How to Defeat A Demon King in Ten Easy Steps by Andrew Rowe

TL;DR: The Hero hasn’t appeared so Yui Shaw takes it upon herself to get the magical sword and stop his army! I loved this!
Source: NetGalley , Thank you so much to the publisher!

Plot: Take a classic game (think Zelda) and then give an NPC the free will and drive to try and defeat the Demon King. How can you loose?
Characters: For something that uses a lot of very familiar tropes I found the characters hilarious and fresh.
Setting: This roams over a world that feels just familiar enough to not be foreign. The focus certainly wasn’t on it, but it did help.
Fantasy: Again, think ‘classic game’ fantasy and you have it. Plus LitRPG elements.

Summary:

For thousands of years, there has been a a Demon King rises and conquers, and a Hero is reborn a hundred years later to defeat him. Each time, civilisations are ground to dust beneath the Demon King’s hordes, but humanity has remained secure in the belief that a Hero of legend will always save them. There’s just one slight problem. It’s only been 23 years since the Demon King’s latest rise, and this time, he’s already conquered more than half the world. If humanity simply waits for the Hero’s return, there may be no world left for him to save.

And so, Yui Shaw sets out with an ambitious plan. A 10-step plan.

She’ll find a way to obtain the Hero’s legendary sword. She’ll earn obscure classes, gain levels, and increase her skills. She’ll travel to the meticulously-crafted dungeons that seem designed for one specific Hero to complete. And, if she’s truly (un)fortunate, she might even find a fairy.

Thoughts:

If you’ve played any classic games you know you frequently go into people’s houses and break their things, or rifle through their trash. What would you think if those NPCs were instead the hero of the story and end up saving the day? Never thought about it? Well this is the book for you. Yui Shaw is once such ‘npc’ in a world where The Demon King rises, then the Hero appears and defeats him. Over and over, this cycle repeats. Until it doesn’t and the Demon King is doing the most he can with no one to stop him. Yui, of the very mundane Bag Mage class, decides she is going to do something about it.

This is the beauty of How to Defeat a Demon King for me. We have what at first blush would be the ‘mule’ character – the one that can hold lots of items, and makes her the main character. It’s clever, because it has to be! Yui has no big spells, she has no big muscles, she has to figure this out as she goes. I adore that type of character and story. Along the way she meets more misfits. We have a cleric who is very concerned with his fashion (so much so the Fasionista class is an option for him). We have a Fairy that failed, and a swords man who is more awkward than all of them put together.

While I don’t think the writing is to die for, I do absolutely love the story and think it needs more eyes. If you enjoy gaming and reading or you have a friend who does, anyone really – pick this up. It’s just so much fun and want so many more people to try it. This is a huge recommendation from me and I will be shouting about it for a long time.