Dungeon Crawler Carl

This book is stupid. It shouldn’t work. It’s premise is insane. And yet it has captured me fully and utterly. I have listened to all the books in the series multiple times, read the paper copies, and eagerly await each new installment. I’m thrilled it’s hitting a wider audience now that it’s made the jump to traditional publishing, and am excited to return to it when I need a comfortable audiobook.

Elevator Pitch:
Carl and his Donut (his ex-girlfriend’s show-cat) get caught up in a nightmare after aliens turn earth into a reality tv show deathtrap. He’s in a fantasy themed dungeon, complete with goblins and stat blocks and an audience of aliens hungry for him to kill in the most dramatic way possible. Make it through 18 floors and earn your freedom … probably. Thankfully, Carl likes dynamite, and Donut likes to monologue. They just have to convince the AI running the whole thing that they’re more entertaining alive than dead.

What Worked for Me
This book is utterly self-indulgent, and it wouldn’t work if it had any shame about itself. This book has everything you could ever want: talking cats, drug dealing llamas, goblins that eat their parents, a rat teacher that could be straight out of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, a talk show host with ulterior motives, an AI fascinated with Carl’s feet, a near-delirious elderly woman who makes sex jokes. They all get bundled up into some bizarre mix that just is good old fashioned fun. But the humor can definitely come off as middle-schooler at times, which might put folks off. It’s fast paced, has great action scenes, and does a great job of problems spiraling out of control only to be resolved in creative and interesting ways.

That said, this book is also one I’d throw in the horror genre. The characters are forced to do horrible things, and Dinnaman never forgets that these are human beings, not video game characters. They are frequently overwhelmed, disgusted, and near their breaking point emotionally and psychologically from what they are being forced to do. There are plenty of moments in this series that are legitimately sad and horrifying.

What Didn’t Work for Me
Book 1 has a bit more of a focus on ‘numbers go up’ than I’d like. I think LitRPG (stories that use statblocks) are best when they stay as a background element. This is something the series gets to, but this book has more pages of stats than I’d personally care for.

In Conclusion: A zany and action packed book about a man and a talking cat trying to survive a reality tv show put on by aliens. Lots of fun.

• Characters – 4
• Worldbuilding – 3
• Craft – 3
• Themes – 3
• Enjoyment – 5