{"id":6791,"date":"2026-04-04T16:40:11","date_gmt":"2026-04-04T15:40:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/meerkatmusings.co.uk\/?p=6791"},"modified":"2026-04-04T16:40:21","modified_gmt":"2026-04-04T15:40:21","slug":"meerkat-books-book-reviews-how-to-become-the-dark-lord-and-die-trying","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/meerkatmusings.co.uk\/?p=6791","title":{"rendered":"Meerkat Books: Book Reviews: How to Become the Dark Lord and Die Trying"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Destiny can be fickle. It can be hard to resist, and yet sometimes the most exhilerating, challenging, and crazy path through life emerges when you reject destiny and do your own thing. That is the central theme of How to Become the Dark Lord and Die Trying<\/a><\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Imagine the burden of being expected to achieve a particularly difficult goal, and imagine how even death does not bestow relief from this mission. Each time you die, you are resurrected, and each time you are resurrected, you find yourself back at your first point of origin in a strange land, with all your previous progress erased. In essence, think of an awkward video game that drops back at the start, each time you fail, only you don’t have the option to quit and walk away.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Now imagine that you decide to forgo the main quest, and make your own quest. No more ‘on the rails’ gaming. You’re changing the rules, whether the game likes it or not.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This sums up the story of Davi, a young woman dropped into a crazy fantasy land, who ends up rebelling against her task after dying over 200 times whilst trying to stop the rise of a dark lord. Fed up with her circumstances, Davi decides she will take control of the narrative, and an hilarious, heart-felt, and rather epic new adventure begins.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It could be argued that this is not a flawless story. Does author Django Wexler capture the essence of this young woman in a manner that is entirely appropriate? Is there a concern about the fairly regular references to sex and lust (though there isn’t too much actual sex in this book)? Maybe. I didn’t mind it, and nor did I mind the rather routine gore and blood. It’s not for the faint of heart, this book. It’s witty, it’s got surprising depth, and it tackles the themes of destiny, loyalty and fate quite well. I enjoyed the concept, and I liked the execution. I am certainly intrigued to see where this story goes next!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

10\/10<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Back to Meerkat Books<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Destiny can be fickle. It can be hard to resist, and yet sometimes the most exhilerating, challenging, and crazy path through life emerges when you reject destiny and do your own thing. That is...<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":6324,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_pvb_checkbox_block_on_post":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6791","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-author-stuff"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/meerkatmusings.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/20260201_163937.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/meerkatmusings.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6791","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/meerkatmusings.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/meerkatmusings.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/meerkatmusings.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/meerkatmusings.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6791"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/meerkatmusings.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6791\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6792,"href":"https:\/\/meerkatmusings.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6791\/revisions\/6792"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/meerkatmusings.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/6324"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/meerkatmusings.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6791"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/meerkatmusings.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6791"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/meerkatmusings.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6791"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}