Book Introduction
The book today is How to Defeat a Demon King in 10 Easy Steps by Andrew Rowe and if you like what you hear, there’s a full podcast coming out September 19th where I discuss this book at length with my good friend Jeff.
What’s it About:
The world is stuck in a tradition of a Demon King trying to conquer land for his kind and a Hero rises every ~100 years to defeat him. The Silver Goddesses made that decision, so there you go. Yui Shaw, our main character and definitely not a Hero, is in a cycle where the Demon King is moving quicker than normal. Instead of waiting for the Hero, she takes matters into her own, unique hands despite not having the Legendary Hero’s Sword. Yui finds friends on her journey as she pushes against tradition and attempts to make the world a better place in the most obscure and odd ways possible.
This book is part of litRPG (Literary Role Playing Game), a subgenre of GameLit (ex. Podcast that we’ve done in this genre is Ready Player One). This book isn’t shy about pulling tropes out of games. For me, I sensed a lot of Legend of Zelda, Dungeons and Dragons, and Elder Scrolls vibes in how the world is structured. Others say it has Dragon Quest and Final Fantasy influences as well. So, if you enjoy those kinds of games, you’ll probably see this as a novelized variant of them.
Top Thoughts (What I liked/Didn’t Like):
Once I started reading, I found this book hard to put down. I enjoyed the light-hearted way Andrew wrote the story and I liked how he balanced the world building, class mechanics, story plot, and character development. I also found Yui and her initiative humorous. She never let tradition get in her way!
Now, while I believe Andrew did a good job balancing everything we’d need to know for this story, it’s definitely more difficult for folks unfamiliar with the tropes and mechanics of RPGs to dig in. Think of that T.V. Show or Movie that only makes sense if you’ve read the book or played the game. It’s kind of like that. If given more pages, I do think the barrier for non-RPG lovers could be lowered. Just be careful, though, the barrier might just be a mimic!
Some things I’ll be discussing with Jeff on Sept. 19th:
· Tradition vs. Progress
· Creativity and Cleverness vs. “proper” tools/methods
· Who’s really the bad guy in this book? The Demon King, Yui, or the Goddesses?
· What makes a hero really?
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