Imagine if you took Deadpool, made him a her named Davi, made him the main playable character in a video game, and tossed into a D&D sort of world in which (true to video game), every time he dies, he goes back to the re-set position. And this happens hundreds of times as Davi keeps losing to the Dark Lord. But then, Deadpool/Davi decides that, instead of trying to save the world from the Dark Lord, why not just become said Lord instead? And let’s also make our hero a good bit hornier (I say this really only having seen Deadpool movies; no idea how is on that level in the comics) and allusive with the pop culture references no one else gets, because apparently Davi can remember 1) past lives, but not her Earth origin, and 2) 20th century pop culture (mostly geek though not exclusively).
I can’t take credit for the Deadpool comparison; I saw that on Goodreads when I went to rate/record How to Become the Dark Lord and Die Trying there. However, the amount of gratuitous violence, cartoonish in its extremes in most cases, as well as the hero’s vocabulary and chaos/success definitely fits the aesthetic I associate with Deadpool. This book is supposed to be comedy; it’s entertaining but too violent for that label IMHO. It’s also got kind of a vague CW (“Davi speaks casually about…”) at the beginning that doesn’t go anywhere near where it should as we actually see Davi doing/experiencing those things, and more.
About 1/3 of the book is Davi gathering her initial hoard, then about ½ is getting to the Convocation site where Dark Lords get chosen, and the ret is the actual Convocation challenges. Two of the other challengers make sense (one Davi knows from a recent life, the other from earlier in this one), but what we do get to see of the fourth (not Davi) seems too good natured for the job. There’s also a “plot twist” towards the end that’s pretty thoroughly cliché (even Davi thinks so) but it’s almost immediately set aside. There is a sequel coming, and even a brief excerpt in my copy of the book, so maybe there’s more to it, but for this part of the story at least, it’s just another thing that makes not much sense. Davi spends a lot of time considering the level of sense in her world and situation. And I rally would not recommend reading this and expecting it to make sense unless you have a good basis in the references. Just follow along for the ride, don’t ask questions, even when Davi does, and it’ll probably be fine.
