Oh, Great! I Was Reincarnated as a Farmer, Benjamin Kerei

power leveling, one orchard at a time

LitRPG is a subgenre that revolves around the cleverness of its protagonists and its embrace of tongue-in-cheek humor. 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.

I’ve read enough in the subgenre that I am no longer as easily delighted as I used to be. 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. So I took the chance.

Good news: the book was charming. 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. 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. 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. 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.

This was the rare part. The supporting cast in LitRPG usually exists as a cheering squad. They’re usually favorably amazed by the narrator’s prowess or talents, not unfavorably by his blunders and ignorance. It turned the backdrop of the hero’s quest into a real world, with people who have their own lives and priorities. Even better, when they get exasperated with Arnold, he reflects on his actions and sees where he was in error. 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. For once, I felt the narrator grew as a person as well as a character sheet.

This is not to say that Arnold farms, mind you. LitRPG requires gaming the system, and Arnold’s specialty is finding creative ways to avoid things he doesn’t like (like growing things). If you are worried that there won’t be enough monster-killing, experience-gaining, and hair-raising-battling in Oh Great! you can relax, it’s all included. But the crux of Arnold’s success is his ability to brainstorm unorthodox solutions to his limitations and his willingness to learn from other people, and I enjoyed seeing where that synergy took him next.

I liked Oh Great! best when it was doing things least expected by the subgenre. I’m hoping Kerei will lean into those strengths in whatever he does next, because I’d like to see where he goes with it. If you’re into the genre and are looking for something unusual, Oh Great! was funny and satisfying without skipping the fight scenes; if you’re a regular fantasy reader, you might find this one entertaining, particularly if you’ve gamed enough to recognize how RPG mechanics work.

Oh Great! I Was Reincarnated as a Farmer. Get it here. (KU only, alas.)