Bookish: Dungeon Crawler Carl
Gamers, role-players, and anyone into fast-paced fun, science fiction and fantasy will love this.
"Literary role-playing game," if you're not familiar with it, is a genre of fiction that blends the conventions of RPGs with fantasy and science fiction novels.
Dungeon Crawler Carl finds Carl and his ex-girlfriend's show cat, Donut, as contestants on an alien game show.
After surviving an attack on Earth, they are forced to work through a multi-level dungeon while fighting, looting, and working the audience for favor. The promised prize at the end being their freedom to rule the world from which they came.
Carl is quintessential hero material. His disgust about the whole concept is as strong as his will to survive. He doesn't like leaving other "crawlers" behind, even though PVP is part of the game. Most heroic of all is his refusal to be broken by circumstances. Entering the dungeon in just his boxers, Carl fights with fists and feet. As the series progresses, more important are his creativity and crafting skills. Constructing items and explosives, then combining magical item abilities with tactics to get through encounters that brawn on its own could not win.
We're all prostitutes in one way or another, I suppose.
~ Princess Donut
Donut is a fantastic character as well, proving a great compliment in talent and character. She is a spell caster with ridiculous charisma and all the wisdom and emotional maturity you'd expect from a newly sentient cat.
The skills, items, and mobs are inventive and have hilarious descriptions. The layout of the levels, mobs, and boss fights blends gaming tropes with elements of modern society.
Did we really just start a meth war between the goblins and the llamas?"
~ Carl
As the characters and setting become increasingly established, deeper layers of the story begin to be revealed. The political maneuvering of various factions across the galaxy and how they play out through the game provide a rich vein of material for the plot to develop in future books.
Matt Dinneman published his first book independently; since then, it has sold more than a million copies. Here are the 7 books in the series, all with ratings above 4.5 stars on Goodreads. The 8th book is expected this year. While I haven't listened to the audiobook versions, I've heard great reviews. Jeff Hays' delivery adds comedic value to already funny dialogue, especially Donut.
In the fall of 2024, it was announced that Seth MacFarlane would be developing a TV adaptation of the series. Chris Yost, whose work includes Thor Ragnarok and The Mandalorian, will be the writer.
Gamers, role-players, and anyone into fast-paced fun, science fiction, and fantasy will love this. By the end of the book, I was literally laughing out loud hard enough I had to stop reading. Carl and Donut are as funny as they are lovable.
