Synopsis
This is the story of Jackson Blackwell, the Shadow Master, and the top villain adviser. Sadly, even the top villain occasionally gets double-crossed. Trapped in one of the fantasy realms, Jackson has to use his skill and wits to exploit the rules, points out the genre flaws, undermine godly authority, and win the day. Because that is what villains should do, shouldn’t they?
Villains Rule, is a fantasy action-comedy that you have to read. Not because it redefines the genre, far from it. But for what it contains: A true villain’s tale. How often do you get to read a story where the villain is the protagonist? Read this book, have a few laughs, and find out.
Review
VILLAINS RULE by MK Gibson is a fantastic send-up of superheroes, fantasy, and indie published novels in roughly that order. As a writer of supervillain fiction and deconstructions of fantasy, this is right up my alley but I think just about anyone who likes deconstructive parodies will find much to appreciate in this series. Jackson Blackwell is a sarcastic haughty protagonist who takes the **** out of every single sacred idea of geek culture and is all the more entertaining for the fact that the narrative doesn’t treat it as the Word of God. Even when he’s a god.
The premise is that Jackson Blackwell, The Shadow Master, is a villain who successfully won it all. He was an evil sorcerer on his version of 21st century Earth that managed to somehow achieve godhood and has set himself in his own little pocket dimension where he is absolute master of everything. Which oddly has resulted in him opening a villainous consultation business out of annoyance that so many other villains are “doing it wrong.”
Yes, Villains Rule is an office comedy of sorts. Jackson Blackwell is a one-man Evil Overlord’s List that wishes to guide other nefarious ne’er do wells to the path of genre savvy. His business model is somewhat hit and miss because the average villain in every world tends to be a narcissistic psychopath. This ends up getting Jackson in trouble as his constant berating of villains, even with the power of a god, results in him being stripped of his powers and banished to a Dungeons and Dragons-esque world.
Reduced to a 1st level commoner with only his sharp wits to guide him, Jackson is forced to team up with a group of, ugh, heroes, in order to get back all that he is lost and achieve some form of vengeance against his enemies. The heroes are a collection of archetypes that have a lot of surprising depth to them, though. I was especially fond of Lydia, who is the only member of the teams that can match Jackson for intelligence as well as ruthlessness.
This is fundamentally a comedy and a dark fantasy parody but that doesn’t mean I didn’t enjoy it from beginning to end. Jackson is in no way likable but he’s endearing in a way that we’ve all wanted someone to tear into the worst cliches and yet also suffer the comeuppance of not engaging with the genre. The funniest parts of the books are when Jackson insists on something being stupid only for it to still be very much real and dangerous.
Does the book have flaws? Yes, yes it does. It seems to ping pong between parody of internet critics and complainers versus actually telling an engaging story a little too much. Jackson’s motives are comic book-y in the sense that, “I like evil because I’m a villain but I hate stupid wasteful evil. What more do you want me to do?” Which sort of limits the amount of character development he can.
However, I think the book is a consistently entertaining read and you should definitely check it out. I’ve enjoyed all of MK Gibson’s books and while I prefer the Technomancer series to this, I think it’s definitely something that warrants an afternoon’s read if any of this sounds like the kind of thing you’d enjoy. Certainly I’ve wanted to journey to a fantasy world and wring the necks of the idiots therein.
In conclusion, Villains Rule is a fun book that is full of great comedic moments and delightfully enjoyable cynicism. Cynicism that gets rebutted just as often as it is reinforced. i also like the world building that takes the somewhat generic fantasy land of the setting (deliberately so) and still gives it a lot of character. It’s also available on Kindle Unlimited if you have that and are on a budget.
