Viridian Gate Online: Cataclysm

If you've read Play to Live (Alterworld), Viridian Gate Online feels somewhat similar especially to the early Alterworld books (after the 4th book, the entire series details). It' got a young man who flees into a virtual reality world to save himself from destruction (in this case, a flying Asteroid about to make landfallThis one is new (came out this year), but it's one of the stronger LitRPG books out so far. It's also written by an American (something to take note of in the genre, with most of the best LitRPG translated from Russian authors.