Humorous science fiction or fantasy is my catnip.  The title alone was enough for me to tuck this book under my arm at the bookstore.  The synopsis sealed the deal.

In the best tradition of “Groundhog Day”, Davi always awakens nude in a small pond every time she dies.  And she’s always met by the Kingdom’s most venerated wizard.  And she always does all she can to protect the Kingdom from the dreaded Dark Lord and their horde.  And she always, always fails at the end; no matter what she does, the Dark Lord always wins the day and she ends up in a dungeon being eaten one finger at a time by a nasty snake-woman.  After a thousand years trying, she’s pretty sure there’s no way for the Kingdom to win.  She doesn’t remember much of her previous life on Earth except for random memories; but she sure does remember each time she’s died.  So the next time she dies, she resolves to change the narrative.  She decides she’ll be the next Dark Lord; to hell with always being on the losing end. 

So instead of butchering the small group of Orcs in the woods (as she’s done hundreds of times), she tries something a little different.  She tries to convince them that she isn’t really human but a wilder, just like them.  It takes several deaths before she accumulates enough information about them to convince them she’s a powerful wizard; plus she has a little thing she can do to prove she isn’t human.

Once she has that group consolidated and believing in her, she takes them on a march to the Dark Lord Convocation where the next Dark Lord will be selected…or something.  Since Davi has never been on this side of the fence, she’s a bit unclear about the selection process; but she’s pretty sure she needs to arrive at the head of her own horde.  Her hidden talent is that she’s able to wield both wilder and human magic; probably because she isn’t from this world.  Unfortunately, either side will try to kill her immediately if they suspect she can wield the wrong kind of magic.

As they encounter other wilder groups, Davi manages to add some or all of them to her growing horde.  Her snarky comments keep me snickering but her closest advisors just roll their eyes and keep going.  One major change for Davi is that she finds herself falling hard for the sexy bald lady Orc in charge of the first group she suborned.  And Davi finds that she really doesn’t want to keep dying and starting over; she wants to continue that relationship and even her growing relationships with others in her horde.  So that puts a different complexion on her choices; she can’t take the easy way out and die in a difficult situation.  She also discovers the difficulties of being a good leader; she has to truly care about her warriors even when that leads to heartbreak.

But even as she marches closer and closer to her ultimate goal of being the next Dark Lord, she’s trying to think how she’ll be able to keep both her horde and the humans all alive and not trying to slaughter each other.  That may well prove to be the breaking point for Davi.

I can’t think why Davi’s journey and her slow accumulation of wilders reminds me of another story; but it seems very familiar.  Each situation is a little different and Davi has to use different tactics to convince them to march under her banner.  And it’s all a great deal of fun.

Mostly it’s Davi and her fatalistic outlook (after you’ve died over and over again for a thousand years, then you can criticize) sprinkled liberally with non-sequiturs and out-worlder references (from what she can remember of Earth) that makes the story so fun.  Desperate not to die and start over again, Davi has to push herself to make the best decisions and that was a lot of fun to watch.

It was a good plot; a journey of companions to a treasure, a troupe of very different types brought together for a greater good, and a devil-may-care heroine determined to save everyone.  Surely that story has been told before…  I don’t care, this story was good and I am so glad there is more to come – see the title.

The supporting characters did tend to be more shallow than Davi and the world-building was almost non-existent.  On the other hand, how much world-building do you need just to traipse through an unending forest and make camp?  Besides, the focus of the story was really about Davi making new and different choices and the reader wondering if she’ll succeed or die trying.  ~~  Catherine Book

For more titles by Django Wexler click here