This startling humility in the character is mirrored in the theme of the book: a gamer being forced to make the best of a profession he disdained, and learning that it was maybe more complex and important than he thought. Even better, when they get exasperated with Arnold, he reflects on his actions and sees where he was in error.

It turned the backdrop of the hero’s quest into a real world, with people who have their own lives and priorities.

They’re usually favorably amazed by the narrator’s prowess or talents, not unfavorably by his blunders and ignorance. The supporting cast in LitRPG usually exists as a cheering squad. Oh Great! decided to buck this trend by making Arnold’s relationships with his neighbors an important part of his growth, and by allowing those friends to call the narrator on his mistakes. The typical LitRPG is a power fantasy (which is great, because who doesn’t want a popcorn read about a hero who keeps accumulating more and better everything?), so it is long on lone wolves and short on believable friendships. I was willing to set aside my expectations of leveling via growing the perfect beet or using alchemy to concoct a novel pesticide, however, because Oh Great! had an unusually likable cast of characters, and a shocking amount of introspection in its narrator. What it wasn’t, however, was a story about how a protagonist became a power by farming, which was (I admit) what I was hoping for. So when I heard there was a book about a gamer who got reincarnated, not as a powerful wizard or warrior with an obvious path to demigodhood, but as a farmer, I thought ‘okay, that idea has legs if it’s done well.’ The title convinced me, because it was unafraid of its own corniness, and the fact that the art was riffing on Grant Wood’s American Gothic amused my inner artist. I’ve read enough in the subgenre that I am no longer as easily delighted as I used to be. The pioneers of the niche paved the way but like urban fantasy with its cookie-cutter snark and college-aged narrators, it’s getting harder and harder for authors be clever and funny in a way that sticks with the reader. LitRPG is a subgenre that revolves around the cleverness of its protagonists and its embrace of tongue-in-cheek humor.

Benjamin kerei book 2