[Book Review] How to Become the Dark Lord and Die Trying (Dark Lord Davi 1) — Django Wexler
Live… Die… Conquer… Repeat?
If you like your Dark Lords of the sassy, irreverent, meta-commentary-having, fourth-wall-breaking variety, Django Wexler has the book for you!
Most of us, including yours truly know Django Wexler as one of the household names of the “flintlock fantasy” subgenre, you know the one with magic AND guns! His Shadow Campaigns series have become something of a standard against which all other flintlock authors are compared (well, him and Brian McClellan). While he has written another YA series, it is not what he is known for among the fantasy cognoscenti. So when he tried his hand at a light-hearted fantasy “comedy”, I was naturally intrigued. Cue, How to Become the Dark Lord and Die Trying!
The brief tells us that the titular character Davi is one of the Kingdom-saving heroes, in a “life”time battle against the Dark Lord, a stereotype that we all know and love. Except, that every time she dies, she respawns with all of her memories, and she tries again. This cycle naturally wears her down and she is generally fed up with the “good side”, and says “To hell with it, I will be the next Dark Lord!”.
Shenanigans ensue.
How to Become the Dark Lord is a schlocky, cheeky, tale which follows our Dark Lord-in-waiting Davi (now Davi Morrigan Skulltaker, because why not?!) as she travels to the Convocation, where the new Dark Lord is chosen. Along the way she accrues her merry band of (un)likeable sidekicks which include a sexy orc, a sexy wolfkin, a cute mousekin, a deadpan stonekin, and so on, you get the gist. Wexler does a good job of writing side-characters with enough personality to not feel like cardboard placeholders but not spend too much time on each of their character arcs to extend this into epic-fantasy territory.
I hate to drop the C-bomb when it comes to this book, you know the dreaded *whispers* Cozy Fantasy, but this is a very low-stakes almost feel-good story, especially with the lighthearted easy-to-digest prose. If Cozy Comedic Dark Fantasy was ever a nanogenre, How to Become the Dark Lord and Die Trying would be among the names to look out for.
Where this book will get divisive among fantasy readers, especially fans of the darker corners of the genre, is the prose and personality of our protagonist, Davi. Her characterization can perfectly be summed up as Deadpool in a D&D campaign. If that's something you enjoy, you’ll love her meta-commentary and constant fourth-wall-breaking sassiness. If you prefer your characters more serious, and stoic, Davi will begin to grate on you within the first few pages.
As opposed to his other works, Wexler also approaches the prose of this book from a very young Millennial/GenZ stance, with tons of slang and modern-day references. This book references everything from Harry Potter, Lord of the Rings, Game of Thrones, Marvel’s Avengers, HBO, and many others. Other reviewers have cited this as a reason to DNF the book saying that it gets quickly annoying and breaks immersion. My two cents are that the “lol I'm so quirky and such a memelord” vibe is a tad bit overdone, and the “less is more” approach would have made each reference shine a lot more. Davi’s overly sassy badass promiscuous persona becomes something of a meme after a while. Sadly, Wexler never really chooses a stance on whether it is intentional, or is more tongue-in-cheek in-universe. In the narrative, Davi is reasonably competent and is helped through more by her compatriots.
The conclusion of the book ends on a cliffhanger signalling the start of a series, but I wonder how long this schtick will last across multiple books, and whether it being left as a fun little standalone would have been a better idea. Only time will tell.
A fun easy-to-read romp is what you get with How to Become the Dark Lord and Die Trying, a perfect little palette cleanser before we dive back into the gritty, nihilistic grimdark worlds we know and love!
