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jbdraper 's review for:
How to Become the Dark Lord and Die Trying
by Django Wexler
How to Become the Dark Lord and Die Trying seemed to promise a fresh perspective on the time-loop story, wrapped up in a fantasy world packed with satire and wit. It pulled through on about half of those promises.
*Mild spoilers below*
Davi is a woman from Earth who has spent the last thousand lifetimes trying to save the Kingdom from the torment of the Dark Lord. She's spent so much time in this world relative to her life on Earth that she has forgotten almost everything about her past life... except hyper-specific pop culture references, her favourite websites, how the language works, and many more things. This wouldn't have been a problem for me, had the text not mentioned several times that these were things she should have forgotten.
The main character is bisexual woman (good), with a very unhealthy idea of sexual boundaries (bad). At best, this comes across as humorous when applied to evil snake-women. At worst, it comes across as abuse of power and sexual harassment when applied to her subordinates.
The humour is not anywhere near as subtle or nuanced as a Pratchett-style fantasy satire (despite the use of humorous footnotes), but is more akin to a Deadpoolian swearing-and-killing-and-talking-about-sex audience.
Despite my above points, I did enjoy this book, and will be picking up the second book when it releases. The writing is simple but punchy, the pacing is good, and the characters all have a distinct voice (love you, Droff).
*Mild spoilers below*
Davi is a woman from Earth who has spent the last thousand lifetimes trying to save the Kingdom from the torment of the Dark Lord. She's spent so much time in this world relative to her life on Earth that she has forgotten almost everything about her past life... except hyper-specific pop culture references, her favourite websites, how the language works, and many more things. This wouldn't have been a problem for me, had the text not mentioned several times that these were things she should have forgotten.
The main character is bisexual woman (good), with a very unhealthy idea of sexual boundaries (bad). At best, this comes across as humorous when applied to evil snake-women. At worst, it comes across as abuse of power and sexual harassment when applied to her subordinates.
The humour is not anywhere near as subtle or nuanced as a Pratchett-style fantasy satire (despite the use of humorous footnotes), but is more akin to a Deadpoolian swearing-and-killing-and-talking-about-sex audience.
Despite my above points, I did enjoy this book, and will be picking up the second book when it releases. The writing is simple but punchy, the pacing is good, and the characters all have a distinct voice (love you, Droff).