The Dark Lord of Crafting: Litrpg with a Minecraft twist

Welcome to the world of Plana, the setting for The Dark lord of Crafting an isekai style litrpg by William Myrl that finds our protagonist, lets call him Will Smith, in a Minecraft meets Lord of the Rings style world (at least that's what he asks for). I will fully admit I did absolutely 0 research before jumping into this and I assumed it would be an anti-hero sort of story where the MC was the bad guy, at least based on the title, but to my chagrin and pleasure, our buddy Will is actually being sent to this (cursed) world to clean up a mess for a goddess in a sort of "you scratch my back, I'll scratch your back" type of agreement. In a twist for the genre this series should also fall in the "clean" category for those of you readers & listeners looking for a more pg13 experience.

Will is not your typical protag, a reformed ex-con with zero life prospects and not a lot of survival, combat, or really any sort of applicable skills other than some real world gaming experience. You would probably be hard pressed to find a worst fit to take on the ultimate evil of this new world but he seems to be a quick learner at least. I found myself enjoying the pop culture references and I am familiar enough with the game mechanics of "Maincraft" that I could appreciate the MCs and authors creativity, I would even go so far to recommend this book to tweens who are really into Minecraft or Roblox and plan to have my kiddo and nephew read it.

The side characters are fairly well crafted and John Pirhalla, who I know from Jakes Magical Market, does a good job with the material. I have the e-book for book 2 already but I may just end up waiting on the audio. Definitely worth checking out for fans of the genre and those who have sunk countless hours into digging up virtual pixels and getting blown up by creepers.