How to Become the Dark Lord and Die Trying

Phil in SF reviewed How to Become the Dark Lord and Die Trying by Django Wexler

Quite enjoyed this, especially at the end

5 stars

The premise is that Davi wakes up naked in a small pond in a magical world, where she is proclaimed to be the messiah of prophecy. Only after doing this 237 times and the hordes of the Dark Lord overrun the Kingdom every time, she gives up. She decides she's going to become the Dark Lord instead. There's a bit of Groundhog Day in this, but thankfully Wexler only takes us through those motions for the first chapters.

Davi is the kind of character I usually find annoying. Way too quick with quips and never serious, like every damn character in a Scalzi book. Thankfully there's an actual character arc where Davi comes to realize other characters aren't just NPCs in her personal video game, and she becomes less self-obsessed over the course of the book.

This is one of the few books lately where I became more interested in …

The premise is that Davi wakes up naked in a small pond in a magical world, where she is proclaimed to be the messiah of prophecy. Only after doing this 237 times and the hordes of the Dark Lord overrun the Kingdom every time, she gives up. She decides she's going to become the Dark Lord instead. There's a bit of Groundhog Day in this, but thankfully Wexler only takes us through those motions for the first chapters.

Davi is the kind of character I usually find annoying. Way too quick with quips and never serious, like every damn character in a Scalzi book. Thankfully there's an actual character arc where Davi comes to realize other characters aren't just NPCs in her personal video game, and she becomes less self-obsessed over the course of the book.

This is one of the few books lately where I became more interested in the story as it got further along.

matthewmincher reviewed How to Become the Dark Lord and Die Trying by Django Wexler

Wanna be DnD Deadpool

2 stars

I really wanted to like this, and enjoyed the premise (time loop / can't die in a DnD inspired setting).

As the book went on it felt more like reading someone's self-insert fanfiction. The main character has a serious case of woman-written-by-a-man. Other characters felt very one dimensional and single purpose.

The plot was okay, but didn't do enough with the time loop trope, and fizzled out a bit to set up the next book. Footnotes were a cool idea but were really only used as parethentical asides to add a snarky joke.

lastblossom reviewed How to Become the Dark Lord and Die Trying by Django Wexler

Snappy and fast-paced meta-commentary, with a surprising amount of heart. There's also a heavy dose of Adult stuff.

No rating

"Irreverent" might be the word here. At least, it certainly starts that way. The blurb says Groundhog Day, but the whole time I read it I kept thinking Re:Zero (an assumption that is confirmed by the author's notes in the back). For those of you not into anime, think Live Die Repeat with Tom Cruise. The hero Davi dies violently and often, until the only thing she has left is cynicism and anger. Her foray into becoming the Dark Lord starts as a lark born from frustration and a desire for novelty, but it quickly turns into more as she gets closer to her goals, and further from her old lives. Most reviews will probably say this book is very funny, very crude, or both. (It's both.) But for something as snappy and flippant as this, it also has a surprising amount of heart, with Davi's hurt melting into care …

"Irreverent" might be the word here. At least, it certainly starts that way. The blurb says Groundhog Day, but the whole time I read it I kept thinking Re:Zero (an assumption that is confirmed by the author's notes in the back). For those of you not into anime, think Live Die Repeat with Tom Cruise. The hero Davi dies violently and often, until the only thing she has left is cynicism and anger. Her foray into becoming the Dark Lord starts as a lark born from frustration and a desire for novelty, but it quickly turns into more as she gets closer to her goals, and further from her old lives. Most reviews will probably say this book is very funny, very crude, or both. (It's both.) But for something as snappy and flippant as this, it also has a surprising amount of heart, with Davi's hurt melting into care the further she gets on her journey. Is becoming the Dark Lord also a journey of healing? The characters she gathers for her horde are a motley crew with their own interests, and it's incredibly easy to care about them as well. The cliffhanger ending is telegraphed well, but still comes as a real punch to the gut, and I'm very curious to see what happens next. Content-wise, there's a good deal of swearing, front-loaded at the start of the book, but present throughout. People die, often horribly. Sex is had with great enthusiasm, although the descriptions tend to be brief. There's also a load of meta commentary including tons of pop culture references and D&D talk, which will probably resonate with genre-savvy readers.

Thanks to NetGalley and Orbit Books for an advance copy. All thoughts in this review are my own!