He Who Fights With Monsters

A Book Review

I am a long time fantasy reader. And by long time, I mean a long time. I read my first fantasy book when I was in fifth grade and my brother shoved The Hobbit into my young, greedy hands. I have been an avid reader of the genre ever since. And I’m now sixty. If you do the math, that adds up to an awful lot of fantasy novels.

So, when my friend suggested I read this LitRPG novel I couldn’t say no. After all, it’s a fantasy book in a subgenre I had barely heard of and had no experience with. Every time someone described to me what LitRPG was, I had this incomplete—and completely wrong—idea that it was some kind of “choose your own adventure” book. 

He Who Fights With Monsters is an Isekai novel about a young man named Jason Asano who is summoned to a fantasy world by accident. From there, he must learn to survive, fight monsters, and avoid getting his head hit by shovels. He succeeds at the first two and fails miserably at the third. 

First, let’s get the LitRPG part out of the way. LitRPG simply means that this is a novel where the world building includes a detailed definition of the game system rules of the world and magic system. It’s as if he was a player in a video game RPG. So, windows appear before him presenting features that a Player Character (PC) would have in a video game. This includes an inventory that he can interact with, a map, and information about the various things he finds. When he kills a monster, a voice asks him if he wants to loot the body. If he says yes, the items are added to his inventory automatically and the voice describes them all. Nobody else hears the voice or sees what’s happening. But all of this becomes part of the novel, which is a straightforward high fantasy story with that one caveat. And yes, the game system rules are set in stone and are followed, so we can learn how everything works.

The story itself is a compelling tale about a young man from our Earth having to learn to survive and thrive in this strange fantasy world that is chock-full of magic. He makes friends and does heroic things. As the main character, he is clever and engaging. And to say he drives the action of the story would be an understatement. 

The plot pulled me in with its many layers and characters. The action is balanced with a healthy dose of drama and humor—plenty of humor. The book kept my attention throughout its immense page count. 

I think the word count was the only difficulty for me. It was very long, and this first book ends in the middle of an active story. The next book looks huge too. 

But He Who Fights With Monsters is worth the time, if you can handle a book of its girth. And don’t worry if you don’t understand the LitRPG part. It’ll make sense once you get started.