Aliens – Page 2 – Marked for Plot

This Inevitable Ruin (Dungeon Crawler Carl #7)

Dungeon Crawler Carl has quickly risen to one of my favorite series of all time. It’s brutally fast paced, irreverent, and has a delightful blend of horror, humor, and melodrama that I adore. This review is for Book 7, which focuses on the much-awaited Faction Wars. Be warned, spoilers ahead for anything in books 1-6.

Carl has arrived at Faction Wars, ready to kill a few thousand offworlders, win a bunch of money for Donut’s fan club, and try to figure out how to keep both Katia and Donut alive.

Honestly if you’ve reached Book 7 of Dungeon Crawler Carl, you don’t need me to tell you whether or not you’ll like the series. If you’ve got no idea what this is, look at my review for book 1 linked above.

Light From Uncommon Stars

Sometimes you run into books that are really difficult to pitch. Light From Uncommon Stars sounds like a comedy book. Aliens running a donut shop certainly doesn’t sound like a book that takes itself particularly seriously. But this story made me cry, made me furious, and made me feel more deeply than I expected when opening the cover. This book is an emotional roller coaster, and a journey that isn’t happy, but is filling.

The Premise:
A young trans girl flees and abusive family with her violin. The ‘Queen of Hell’ seeks to find a seventh student and convince them to sell their soul to a demon for musical immortality. An alien on the run from the End Plague runs a donut shop. Their stories – and others – connect and intertwine in a tale of what it means to be human (or alien) and what it means to live a life worth living.

Read If Looking For: character-led stories, phenomenal music recommendations, genre bending novels, romance subplots

Avoid if Looking For: stories avoiding queer trauma, classic fantasy or science fiction plot beats

Walking Practice

Translated Novels tend to be some of the more unique reads. It’s easy to forget how much cultures have self-reinforcing patterns in their writing, even across subgenres. Walking Practice is a great example of how translated fiction can be an engaging experience that confronts your notions of how stories go. Assuming you’re reading in English and not Korean, I highly recommend reading Victoria Caudle’s translation notes, which will provide key context for what the hell is going on with this book’s typesetting.

The Premise:
An alien is stranded on Earth, at the mercy of the planet’s intense gravity and its own need to eat. Thankfully, Earth is full of delicious, tasty humans! And so this shapeshifting creature laboriously makes its way through the city towards its meals, adapting its appearance on the premise of a fun hookup that turns into mealtime. When things go sideways though, the alien must adjust or starve.

Read If Looking For: horror with deep themes, gruesome depictions of bodies, gore, and sex, utterly alien narrators

Avoid if Looking For: something like what you’ve read before

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.

The Premise:
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.

Read If Looking For: books that make you think ‘what the fuck?’, horror meets comedy, action packed fun

Avoid if Looking For: character focused stories, quality prose, books without gore, subtle humor