Review: Newt & Demon (The Newt and Demon Book 1) by Edwin M. Griffiths

Rating: 9.5/10

Synopsis

A new world. A new life. A chance to become a Legendary Alchemist.

When the apocalypse comes, a mysterious entity grants Theo Spencer the gift of reincarnation.
The gift of a quiet life as an alchemist.

He awakens in a small town in the southern reaches of a small kingdom in a non-human body. Broken Tusk doesn’t seem like much, but if Theo’s Alchemy Skills have anything to say about it, he will soon turn their fortune.

Review

I’ve read more than my fair share of Isekai and LitRPG stories over the last half-decade or so. At first I found them a fun and invigorating new sub-genre of Sci-Fi/Fantasy. The more I read though, the more repetitive and tedious they became. More than a few that I read last year I either didn’t finish or made it to the end out of some sense of duty. 

I’m happy to report that Newt & Demon by Edwin M. Griffiths is a breath of fresh air in the genre. I am well aware that they aren’t all going to be Dungeon Crawler Carl, but it seemed that most that I attempted to read over the past year were doing their best to copy and paste Matt Dinniman’s success. 

In Newt & Demon, the world is coming to an end. Our protagonist Theo is granted a boon as the world ends only to wake up in a new land in a new body with a demon appearance. From there, the story takes an unexpected twist. Normally, our protagonist starts leveling up to battle monsters and take on underground dungeons, but Griffiths here gives Theo the opportunity for the quiet life as a small-town alchemist. 

Theo levels up, but within the context of making potions and improving life in his new-found home. Along the way, he forms a relationship with an adventurer named Tresk — the Newt in the title of the book. Tresk provides some second-hand dungeon crawling experience to book for those looking for that, but the relationship is purely platonic, which lends to another fresh quirk in this LitRPG tale. 

Is it perfect? Not quite, but it’s a nice and very enjoyable slice-of-life story told in an interesting fantasy setting. I look forward to future entries in the series.