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Everybody Wants to Rule the World Except Me: A Review

BEWARE! HERE THERE BE SPOILERS FOR BOOK ONE!

SERIOUSLY. GO READ BOOK ONE.

Did you do it? Okay.

Cool. Here we go.

Hail Dark Lord Davi!

Last time we checked in with Davi, she’d successfully manipulated the time loops that she’d been experiencing since she first woke up in The Kingdom, roughly 1,000 years ago (by her own personal reckoning). Since that day, when the wizard Tserigern first told her that she was the Chosen One, fated to save The Kingdom from the Dark Lord, she’s lived and died thousands of times. Each time, beginning a new time loop has allowed Davi to take advantage of her own memories and predict the actions of others around her. Each time, she’s failed to save The Kingdom. So, back at the beginning of Django Wexler’s absolutely brilliant How to Become the Dark Lord and Die Trying, she started a new tactic—killing Tserigern and setting off on a path to become the Dark Lord (surprise! Bet you didn’t see that coming).

Finally arriving on the far side of the continent and triumphing over her rivals, Davi now stood at the head of a massive horde of wilders with her second in command, the orc woman, Tsav, at her side (as well as frequently in her bed). With Artaxes, the arbiter of the challenges, having officially crowned her as Dark Lord Davi, all that remained was… wait… what happens now?

See, during the challenges, Davi died. Again. Only this time, she didn’t reset back to the beginning with Tserigern. She only went back one day. The rules changed, and suddenly consequences meant something again. Now, Davi faces a new problem. If she doesn’t want to lose all of the progress that she’s finally made in her march to power (and her relationship with Tsav), she’s going to have to stop treating the other people around her as tools and stepping stones. So, new list of tasks: 1.) Convince the wilders that they don’t have to kill all the humans. 2.) Convince the humans that they don’t have to kill the wilders. 3.) Not die.

No big deal, right? Davi sets off from the wilderness back to The Kingdom to uncover the mysteries of how humans ended up in this world in the first place, what changed about the time loops, and, if she’s The Chosen One, who did The Choosing.

Everybody Wants to Rule the World Except Me is another brilliant, darkly hilarious fantasy adventure from Django Wexler, and is a perfect ending to Davi’s long, long, long life. The footnotes throughout continue to annotate Davi’s incredibly ADHD approach to things (supplementing many of her thoughts with her own intrusive thoughts based on her fading memories of our world). Wexler’s humor ensures that Davi’s journey isn’t too fraught, but there’s definitely more consequences for her actions this time around.

It’s out in the world today, May 27th. Get yourself a copy, and dive in!

My utmost thanks to Orbit Books and NetGalley for an eARC in exchange for a fair review. I’m pretty glad I didn’t need a time loop to get it.

OR DID I?!

Unexploded Remnants: A Review

Alice is the last surviving human in the universe, and she’s on the run. When she was exploring the Alta Sidoie market, she found something in a scrap collector’s booth that was far more than met the eye. Unfortunately for her, she wasn’t the only one who recognized it. Now she’s being chased throughout an intergalactic portal network by a warmongering alien race that wants to use the weapon-controlling AI she found to attack anyone who has ever wronged them.

Alice fell into the portal network by chance, an accidental bit of access from a world that wasn’t supposed to be able to connect. She was observed by the Archive, one of the unifying forces for good in the universe, and sent back to report on humanity as a whole. Eventually Earth’s conflicts grew to the point where the Archive opted to quarantine the world instead of attempting to keep helping, leaving humans to their own slow self-destruction. Alice, however, was allowed to keep performing work for them. Now alongside her virtual assistant, Bugs, she’s employed as a blend of archaeologist and grave robber for the Archive, trading in favors and information as well as artifacts.

Alice has her hands on the key to one of the most powerful remaining weapons in the galaxy, and the enemy is closing in. The AI is a threat to everyone, but Alice is determined to save Gunn, the being trapped in the heart of the artifact. She doesn’t know who she can fully trust, but she’s going to do whatever it takes to free him.

Elaine Gallagher has packed a tremendous amount of detail into a very small package with Unexploded Remnants. This novella is fast-paced and a hell of a lot of fun. World hopping action and clever characters reminiscent of Indiana Jones, Lara Croft, and Evelyn O’Connor make for a quick, entertaining read that still manages to provide commentary on weapons of war and how we treat soldiers.

My utmost thanks to Tor and NetGalley for an eARC in exchange for a fair review. Unexploded Remnants is out today, 6/25/24. I hope you enjoy it as much as I did.

How to Become the Dark Lord and Die Trying: A Review

Django Wexler’s latest novel has a mouthful of a title, but it’s an absolute blast.

Davi is tired. She’s been living in a time loop for hundreds of years since she first found herself in The Kingdom, restarting in the same place, the same state of existence, every time she dies. Sometimes, that’s only a few hours (or minutes) into a loop. Sometimes it’s been years. Every time she wakes up in a new loop, she’s greeted by the same old wizard who tells her that it’s her destiny to save The Kingdom. She has tried hundreds of times, and so far, has always ended up the same way: failing to defeat the newly arisen Dark Lord and their horde of villains. What’s the phrase? If you can’t beat them, join them.

This time around, Davi decides, things are going to be different. She’s done fighting the Dark Lord, and is going to use her ability (curse?) of respawning to take the title for herself. It’s going to be hard, though. Subverting your destiny isn’t easy, even when you can take a few hundred tries to get it right. Step one. Kill the old wizard for starters. Step two. Find the nearest band of orcs and gain their trust. Step three. Use that orc band and her own knowledge of the local Guild patrols and fighting tactics to take out a crew and get their gear. Step four. Turn that little orc gang to start building up a proper army, and fast.

Oh, did she mention that she’s only got two months or so to get to the Convocation where the new Dark Lord will be selected? Davi needs to get moving if she’s going to get her tenure as Dark Lord on track, but she has no guarantees that things will end any differently than every time she tried to be a hero. After all, the Convocation is held beyond the edge of the map, as far as the Guild is concerned. She has no experience breaking the standard loop of time, and each day she moves beyond her previous routine is one day further that she’ll have to go if she screws up. She’s headed into unknown territory now, and the fate of her adopted world is at stake.

Wexler’s newest novel is perfect for fans of roguelike games like Hades. It’s an absolutely hilarious and unrepentantly horny book, and I enjoyed the hell out of it. Wexler’s writing traces a line between homage and irreverent humor, particularly where Davi’s footnotes are concerned (after a few hundred lives, she’s lost track of some of the details of her own background, and her memories from Earth are slightly scrambled). Even better? This is book one of a series. How to Become the Dark Lord and Die Trying is available next Tuesday, May 21st.

My utmost thanks to Orbit Books and NetGalley for an eARC in exchange for a fair review.

The Trials of Empire: A Review

Richard Swan’s Empire of the Wolf series caught my attention almost immediately when I first saw the cover of The Justice of Kings. It’s hard to miss a cover like that when you’re 1.) a fantasy fan and 2.) a library employee. I picked up the audio books via Libby last summer, when I realized that a second book was out, and now I’ve had the immense privilege of returning once again to the Sovan Empire with book #3.

The Empire of the Wolf is told from the perspective of Helena Sedanka, an orphan who was been taken in and trained by Sir Konrad Vonvalt, an Emperor’s Justice. In that position, he serves as travelling judge, jury, and when needed, executioner, carrying out the will of the courts wherever he may be. Helena acts as his legal clerk and apprentice, producing documentation of their efforts and learning the intricacies of the Sovan legal system along the way. For some time, they were both content to travel the northern reaches of the empire, but an encounter with a zealous church official, Patria Bartholomew Claver, changed everything.

Claver sought a return to the days when the Church of Nema controlled the powers now held by the Order of Justices: ancient magics that could be used to compel action, the ability to confer with the dead, command over wildlife. All of these and more had once officially been the exclusive realm of the church, but they had been taught to the Justices to aid their work. Frustrated by the lack of action from the majority of the Church, Claver found his way to darker places, making bargains with powers that he didn’t truly understand in order to bring about the change he desired. Now, he seems to have set his sights on control of the Empire itself, no matter what demon or deity he has to bargain with to make it happen. He sits at the head of an army of Templars poised to strike down the Emperor, ostensibly in Nema’s name.

Now, Vonvalt’s own unshakable faith in the Common Law is beginning to break. In his attempts to thwart Claver, he has become persona non grata, believed to be responsible for the death of the Emperor’s grandson. A rebellion against the Magistratum has reached its zenith, and the justices are by and large disbanded or dead. Vonvalt will find no safe haven in the capital. What he and Helena need most are more allies who can withstand Claver’s burgeoning Templar army. A journey far beyond the borders of Sova might be able to accomplish just that, but acquiring the aid they need may prove deadly. Such travels will need to be made not only on the material plane but in the various realms accessible only through the ancient magics. Helena and Vonvalt will place their lives and their souls on the line in order to defeat Claver, but it might not be enough to save the empire. Loyalties will be questioned, near-death experiences will be had, and trickster gods will play their hands at last. It’s going to be messy.

Richard Swan brings his fantasy trilogy to a powerful conclusion in The Trials of Empire. His strength in blending traditional elements of western fantasy with jurisprudence makes for compelling reading, especially for someone raised on Lord of the Rings and John Grisham like me. The Empire of the Wolf hews far closer to A Song of Ice and Fire than to LOTR, but the comparison stands. I have enjoyed this series more with each book, and I’m thrilled to say that The Trials of Empire is out on shelves today. You should check it out.

My utmost thanks to Orbit Books and NetGalley for an eARC of The Trials of Empire in exchange for a fair review.

The Kaiju Preservation Society: A Review

I was in middle school the first time I saw the word “kaiju” in print. I was on a Godzilla kick, because I was in middle school, and Godzilla books had been readily available for a few years at that point, thanks mostly (I guess) to Roland Emmerich’s 1998 film. I had been to my parents’ bookstore and found a couple of mass market paperbacks of other Godzilla titles, and started to learn my way around the other residents of Monster Island. A love of the giant creatures was born that has persisted to this day, across films like Pacific Rim and the films and comics within the Godzilla franchise. Now imagine my joy when one of my favorite sci-fi writers announced an upcoming novel titled The Kaiju Preservation Society.

John Scalzi is a remarkably fun writer to read, and since it’s been a while since the last time I read one of his books, I’d forgotten that. TKPS is a ridiculously fun ride. When Jamie Gray loses his job in the middle of the COVID-19 pandemic, he turns to delivering food around New York in an attempt to keep up with his bills. This brings him into contact with Tom, an old college friend who tells Jamie that he has a job opportunity for him with a group that does preservation work for large animals. What Jamie was not expecting was for that job to be on the other side of a dimensional barrier separating our Earth from an alternate one populated by nuclear-powered creatures the size of apartment buildings.

Jamie emerges on the other side of the barrier to find a small scientific research base, where he will serve as a gofer for the numerous scientists studying the kaiju that inhabit this parallel world. He quickly makes friends and becomes acclimated to the bizarre biology of the local populace, learning what a threat virtually everything on that side of the barrier is (in short, everything will either kill you or try really hard to do so). Rapidly changing circumstances lead Jamie to understand, however, that not everyone associated with The Kaiju Preservation Society is as well-intentioned as he is, as an impending disaster threatens everyone and everything on both sides of the rift.

This was a fast-paced, very fun novel, that reads like a mashup of Pacific Rim and Jurassic Park. My only complaint is that we don’t get to spend a lot of time in the world, and I would love to see Scalzi release a sequel at some point down the line. The Kaiju Preservation Society is out in stores tomorrow, March 15th. Go get yourself a copy asap. My utmost thanks to Macmillan/Tor and NetGalley for an eARC in exchange for an honest review.