I received this book for free from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.
How to Become the Dark Lord and Die Trying by Django WexlerPublished by Orbit on May 21, 2024
Genres: Fiction / Fantasy / Action & Adventure, Fiction / Fantasy / Epic, Fiction / Fantasy / Humorous
Pages: 432
Format: ARC, eBook
Source: Netgalley
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Groundhog Day meets Deadpool in Django Wexler’s no-holds-barred, laugh-out-loud fantasy tale about a young woman who, tired of defending humanity from the Dark Lord, decides to become the Dark Lord herself.
"Takes the old saying 'If you can't beat 'em, join 'em,' to the next level. A sarcastic, action-packed, intrigue-filled (mis)adventure. One of the funniest books I've read in a long time."--Matt Dinniman, author of Dungeon Crawler Carl
Davi has done this all before. She’s tried to be the hero and take down the all-powerful Dark Lord. A hundred times she’s rallied humanity and made the final charge. But the time loop always gets her in the end. Sometimes she’s killed quickly. Sometimes it takes a while. But she’s been defeated every time.
This time? She’s done being the hero and done being stuck in this endless time loop. If the Dark Lord always wins, then maybe that’s who she needs to be. It’s Davi’s turn to play on the winning side.
Burningblade & Silvereye
Ashes of the Sun
Blood of the Chosen
Emperor of Ruin
Honestly, I feel like this book is my reward for all the Eddings, Brooks, Goodkind, et al, that I spent reading as a child. If you spent a childhood reading as many high fantasy hero’s journeys as you could get your hands on… this book is redemption and reward. If you ever read any of those novels and thought to yourself, Why are the girls in these books plot devices instead of characters? or Why is the hero such a goddamn goody-goody? or Surely the xenophobic trope-y bad guys have their own inner lives and motivations? Then you will love this book. I can only describe the feeling I had when reading this as “glee”. I wanted to do a Disney-villain-style song and dance over this book, except I couldn’t put it down long enough to write the lyrics.
Put your typical high fantasy hero into a time loop and give them a hundred thousand lives where they never, ever win. Is it actually a time loop? Is it a video game? Who knows! Our hero Davi certainly doesn’t, and she’s tired as hell of losing. Nothing she’s tried has saved her, her friends, or her supposed destiny.
So she decides, quite literally, to say fuck it. If you can’t beat ’em, join ’em. If she can’t defeat the Dark Lord, then she’ll just become the Dark Lord.
Except, she discovers, it isn’t quite that easy. In a world where the hero resets back to the beginning of the journey every time they die, it’s quite easy to think that actions have no consequences. Other people’s feelings… other people’s lives… don’t really matter. They’re video game NPCs, there to be used as fodder for battle or just amusement.
Or are they? Davi thought she understood the rules of this strange world she’s been trapped in for the equivalent of thousands of lives. Except, she doesn’t. Something’s different, and she doesn’t know how or why.
I love this book so much that I want to sleep with it under my pillow, which is hard to do with an eBook because it only sort of exists. If you’re squeamish over naughty language or a little (okay, a lot) of girl-on-orc-girl sex, then maybe you should get over yourself and read this book anyway. It’s awesome.
