DNF Early Review – How to Become the Dark Lord and Die Trying (Dark Lord Davi, Book 1) by Django Wexler (2/5 stars)

Reading Level:Adult
Genre: Humor Fantasy
Length: 426 pages
Publisher:‎‎ Orbit
Release Date: May 21, 2024
ASIN: B0CH834GHK
Stand Alone or Series: 1st book in the Dark Lord Davi series
Source: eGalley from NetGalley
Rating: 2/5 stars

“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..”

Series Info/Source: This is the first book in the Dark Lord Davi series. I got an eGalley of this book through NetGalley to review.

Thoughts: I was really, really looking forward to reading this. A snarky, dark, humorous fantasy about switching from the heroic side (that always looses) to the winning dark side! It features a woman displaced from the modern world and stuck in a time loop…it sounded fantastic. I ended up stopping this at 30% of the way it because this book has some major issues.

Okay first for what I liked. I enjoyed the snarky heroine, the slap dash violent action, and the idea. I also liked some of the world elements; like the ability of the creatures to eat magical crystals that become a part of them and the classic fantasy world races.

Now for the issues…and there are quite a few of them. Our heroine, Dani, is like a 2D sketch of what a man thinks a woman in this situation would be like. She has no dimension or character besides having survived a lot and wanted to have sex with everything. She can be summed up as willing to die…a lot…and horny…that’s pretty much it. I find it hard to believe that a woman who has the forethought to find poison to carry on her so that she can kill herself before she is raped and tortured to death (again), is cool with having tons of unprotected sex with a variety of creatures that could end up with her pregnant. It’s just a lack of depth and thought that is inconsistent throughout.

Dani also likes to make a lot of humorous cultural references which normally I would find entertaining. Except that she makes a lot of them, too many, and it is jarring in the context of the story. And…she has been being reincarnated in this time loop for literally thousands of years and has admitted she can’t remember where she came from or her past. I just could not see past this…how does she know all these cultural references if she doesn’t remember the culture she came from? It’s a huge flaw in the story.

Lastly I was incredibly annoyed at all of the footnotes. There are a lot of footnotes in each chapter. If you are reading on ebook you have to click on the link, read it, and then go back to the story. It is incredibly jarring. Some of the footnotes are mildly helpful but most are just empty snarky comments that weren’t worth either the time to click and read on them, or getting jarred out of the current story for.

I got so incredibly annoyed with this story that I couldn’t take it anymore and put it aside. I am sad because I think this had potential. Get rid of at least some of the cultural references and those pesky footnotes and explain how Dani has the background for all these cultural contact points and that would be a start in making this more readable. Actually make Dani a character with some depth to help readers engage with her and that would make this excellent.

My Summary (2/5): Overall this didn’t work for me. The story is just too flawed and the characters are 2D characterizations of typical character tropes. This is a neat idea and I think with some work and filling out of the characters this could be a really well done story. I don’t plan on reading any of Wexler’s future books, this style just isn’t my thing and not enough attention was spent on making the story seem plausible.