our leads are stuck alone on an alien world and have to use their ingenuity to overcome a seemingly unstoppable hunter. For the purposes of the review as well as listening to the audio I got a physical copy so I can fairly judge it for being read by it’s intended audience. The type in the book is of a decent size and distance apart as to not overwhelm the young readers it is intended for. As well as this it has the illustrations of the characters and events done by Cole Marchetti and Magnus Noren. Now it may seem odd to talk about a book in this sense but since this is aimed at a young audience they are helpful to new readers.

The writer of this particular Warhammer series is someone by the name of Cavan Scott who I am personally something of a fan of. My previous experience with Cavan comes in two flavours: First in the oft mentioned Big Finish Doctor Who audio series as Cavan was part of a two man writing team alongside Mark Wright who created one of the more recurring and legitimately intimidating original audio villains in the form of The Forge(For King and Country!) who may well be discussed on their own merit someday. More recently Cavan is a frequent writer for Star Wars material with particular mention to the highly regarded Tales From Vader’s Castle comic book series for Marvel and the original audio drama Dooku: Jedi Lost which I was a great fan of and is nominated for an Audie Award currently. An Audie Award is highly respectable essentially being the audiobook BAFTAS or Oscars.

Narration duties are performed by David Tennant in this release. Despite some initial surprise on my part I have to admit to really enjoying his narration on the whole. His voices for the main child characters suit them really well and portray their personalities well. You definitely find their individual characteristics coming through well as Tennant acquits himself in the roles. Personally I think my favourite voice he does is for Mekki the Martian – partially because of his occasional snark. However there is one small thing that must be addressed. Isn’t that right?

The illustrations however do raise a issue with the audio adaption. Certain characters like the other gangers and Erasmus sound notably older with Tennant’s presentation, this is most likely to differentiate them from the younger leads, but the problem with this in the gangers is that judging by the illustrations they are only slightly older than Talen and Erasmus despite in the illustrations looking at some point in his late twenties sounds like a man somewhere in his fifties or sixties. 
A wonderful surprise I found was at the end of the book as it contained various biographies and illustrations on the characters as well as information features in the book like Hive cities and even Necron weaponry. This is absolutely great for new readers into Warhammer lore. My only complaint is they describe the Ultramarines as the bravest Space Marine chapter a fact I think every other chapter of space marines would dispute and as mentioned we all know it is the Salamanders (VULKAN LIVES!)

In conclusion Attack Of The Necron is a very enjoyable and entertaining Warhammer adventure and in our opinion would make a very worthwhile entry point to the world of Warhammer in all its various forms for younger readers. Especially those who may be too young for often cited starting points like the Gaunt’s Ghost, Horus Heresy and Eisenhorn series. Personally I would be all for seeing Cavan perhaps do a short story or two in the main 40K setting alongside the Adventures stories. And I look forward to my next sojourn in the realms of the Imperium and those various Xenos and Chaos forces. Hopefully it won’t be so long for my next visit.

Sayonara!

Nephrite and Sgathiach

David Tennant is superb

Children's books are awesome and they don't come better than this with David Tennant narrating.

Outstanding

My 7 & 9 year olds loved this book! Their first scifi and they're looking forward to more!

Great little story

A very refreshing take on the 40K universe. It has a touch of epic planet crushing dark fantasy as you can expect in a Warhammer 40k Universe.

However as the story is following the trials of group of children, it has a touching human element that leads to adventure aligned with secret 7.

Great for newcomers

A great way for younger readers to ease into Warhammer, well written with great narration, I highly recommend this.