The Silent King cover art

The Silent King

Dawn of Fire: Warhammer 40,000, Book 9

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The Silent King

By: Guy Haley
Narrated by: John Banks
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About this listen

Audiobook 9 in the Dawn of Fire Series

The first phase of the Indomitus Crusade is drawing to a close. Vast swathes of Imperium Sanctus are back under tentative Imperial control. Still the primarch Roboute Guilliman faces wars on every front. His desire to cross the Great Rift to save Imperium Nihilus remains strong, even as news of renewed assaults on Ultramar draw his attention home.

LISTEN TO IT BECAUSE
The Dawn of Fire series reaches its epic conclusion! How will Roboute Guilliman deal with an ancient xenos threat? Was the Indomitus Crusade doomed from the very start, and can an already split Imperium survive?

THE STORY
The Avenging Son must delay his return home and head to the galactic south, taking a large part of the crusade with him, for the menace of the necrons is gathering strength. Battlefleet Kallides, despatched into the dangerous null space of the Pariah Nexus some years before, is feared lost. A greater unity is being forged between the necron dynasties, and with it come whispers of a power from the ancient past returned to rule them all… Whispers of the Silent King.

©2025 Games Workshop Limited (P)2025 Games Workshop Limited Science Fiction Space Opera
All stars
Most relevant
The story is reasonably entertaining and would have been fine if it wasn't the conclusion of the series. Some very, very questionable decisions made by the author in that regard.

The fact that it had almost nothing to do with the rest of the series.

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I was hoping for something more pivotal to occur in this book but for the majority the story it seems to be just setting up things for the future. There's a chance for things to actually happen near the end of the book but even then nothing really does and by the end everything is kind of back where it started with any developments feeling largely symbolic.

Sadly this is not a neceon book as the title might indicate and no Neceon perspective is explored here. The silent king is in this book for maybe half a chapter and the necrons as a whole play out like any other major for bar some flavour or how powerful they are but they still largely fail against the named characters.

The best part about this book is the naval combats which highlights the Necrons power and actually deliver on this.

Kicking the ball down the road

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Good character progression. Nice to see Necrons and the Silent King. Loved Belisarius Cawl moments.

Felt like there could have been more concrete plot points. Story covers a lot but would have liked to have seen some more details about the Necron empire. I assume that this book was to wrap up this series and then lead onto the next books. 40K lore seems to be in a bit of holding pattern now.

Enjoyed the progression of the story. Ties up the dawn of fire series well and leads onto Dark Imperium series.

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if you know the necrons are awaking and the silent king is back then there's no point to reading this

the silent novel

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Please just take a second black library and think, “could we be wasting people’s time releasing this nothing burger?”

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Nothing happens in this book or series thats worth reading about, wait until a synopsis comes out and save yourself the time. It is impressive how inconsequential this book is. What a train wreck of a series. What a waste of time.
Please, sincerely, don't waste your time.

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