Dungeon Crawler Carl by Matt Dinniman

446 pages                                                                                                                                                                          

Fantasy/LitRPG/Sci-Fi

5/5*

Formats available: Book

“It's the most-watched game show in the galaxy!

In a flash, every human-erected construction on Earth--from Buckingham Palace to the tiniest of sheds to all the trucks and cars--collapses in a heap, sinking into the ground.

The buildings and all the people inside, they've all been atomized and transformed into the dungeon: an 18-level labyrinth filled with traps, monsters, and loot. A dungeon so enormous, it circles the entire globe.

Only a few dare venture inside. But once you're in, you can't get out. And what's worse, each level has a time limit. You have but days to find a staircase to the next level down, or it's game over. In this game, it's not about your strength or your dexterity. It's about your views and your followers. It's about building an audience and killing those goblins with style.

You can't just survive here. You gotta survive big.

You gotta fight with vigor, with excitement. You gotta make them stand up and cheer. And if you do have that "it" factor, you may just find yourself with a following. That's the only way to truly survive in this game, with the help of the loot boxes dropped upon you by the generous benefactors watching from across the galaxy.

They call it Dungeon Crawler World. But for Carl, it's anything but a game.”

Where do I begin with this glorious work of modern literature? I will start with the rabbit hole of how I found Dungeon Crawler Carl. Lately, there has been an upswing of some of my favorite reviewers desiring self-published fantasy works (also known as Indie Fantasy). (Please stop by the second floor of the Main Branch if you would like more of these Indie Fantasy books to read; I have a lot of recommendations for you). This search along with the growth in popularity of Indie Fantasy, met with the desire to try out LitRPG, found me at the doorstep of Matt Dinniman (who is now one of my favorite authors of all-time). The people over at urbanwriters.com sum up LitRPG as,

“LitRPG (Literary Role-Playing Game) is an emerging genre of fiction that combines the experience of digital role playing games with traditional narrative plotlines. It weaves a story around a protagonist that consciously immerses themselves in a virtual world to follow the quests and challenges set by the game realm.

It is not to be confused with choose-your-own-path storylines or novels that expand the lore of existing RPG games.

Instead, imagine you are the spectator to someone playing as their World of Warcraft avatar, witnessing their progression through in-game campaigns while observing their development through visible statistics such as health, agility, strength, or intelligence.”

I don’t want you to read that and get overwhelmed, confused, or immediately tell yourself that you will hate this; this is so much more easy to read and more magical than you think. Reading through the inventory, stats, and instructions wasn't overwhelming at all and I actually found myself looking forward to them because it added so much to the world, characters, and dialogue.

So, I decided to go for broke and pick up this book about a man in his heart undies with his amazing, show-winning Persian cat running around a dungeon under the surface of an obliterated Earth because the only thing to lose was not finishing the book. As of writing this blog, I am currently on book 6 of a, hopefully, 10 book series that I now would give my left pinky toe to forget and re-read. Yeah, it’s definitely that good.

I am a slow reader and was able to read these a week per story. That says a whole heck of a lot (ask my coworkers). Carl and Donut are the main event in this story full of laughs, galactic political sabotage, and life-threatening events. This story is designed to keep you laughing and shocked and what surprised me the most is how invested I would get with these characters. Author Matt did a phenomenal job writing this to make you laugh and cry. Even though Donut and Carl are the main show, the audience is also introduced to an overarching storyline that is full of intrigue, murder, and real-life feels. Also, the fact that the AI (the artificial intelligence running the game/dungeon) is its own character makes this a deliciously layered tale.

You’re going to experience loss and pain all while belly laughing yourself to the floor, and I recommend this story to someone who is looking for it all. The fact that there is so much intrigue and mystery behind this story right alongside the weirdness of it all is such a fantastic combination. It's like a salty and sweet snack, chocolate covered bacon, if you will. It is very dungeons and dragons had a love child with your favorite video game and that baby grows up to be crazy and make questionable choices with potty humor.

Just try it. You are going to love it too.

For more book recommendations please tune in to Off the Books with B&S on any of your preferred podcasting platforms; new episodes air every other Thursday.

Bethann