This book has helped me decide that I really don’t like this genre, which is shocking and disappointing. Because I loved Dungeon Crawler Carl. Somehow DCC is able to keep me engaged in ways that literally every other book in the genre I’ve tried just can’t manage.
Maybe it’s something to do with this being a relatively new genre, with newer, less experienced authors. Maybe it’s the fact that many of these books start life as serial uploads on Royal Road or similar sites, only later getting picked up by a publisher once they gain enough traction. That pipeline rewards rapid output and reader dopamine hits more than careful plotting, character development, or editing. And it shows.
That said, I want to be clear: these authors aren’t bad. They’re fine. And here I am with zero books written, so genuinely - good on Zachary Scott and other LitRPG authors for actually doing the thing, finding an audience, and building careers. I wish them all the best.
But specifically with Level One God, the book has a somewhat interesting premise and then largely fails to execute on it.
The protagonist used to be a god in this world, but for reasons initially unknown, reset his progress down to level one in a kind of prestige system. So yes, he’s technically level one, for a very brief period, but he’s also more powerful than most people, progresses faster than everyone else, and has retained some items, abilities, and vague advantages from his previous godhood. He also has amnesia, because of course he does.
[[Spoilers, I guess]] Eventually we learn that he reset himself because he was the first god to discover how to do so, and others quickly followed. The gods apparently did this in order to become strong enough to defeat something. An undefined threat that is supposedly more powerful than them. This reveal is meant to add mystery and stakes, but it mostly just feels thin and underdeveloped.
I had to force myself to finish the book. The characters aren’t particularly interesting, including the protagonist. He feels less like a person and more like a bundle of mechanics being pushed through a system. Relationships are shallow, dialogue is serviceable at best, and emotional beats rarely land. The story spends far more time explaining systems, levels, and abilities than making me care about who this character is or why I should root for him beyond raw power accumulation.
And that, I think, is the core problem. Not just with this book, but with much of the genre. DCC works because the game mechanics serve the story and the characters, not the other way around. There are stakes, humor, genuine emotion, and a sense that the author knows exactly what kind of story he’s telling. Level One God feels like a premise in search of a novel, padded out with familiar tropes and progression beats that never quite coalesce into something compelling.
If you’re already deep into LitRPG and enjoy the power fantasy and system-forward storytelling, you may get more out of this than I did. But for me, this book pretty decisively confirmed that outside of rare exceptions this just isn’t a genre I’m going to keep chasing.