How to Become the Dark Lord and Die Trying by Django Wexler: review

5/5 stars on Goodreads

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

I’ve been waiting for a good western take on Asian isekai genre for so long that I eventually had to write one myself. It’s such a popular genre in Asia that it’s surprising it hasn’t taken in the west. The few western versions that I’ve read have tried to imitate the originals, but they lack the charm and whimsy. But now there’s How to Become the Dark Lord and Die Trying by Django Wexler. It takes the idea of isekai and makes it thoroughly its own.

For those not familiar with the term, in isekai light novels and mangas a person from the modern world is transported to a secondary world, a book, game or fantasy world, either bodily or as a character there, and has to adapt to a new reality. Sometimes there’s a time loop element where the character starts over every time they die. Sometimes their life is improved by the change, sometimes they set out to make the changes themself with the knowledge they have.

Davi is from the modern-day US, she thinks. She doesn’t quite remember anymore, because she’s been in a fantasy world for a better part of a millennium. She was brought there by a wizard as the saviour of the humans from the Dark Lord, and has died hundreds of times in the service of the Kingdom, only to return to the moment she arrived to this word to start again.

Now she’s had enough. Clearly, she isn’t the saviour, because she hasn’t managed to save the Kingdom in all this time. It’s time to switch teams to the winning side. She’ll become the Dark Lord. Easier said than done, because Dark Lords aren’t human. They’re wilder: orcs, werewolves, snake people and other humanoid beasts that don’t look at all like human. But she has an ace in her sleeve. She can pass as a wilder the way humans can’t.

It takes several efforts—and deaths—to get the ball rolling. She recruits a small band of orcs and sets out to build herself a horde to attend a convocation where they choose the next Dark Lord. The way is difficult, geographically and politically, but she prevails, liberating the oppressed and growing her army as she goes—mostly accidentally. And the farther she advances, the more important it becomes that she doesn’t die. Because then everything will reset and she’ll have to start again, and the events have been so fantastical that she couldn’t possibly recreate them again.

But the possibility of starting over is there. Until it isn’t.

This was a great start to a series. Davi is a fairly typical sarcastic UF heroine who runs a constant commentary (in footnotes, which was a tad difficult in an ebook) and references pop culture she really shouldn’t remember, as she doesn’t even remember where she’s from. She’s probably not entirely sane, but who would be after being tortured to death several hundred times, but she’s clever and tenacious. However, part of her grit comes from the knowledge that she can just give up and start again. Until she can’t. The paradigm change is hard on her, but she’s not alone to handle it.

In her quest to become the Dark Lord, Davi accidentally builds herself a family. They’re supposed to be minions, but they’re friends and lovers (she’s permanently horny). The side-characters remain a little distant, as Davi is very self-absorbed in her narrative, but they’re nice and more humane than the humans she’s tried to save all these centuries.

The book is a bit too long though. It’s heavy reading with all the gore and commentary, and the plot advances slowly. Part of the charm of light novels is their shorter length and longer series that don’t really mind pesky things like story arcs. It might’ve worked here too, if it hadn’t been necessary to bring the first book to a turning point to suit western traditions. Now it took me surprisingly long to wade it through to the end.

Ending isn’t a cliffhanger, but it puts Davi on crossroads in her quest. It’ll be interesting to see how she’ll handle the turn her life has taken.

I received a free copy from Edelweiss in exchange for an honest review.

Hard Reboot by Django Wexler: review

4/5 stars on Goodreads

Hard Reboot by Django Wexler

Hard Reboot is a short sci-fi novel (novella) you can read in one sitting, but it manages to have both a rich world and an exciting plot. It’s set in far future earth that’s been abandoned to its fate millennia ago and serves mostly as a curiosity destination for rich off-world colonists or as a research opportunity for academics. But people still live there, making most of the opportunities the world offers them—which aren’t much.

Kas is an off-world academic. She’s a third-wave colonist, and while her ancestors have arrived on her planet a thousand years ago, she’s considered lower class and it affects her chances in academia. She’s clawed her way on an academic expedition to earth as a data-archaeologist, determined to make the most of her chance, only to learn that instead she’s expected to help a lazy first-wave colonist (effectively an aristocrat) to conduct her research, or do it for her.

Kas’s visit to earth takes an unexpected turn, however, when she’s tricked into placing a huge bet on a robot fight by Zhi, the robot’s pilot. They’re huge humanoid robots operated from the inside; I imagined jaegers from Pacific Rim, but smaller and for one pilot. Kas doesn’t have that kind of money, but the system automatically uses the expedition’s funds, which puts her academic career in jeopardy. And that’s even though the fight goes for her, because she still owes the house’s cut.

To avoid paying, Kas tracks Zhi to where scavengers live under the city and learns that Zhi has another robot, one that Kas is dying to research. Zhi persuades Kas for a double or nothing dare: Kas funds the restoration of the battle robot (with the money that isn’t hers) for a chance to win big. Since she’s already neck-deep in it, she agrees.

For such a short book, the stakes are high, though unevenly so. Kas might lose her career, but Zhi will lose her life if things go wrong. The women are an odd pair, but friendship and even a romance form between them. And Kas ends up risking her life in the final battle too. The ending is satisfying and doesn’t leave the reader wanting for anything.

I received a free copy from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

Catching up: a review bonanza

I’ve neglected my reading blog again, which means I have six books to review since the previous post―not including the books that I have skipped earlier. It’s been a good month and a half with old favourites and new interesting finds. Here’s the summary.

Ship of Smoke and Steel by Django Wexler

Ship of Smoke and Steel by Django Wexler was a brilliant find. It wasn’t at all what I expected based on the description and the sample chapters. I thought I was getting a swashbuckling pirate story with magic. What I got was a humongous steel ship filled with monsters and teenage mages, who have no idea where the ship is going and why, and who's steering it. Isoka, the main character, has to find her place in the strange society on the ship she's been brought to against her will, and figure out how to gain control of the ship so that she can return home and save her sister. But nothing is how she hopes it would be, not even her.

The book is marketed as YA, but despite the age of the characters, their life experience and the problems they face are not those of teenagers. It's all about survival. Isoka is a fairly unlikeable main character, and she doesn't really improve with softer characteristics she gains, as she lacks the insight to go with them. I actually preferred her as a cold-blooded killer. There was a bit too many fight scenes―the story goes from fight to fight that become repetitive―and the ending seemed slightly rushed. The epilogue didn't really make it stronger, but since the original problem of saving Isoka's sister is yet to happen, I'm looking forward to reading the next book in the Wells of Sorcery series.

Minimum Wage Magic by Rachel Aaron

Minimum Wage Magic by Rachel Aaron is the first book in DFZ, a new series set in Aaron’s post-apocalyptic, dragon and magic filled Detroit. Opal has a job cleaning unclaimed apartments after their owners die. On one such mission, she finds more than she expects and gets gangsters after her.

Opal is a great character with serious dad issues, and Nik, her side-kick, is an interesting companion. There’s a lot of action, magical and mundane, as the pair tries to find the site of a magical ritual that just might bring them a lot of money. Needless to say, it wasn't as easy as that. I'll definitely read the next book too.

The Secret Chapter by Genevieve Cogman

The Secret Chapter by Genevieve Cogman is book six in The Invisible Library series. This time round Irene and Kai have to team up with a group of criminals to steal a painting for a villain straight from the Bond movies. After the previous book where political machinations pushed the pair to the edge of their skills, this was a rather boring addition to the series. Kai especially was a let-down after becoming a more assertive, interesting character in the previous book. A new political plot is brewing, however, so I’ll keep with the series.

Where Winter Finds You by J.R. Ward

Where Winter Finds You by J.R. Ward is the latest addition to her long Black Dagger Brotherhood series. It’s marked as only half a book, but at 480 pages it’s long enough. It’s a second chance love story, a follow-up for The Shadows where Trez lost his beloved Selena. A woman has moved in Caldwell who resembles Selena perfectly and who dreams of a lover she knows is Trez. He’s convinced his love has been returned to him, but how is that possible, when Theresa has lived a full life already. I must admit I couldn’t see how this could be brought to a satisfying conclusion either, but in the end, the story worked out perfectly. It wasn’t the best BDB book there is, but like always, it was full of emotions that the reader is pulled into, only to emerge tearful and happy in the end.

The Fowl Twins by Eoin Colfer

The Fowl Twins by Eoin Colfer starts a spin-off series for his excellent Artemis Fowl series. Artemis’s little brothers, twins Myles and Becket, are now eleven and ready for adventures of their own. Myles is like Artemis, a genius bent on surpassing his big brother, but not inclined to criminal activities. Becket is more physical of the pair, with an interesting ability to talk with animals―not that anyone believes he actually can do it.

The adventure they are pulled into is typical fast-paced mayhem. Unlike with Artemis books, which are set in the fairy realm, this takes place in the human world, and the bad guys are humans too, a duke and a nun of all people odd. But it wouldn’t be an Artemis spin-off, if fairies weren’t involved. Humans are after fairies and it’s up to the twins to save them with the help of LEP specialist Lazul Heitz. Artemis makes a cameo appearance―he’s on a mission to Mars―as does Holly Short, the LEP officer from Artemis books. It’s a fun book that suits adults perfectly too, even though it’s aimed at ten-year-olds. And I hope the subsequent books take place in the fairy realm because that’s where the magic truly happens.

A Madness of Sunshine by Nalini Singh

A Madness of Sunshine is the first thriller by my favourite paranormal romance author Nalini Singh. It’s set in rural New Zealand where the author lives, and is inspired by Nordic noir books. The story is fairly straightforward: a young woman goes missing and practically everyone is a suspect. Only, they really aren’t; most of them are dismissed easily and if the author attempted to build an atmosphere of mistrust, it doesn’t really work. There are only a couple of plausible suspects and among them the guilty are found. The action is slow and the body count low.

It’s an interesting book nonetheless. Singh can write great characters and as this is very much a character-led book, it’s a pleasure to read. There are two point of view characters, a woman who returns home to recover from a past tragedy and a cop who has taken a job in a small town to recover from a past tragedy. They connect early on, and even though this isn’t a romance, the two getting to know each other carries most of the book. There aren’t great twists in the plot, but the ending is satisfying, even if some motivations of the suspects remain baffling even after the end.

Six books read in six weeks don’t sound much, but there are a few books that I have started and not finished. At this point I’m still three books short of my Goodreads reading challenge of sixty-five books, but I’m confident I’ll be able to make it. I’ll keep you posted―I hope.