“The transformation occurred at approximately 2:23 A.M., Pacific Standard Time.”
-Matt Dinniman, Dungeon Crawler Carl, First Line
- Author: Matt Dinniman
- Genre: Science Fiction, Comedy, Death Game, Fantasy, Adventure
- Spice: Not so much
- Trigger Warnings: None listed but there is a lot of violence as one might expect from a death game kind of book
- Pages: 427
- Published: September 21, 2020
- Publisher: Ace
- Series: Dungeon Crawler Carl, Book 1
- Goodreads Rating: 4.50
- StoryGraph Rating: 4.41
Lets talk about it!
So, Dungeon Crawler Carl is about a guy named Carl (of course) who finds himself with his ex-girlfriends cat, Donut, fighting for his life in a game run by aliens being broadcast to aliens. Yes. That is the premise of this whole series and I absolutely love it.
Let me tell you something about myself, typically, when a book blows up on social media and everyone is talking about it, I tend to leave it alone until the hype dies down. Why? Your guess is as good as mine but that’s how I operate. This book, however, I did not wait. I had looked at this book many times during the period of my life when I worked in a bookstore and let me tell you, I almost bought it a dozen times.
“Did we just start a meth war between the goblins and the llamas?”
Matt Dinniman, pg. 133
Just the premise of this book was enough to make me interested (which is hard to do when there’s no romance involved). It seemed like it would be funny, a bit weird, and brought in some classic fantasy elements. It almost had a Dungeons and Dragons kind of vibe to it in a way so I was already quite interested. I also, was trying to not spend all of my money on books. I’ll tell you right now, I’m sad I didn’t pick this series up sooner. It has filled a gap in my home library that I didn’t know I had and now I need to buy the rest of the series.
“…I liked Donut. That cat did not give two shits about anybody or anything, and I could respect that.”
Matt Dinniman, Dungeon Crawl Carl, pg. 3
The characters in this story are real, for the most part. You have Carl along with Princess Donut, a show cat belonging to his ex-girlfriend. You also have the other humans who have entered this dungeon as well who are from all different walks of life. These are people who are trying to survive as best they can. Some lose what we might consider their humanity (but the question there is whether they had it to begin with).
Besides the other contestants, you also have people who are working with the company running the games. These “people” also have their own reasons for the position that they are in and why they are doing what they do. It’s not just black and white between good guy and bad guy. It’s a bunch of living beings just trying to survive as best they can. What more can you really ask for in that situation? It creates a lot of moral grey area that, if you really wanted to take the time to analyze, could be interesting. Personally, I’m mostly here for the laughs.
When it comes to the plot, it’s about what you would expect. It has some gamification elements in that there’s loot from mobs. You have different levels you have to get through and different types of bosses around. There are different groups and like in some games, if you get in good with one group, it locks you out of the other. There is a lot of violence (death game) but there is also a lot of humor going through it. The book pokes fun at some of these elements from time to time. I laughed out loud more than once while reading this. I was genuinely having a good time.
Outside of the humor, there are also some actual touching moments. I’m not going to explain to you what they are (I like to keep things spoiler free as much as possible) but there are genuine moments of heart-moving humanity that you might not have expected. In the end, these are people just trying to survive and that can bring out the best and the worst in people.
I’m sure if you’ve read this entire blog post, you probably have a pretty good idea where this conclusion is headed. I had a hell of a good time reading this book and have since recommended it to many of my friends. It’s the kind of book that I would recommend to all different types of readers because I genuinely believe that this is a book that can reach a broad audience. It’s not going to be a book for everyone, but no book is. What I can say is, I think you should give this one a chance. You can always DNF the book and walk away but I feel pretty confident that you are more than likely to finish it instead. I could be wrong though. I guess we will have to see!
So there! A 5 star read. I’m not sure how much more I could really say. I do have some other reviews I’m working on as well but I wanted to get this one out as soon as I could. I hope to get a better groove going as I keep this blog up and running. I’m slowly figuring out how I want things to go but it’ll keep evolving as I figure out what works best for me.
I hope you all enjoyed this review. I know it was longer than some of my others but I just had a lot to say for this one I suppose. I’m tempted to run out to the store and get the rest of the books that are currently out while I can. I can’t do that because money is a thing I need for bills and student loans, but a girl can dream! I’ll see you all again next week for another blog post!!
Bye friends!!!
Reading with teafortiffany 
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