Dark Lord Davi rules the kingdom, but she must now break the time loop that binds her in this hilariously bloody conclusion to the Dark Lord Davi duology.

After countless failures (let’s not dwell on it), Davi has finally saved the kingdom from evil–by becoming the Dark Lord herself. But now, the hordes of wilders are at her command, and they still want blood. Human blood. And Davi’s not sure she can commit to the total extermination of humanity.

With restless armies at her doorstep, a treasonous duke scheming for power, and the legend of an ancient magician looming over her shoulder, Davi must find a way towards peace and uncover the truth behind her time loop if she is to bring harmony to the kingdom. Also, her girlfriend is mad at her. So, there’s that too.

My Review:

I’d apologize for the earworm but sometimes misery just demands company. If I’ve got Tears for Fears singing “Everybody Wants to Rule the World” stuck in my head for days and days, so does everyone – perhaps that should be ‘everybody’ – else. And it fits right in with the pop culture nostalgia that just oozes from the Dark Lord Davi’s snarkitude.

Because after more than 1,000 years of reset lives and repeated disasters, those pop culture references make up most of what she remembers from the world she was plucked out of so many centuries ago.

So many centuries that she’s lost track of just how many. Or she’s been MADE TO lose track of. After all, the presence of a ‘chosen one’ – and Davi most certainly is THAT – implies the presence of a ‘chooser’ doing that choosing. A chooser that seems to have suddenly changed all the rules now that Davi has herself chosen to veer off her chosen, appointed, destined course.

The course of attempting to save the world and failing. Over and over and over again. She recognized the trope she’s trapped in as part of the first book in the Dark Lord Davi Duology (say that three times fast, I dare you). She’s stuck in something like a videogame, expected to play the hero, failing to save the people she’s come to care about, and then resetting to the starting point every time she fails.

This time around she’s decided on an ‘asshole’ playthrough. Instead of the shining hero trying to save the so-called ‘good guys’, and failing, she’s playing this time around as the evil Dark Lord, trying to save the creatures she once considered the villains. And it’s been working surprisingly well.

Equally surprising, it changed her focus. Because the good guys weren’t all that good in the end – and it turns out that the evil creatures aren’t all that evil. They’re just trying to survive the constant encroachment of humans who absolutely cannot seem to stop displaying their inhumanity to anyone who is not themselves at every turn.

Davi’s new plan is to get the humans and the non-humans to make peace. She’s got all the tools she needs to make it work. After all, she knows all the human players and all their strategies after watching them (and herself!) get massacred over and over again due to their own inability to get it together.

But there’s someone waiting in the wings who absolutely did not choose Davi to save, well, anyone at all if it comes down to it. He’s not on board with ANY of her plans, and he keeps throwing giant, dragon-shaped monkey wrenches into her hopes for peace and mutual prosperity.

Which means that Davi is going to have to find all of his plans and throw her own monkey wrenches into those on her way to a future she might finally get to have. All she has to do is keep the humans and the non-humans from tearing out each other’s throats long enough to dispose of a god.

No pressure, amirite?

Escape Rating A-: This is still and absolutely a wild and snarkastic romp of a ride. It just has a whole lot more heart this time around because Davi has discovered hers – and given it away to people she can’t bear to lose or even start over with. Not to mention, she’s fallen in love with her sexy orc lieutenant Tsav and has finally started seeing her horde not as disposable minions but as a found family she wants to grow up and even, perhaps grow old with in a future that she’s never even dreamed of.

In other words, Davi has finally discovered real consequences to her actions. Because every time she dies and restarts, all the relationships she’s created and the memories she’s made are all gone. If the people she’s made those memories with are merely minions, it’s all good – at least for certain rather selfish definitions of ‘good’. But if most of them are the siblings from other misters she’s never had as well as the love of ALL her lives, she now has a whole lot of hostages to fortune that she wants to save – with their memories intact.

So the story this time around has a bit of a different tone. Davi is as snarky as she’s ever been, but she isn’t nearly as reckless, leading to a bit more heartburn and a hell of a lot more angst.

The course of this adventure is different as well. In How to Become the Dark Lord AND Die Trying, the story is pretty much that. Davi is Tom Cruise in Edge of Tomorrow, dying over and over again to get a shot at getting things right.

This time around, Davi isn’t just trying to save the humans, or for that matter to save the horde. This time around, she’s trying to save EVERYONE. There are no takesies-backsies – and it changes everything. Because her attempt to change the rules has made her aware that there is a force opposing her, looking on from the outside of the playing field, changing the rules to enforce an agenda of her own.

So, on the one side, we have Davi scrambling to get all the pieces on both sides of the board into the right places to have a chance at stopping the endless massacres. On the other side there’s an agency who keeps pushing everyone towards the massacre for reasons of their own – using Davi and everyone else as their pawns.

As much as this story is about Davi brokering peace between the humans and the horde, it’s really about Davi’s quest for a life of her own, on her own, as no one’s pawn but her own, by finding and destroying whoever or whatever is pulling the levers on everyone’s lives – including HER own.

That her opponent’s motives are sucky but not completely wrong – or crazy – made for a fascinating and surprisingly somewhat serious ending to a duology that started out being all about the fun – and often funny – aspects of aspiring to be the Dark Lord. That we leave the story wondering if Davi’s solution is going to work for the long haul makes for a thought-provoking conclusion to this utterly satisfying romp.