A world on the precipice of the apocalypse. A secret forged in the flames of war. A chance to start over.
For John Sutton, only one of those three things matters.
Retired from a decade of brutal war, he wants nothing more than a quiet pastoral life while he does his best to stem the steady increase of his Doom Points before they hit 100, signaling the start of the end.
He’s been given a small farm on the outskirts of the empire as a thanks for his service, but no matter how far he travels, it's impossible to escape the war's devastating effects on the world.
Bandits, suspicious townsfolk, a mysterious pair of siblings, and a secret that lurks in the mountains all threaten John’s peace. It will take all of his considerable power to keep from burning everything to the ground.
My Opinion: 412 pages, $4.99, Available On Kindle Unlimited
An overpowered main character (MC) with a fighter/mage class becomes a farmer when he retires. The story is a slice of life account of him getting to his farm, dealing with some local thugs who try to rip him off, and a more interesting plot that does some good world building relating to forbidden magic. But it's mostly the MC getting his equipment, starting to farm, figuring out how to make his farm profitable.
There is an RPG system that works in this fantasy world and certain people have classes that make them much more powerful than the average person. But there’s not a lot of progression for the MC. At the start of the story the MC is already high leveled with his very limited class skills already maxed out and a load of free points that he just can’t use. He’s also already built up all his none-class related skills as far as they’ll go. The MC ends up being a badass fighter, though he’s supposed to have a mage class.
Overall, it’s a pretty good story. The conflicts with the gang and the Wolf King came to a satisfying end, the gradual revelation about the history of magic in the world and how it relates to the MCs farm was nicely strung out so it never felt like an info dump and the action in the story was well written. Additionally the farming, while the least interesting to me, was magic’d enough to show growth in a short amount of time. The only thing that brought it down a little for me was that the MC is so overpowered there was never really any tension since it never seemed like he’d lose.
Score: 7.5 out of 10
Domestication: A Fantasy LitRPG Adventure (Battle Mage Farmer Book 1)