Tom Holt’s YouSpace series is fun. It’s science fantasy with a lot of absurdity and a convoluted plot. It’s a little too proud of its cleverness sometimes and the characters’ personalities are all very similar (men one way, women another), but the parallel world setup is neat. Mordak the Dark Lord from the Tolkein-esque world is my favorite character so far.
*Became the Goblin King by not dying
*Goblin Kings get their heads cut off for losing wars, so clearly the important thing was to prevent wars through diplomacy and tricking the Dwarves into signing a truce. Peaceful retirement from being king was not a likely option.
*While he was at it, set up a health care system. Tied himself in knots trying to philosophically justify why this was all actually Evil.
*Said forget it and just bought an Elvish newspaper to run thinkpieces about how all his actions were Secretly Evil. PR for his subjects, since being portrayed as a bloodthirsty monster could only help keep him on the throne.
*Constant snarking with his Elvish secretary. Tintuviel is competent, morally suspect, and overall breathtakingly condescending. She’s fun.
*Has to persuade his people (proud battle maniacs) to become basket weavers for a while. This actually works.
*Participates in a class-action lawsuit against colonizers from a parallel world. Turns out mining uranium for centuries has had negative effects on his people.
*Canon ace
*Has a daughter. He is very proud of her.
Basically a softhearted manipulative bastard who’s very sensible and a little pathetic and he’s also a Dark Lord.