How To Become the Dark Lord and Die Trying
Django Wexler
Paperback / eBook
ISBN: 9780316392204
Orbit, May 2024, 432 pages

Greetings, readers, and welcome back to another book review! This month we’re living one of the many lives of Davi, a wise-cracking, violence-loving hero who’s had enough of being on the losing side and decides that this time in her time-loop life she’s going to become the Dark Lord instead, in How to Become the Dark Lord and Die Trying.

For those who have read Edge of Tomorrow, watched Groundhog Day, or consumed literally any isekai story ever (which Wexler notes as an explicit influence on the story), the broad strokes of How to Become the Dark Lord and Die Trying will be instantly familiar. Davi, the protagonist, has been whisked away from her world to become the Hero who stops the Dark Lord, and if she dies she shows up back at the beginning of her quest to try again (in her case, naked in a pond like some watery tart dispensing swords), but the thing that makes this particular novel unique is that Davi has had quite enough of being the Hero. Every time, no matter what she does, she ends up failing, so instead she decides to see what life’s like on the other side of the fence. After all, if she doesn’t like it, she can just go back to being the Hero, right?

One of the first things that really caught my attention with How to Become the Dark Lord and Die Trying is that while Davi is initially presented as a somewhat bitter and jaded wisecracking nihilist, Wexler immediately manages to establish stakes for her that she actually cares about and is then forced to grow as a character to keep safe. Many time-loop stories fall into the trap of having supporting characters treated as things (essentially “if I manipulate the pieces around me right, I can get the optimal ending”), whereas the good ones find a way to make the protagonist not want to restart a run, and I can happily say that How to Become the Dark Lord and Die Trying falls firmly in the latter camp here. This isn’t to say that everything that Davi does is perfect, because it most certainly is not, but Wexler does an excellent job of keeping Davi’s motivations relatable and clear, despite the reader knowing she can start over whenever she wants, and there is a rising set of tension as the book goes on that is very cleverly done.

The second thing I enjoyed about How to Become the Dark Lord and Die Trying is that, while the humor doesn’t always land, it does far more often than not, and this is a pretty funny book. Davi’s internal monologues and explanations to the reader have a deadpan morbidness that does a lot to cement why she is the way she is at the start of the book, and her interactions with the various other characters of the book are frequently irreverent while remaining germane to the plot. Wexler also uses one of my favorite devices, which fans of Terry Pratchett will immediately recognize, and that is the vanishing art of footnotes as the second (and sometimes third, fourth, and fifth (sadly, as this is a review and not a book, I can only do this as parenthetical asides)) layers of a joke.

Lastly, I highly recommend this book because it is also incredibly inclusive while still maintaining the general nerd-fantasy vibe that traditionally permeates isekais (which has been getting better in the genre in recent years, but still has a lot of work left to go). Davi may have her sharp edges and perhaps be a little too quick to resort to murder as the best solution, but she genuinely cares about the people around her and is more than happy to dispense the murderyness onto those who threaten the vulnerable and maligned. I won’t say it’s quite a found family style story, but How to Become the Dark Lord and Die Trying has definite shades in that direction, and as a whole Wexler tackles some thorny issues with grace and care.

Overall, if you’re looking for a relatively light-hearted romp in a direction most time-loop stories don’t go, How to Become the Dark Lord and Die Trying is perfect for wiling away a couple hours at the beach or lounging in the summer sun, and as the start of what promises to be a very interesting adventure, I can’t wait to see where Wexler takes Davi and us next.