TITLE: Twilight Imperium: Empire Burning – A Twilight Wars Novel
AUTHOR: Robbie MacNiven
PUBLISHER: Aconyte Books
RELEASE DATE: December 6, 2024 (US/UK/Global)
PRICE: Paperback – $16.95 (USD); Ebook – $9.99 USD

Twilight Imperium is a beefy tabletop game that will be exciting to some and daunting to others. The official rules estimate a single game as clocking in at 4-8 hours, and the lore for this multifactional sci-fi wargame runs deep. In short, a power vacuum has been left by the near-extermination of the ruling race known as the Lazax, and each player chooses one of the other Great Races to fight for control of the empire. It’s a lot to take in—but Robbie MacNiven’s Twilight Wars books seek to turn this lore into a readable epic.

The Story

The series began with Empire Falling, also available from Aconyte Books, though starting at the beginning isn’t as strictly necessary as it is for other multi-installment stories. A century has passed since the inciting incident of the first book, and only two major characters from the first book make it any respectable distance into the second. Those not meeting their end via the brutality of war were cut down by the passing of decades, and a third returning character dies within the opening chapters.

In Empire Burning, the ruling Lazax have allegedly been exterminated after being hunted across the galaxy. Only one remains: Ibna Vel Syd, kept alive beyond even extended Lazak years via cybernetic augmentation. Harial Tol, a scientist from the fishlike Nar people, has outlived both her human partner and her Jol-Nar rival while keeping Syd alive and living among the hidden Lazax population on Gamma Eridius. But now the leonine traders known as Hacan have their eyes on Gamma Eridius, as it’s rich in resources. Strip-mining it would mean exposing the hiding place of Syd and the Lazax; and while the Hacan trader Akenzi is more concerned about his potential fortune than anyone living on top of it, there are many in the galaxy who would give anything to find Syd’s hiding place. That includes a party of Winnarans who want to help restore the Lazax to their former glory; a rebel Winnaran who wants to kill any remaining Lazax personally; and a hive-mind of snake-people known as the Naalu who want to use the fallen race to stake their claim on the galaxy.

What Works

Juggling the many factions of Twilight Imperium while telling a compelling story is extremely difficult. Fortunately, MacNiven has seen fit to keep his focus on only a few factions in each book, giving ample time to describe them to new readers. The Hacan take the spotlight from the beginning this time, with plenty of attention being given to their culture. The nuances of how trade and social stealth work into their daily life, right down to how they dress, is an especially strong aspect of the book.

While the Naalu have a minimal presence, they offer some more immediate peril as one of their number invades the ship in the book’s third act. With much of the action of the book being political and wargame-y in nature, this new threat shakes things up nicely, forcing opposing (or at least inimical) sides to work together temporarily to overcome a much bigger threat.

MacNiven’s prose is strong, as is the story structure. Very few of the conflicts in Twilight Wars are black and white, and characters being of a same faction doesn’t automatically make them homogenous. There are dozens of motivations at work at any given time, and characters run the gamut from bloodthirsty to circumspect to morally adrift.

What Doesn’t Work

In fairness, a board game as dense and demanding as Twilight Imperium will likely result in stories equally as dense and demanding. But it’s not fair to say that a random reader wouldn’t pick up a tie-in book for a product they’ve never encountered. Doctor Who Target novelizations, for example, have a proud history of bringing young fans to the fold before even seeing the television series. While fans will likely be the majority of the readership, a good tie-in assumes that this is the first time the reader is encountering this world.

To MacNiven’s credit, the Twilight Wars books do this as much as is possible—and anything that doesn’t quite land isn’t the author’s fault, but simply the perils of working within lore this deep. His descriptions are both vivid and fluid, giving the reader as full a picture as is possible of each character and faction without resorting to characters looking in a mirror and describing themselves head to toe. It is not the author’s fault that encapsulating the entirety of these detailed alien species is a chore in prose, and the fact that you will likely find yourself Googling images from the game to help you along is not a failing of the book.

Final Score (5 out of 5 stars)

Putting Twilight Imperium to the page isn’t easy. There are so many moving parts, so many factions, and such a complex gameplay loop to transfer into a flowing narrative that any writer would have a rough time. But Robbie MacNiven has managed it: characters like Harial Tol, torn between “first doing no harm” and not wanting to further aid (even passively) in galactic warfare, give heart to what could otherwise be an extremely dry story. “Human stories” (ignoring that humans are only one faction in this series), even if they are fleeting, ensure that we always get to see at least a little of the people on the ground amidst the space battles. Dissent within the factions, as with the Winnarans, is an excellent touch as well. Anything that doesn’t quite click isn’t on the author’s shoulders, but rather on the sheer massiveness of the original game’s world.

The Twilight Wars books will pick their readers. If you love dense space operas with political scheming and negotiations, you will love this from the first page. If this isn’t your style, you will know very quickly. But if it is your style, it’s an enjoyable saga, even if you have no experience with Twilight Imperium.

Image Source: Aconyte Books

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