One Moo'r Plow: Minotaur farming litrpg

by Exemplar Invictus

Somebody once told a joke. A man ran in place all his life. He worked a job he didn't love for people he couldn't stand. But at the end of the day, the number in his bank account went up. That man got a second chance at life. He woke up in another world, full of adventures and romances and monsters and gods. And floating above his head he saw the number "1". So what did he say? "Gosh I better make the number go up." Not today. Not for this old soul. Reborn as a beast of battle meant to live a short life and die screaming, Garek refuses. He puts the madness of skills and levels behind him and sets out to found a little farmstead. He grows crops. Maybe someday he'll get a pig, and have bacon. It's a shame the world won't let him be. It's a shame that the warmongers and level-grinders hate nothing more than a soul at peace. He put down his sword for a plowshare, but when trouble comes calling, he'll pick it up again.

Genres: Fantasy, Magic, Slice Of Life, Audiobook, Historical, Fiction

550 pages, Paperback

Published August 3, 2023

Reviews

[M · Rating 3 out of 5]

2.5 at best.
It's not. It's not great.
Rebirth sequence or lack thereof, as it was non-existent, is an important bit of information in isekai genre. Author didn't want to put any stock in those kind of nuance, I reckon. He simply told us in a run-on sentence, as if this tidbit was inconsequential to the story. There was no character creation, MC is just placed in a Minotaur's body and Bob's your uncle. I think author must have read Casual Farming (Sowing Season) by Wolf Locke and thought what if the farmer was cultivating monster plants instead of trying to kill them. I think it's a mashup between Beware of Chicken and Casual Farming with possible elements from Battle Mage Farmer.

[Roberto Flores · Rating 5 out of 5]

This has good bones, but a very rough structure. The front end set up is superb, very slice of life with very descriptive characters. The middle is where it trips up. The story shift is too abrupt, things start to stall. Reading the middle is a slow, ponderous experience. The ending just happens. But, and this is a big but, but this sets up a series beautifully. I love the characters, I love the setting and the system. This just needs polish to be a wonderful series.

[Kevin · Rating 2 out of 5]

From the blurb this looks like a knock off Beware of Chicken. I hope it's entertaining.

The author seems to have taken the start of Beware of Chicken as inspiration for the novel. The starting for both are very similar, but this book diverges early on.
While I think Beware of Chicken's message is that you can find ways to grow stronger by not being murder happy. This book so far (Chapter 28) seems to be that no matter how you try to escape the violence, it always finds a way to come back to you.
Will see how the book goes.

I'm not really a fan, as the protag is a monster farmer. (I wonder if this is what Dante King used to make his copycat book. Didn't read it, but I know he copies other people's stories).

I was right. This is "you can't escape your past by farming".

I don't think I will read the sequel. The protag was getting levels one after the other at the beginning. Then after weeks of work, he only gets two.
I'm not interested in books where the author stunts growth to stretch the story.
I'm already reading many of those (that only revealed themselves later in the series), and I will not willingly pick up a sequel that is showing me from book one that it has those plans in mind.
Also I read this because I was interested in surviving off the land with magic, and there was very little of that. More fighting than farming.

Yep. Just ended this and it looks like things will be dragged out.

2.5/5 Stars

[Benjamin · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'm still just in awe that this is apparently a genre. It's like... I guess it's a video game? The main character is playing his character in a video game, sort of? Except the main character permanently moved into a video game for real? Maybe? But that's never really explored, it just starts as he's already there and starts listing game mechanics in lieu of, like, a setting. I'm not exaggerating, the narrator talks about leveling up and explaining the different moves he can do and has a menu and stuff. But, it's not a rulebook for a game, it's a prose story about a character who's already playing the game. It's like a direct 1:1 transcription of someone relaying everything they've been doing in a game they like to you in complete seriousness and in-depth detail, but you walked into the conversation late and missed the part where they mentioned that this was a game they played and not just their day.

The thing is, it's not actually any worse than a lot of the schlock fantasy I've picked up at garage sales and genuinely enjoyed, it's just harder to categorize or relate to. I guess maybe this is just a new thing that happens when video games are old enough to have been grown adult authors' primary source of escapism since they were a kid? Neverending Story and Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court and whatnot were about characters getting pulled into books and were written when books were the primary format of leisure media, so, I guess this is kind of just the same thing for modern readers? Maybe? And that's such a common premise that we can just skip the part where they're somehow moved into the game in the first place and just start on chapter 3 and everyone just kind of rolls with it?

I don't know man, I feel like the whole beginning of it is missing, but maybe I'm just old. Beyond being continually bewildered by what it does instead of establishing a setting or explaining why anything is happening, I don't have any real complaints. It gets pretty hard to follow towards the end because the rules of the world are left so ambiguous that it's hard to measure conflict that's based around them, but I've noticed that problem in a majority of books where overt sorcery is a thing and characters try to fight with it. It's a light read, but there's nothing wrong with that, and I found the bizarre conceit to be more interesting than off-putting; it's certainly something I haven't seen before, and that's worth a lot by itself.

[Cmoore · Rating 5 out of 5]

I really enjoyed listening to One Moo'r Plow. I love slice-of-life adventure series and this one is great. With great characters and farming, you simply can't beat it. That is until you can't ignore the monsters, and farm any longer, then you hafta use all your experience to fight the monsters, to save your friends and the world. Garek is not only fighting but making potions too. Leaving Exemplar Invictus time to set up a great ending for Garek the minotaur, in order tackle his next book and planting season.

Here's a humorous quote I found to share:

"...but that’s ‘cause humans are everywhere here.” She grimaced a little. “Not ta’ be an asshole or anythin’, but they’re kinda like pests. Short lives, breed a lot of kids, spread, and stick their noses in everything. Don’t matter if you kill a few, there’s always more to take their place. Kinda like bigger, pink goblins.”

[Jason · Rating 2 out of 5]

Just another dumb isekai litRPG. Levels flow like water, the world makes no sense, the MC is OP and tons of inconsistencies.

Within days of taking up farming he makes a better healing potion than anyone else in the world, without even having an alchemist class. Everyone helps him because he's so wonderful except the dumb people that fight him which he easily beats despite being inexperienced.

It's just random stuff happening that makes no sense in a world where apparently nothing happens outside the sight of the MC because everyone is super dumb.

[Victor Sanchez · Rating 3 out of 5]

Its like a more bland, less exciting Beware of Chicken. I wish we knew more about Gareth previous life, and why he didn't want anything to do with war or battle, even when he continously expose such poetry about blood and honor and so on. The entire thing with the tax collector and the baron felt unfinished and his animosity with the Orc went nowhere. The dungeon final battle was.... it was a thing. definitely.

This book seemed more about planting for the sequel than a book on its own, but the farm life and his friendships were honestly very well done. So a 3 star.

[GaiusPrimus · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book has everything that I would like. Portal basis, gamelit mechanics, farming in a magical world and adventuring. Yet, it doesn't really stand out on any of them.

It's a good story, with a good main character, ok pacing and direction. I just wish that when advertising itself as a farming LitRPG, that there would be more than a token nod to farming.

[Cally · Rating 3 out of 5]

I listened to the audio book. It was pretty good. I enjoyed the ending but honestly it wasn't as good as I thought it would be. I enjoyed the climax and all but I could have enjoyed more farming too. It felt like the author wanted an action packed farming book but couldn't make the two to work together and the result feels like it should be two different stories.

[Michael · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was well written but not to my taste. It starts as slice-of-life and transitions to graphically violent unexpectedly. When I am looking for slice-of-life I am not in the mood for gore, even if some violence happens.

[Wetdryvac · Rating 5 out of 5]

Less cozy that expected, given the word cozy in the kindle title, but that's OK. A fun read.

[Mahalia Gosla · Rating 5 out of 5]

The audio was amazing!

[Meagan · Rating 4 out of 5]

More farming please. And monstrous creatures adopted as pets.

[Kenny Hansen]

Audible