Crawling To The Next Book

LitRPG’s are mostly found in Asian media, mostly coming from places like Korea, China, and Japan. But what if you take that plot, and mix it with the comparatively bombastic personality of the common American man? You get the hit novel, Dungeon Crawler Carl.
Imagine you break up with your toxic girlfriend, and while you are debating on kittennapping her cat, the world ends. Pretty insane right? That’s within the first few pages of the book, so it gets going pretty fast.
Although it starts going pretty fast, that’s for a reason. The exposition is quite long. And in a way, the exposition kind of continues through the different points in the plot.
You are constantly learning new things about the world, how the game works, and how players in the game level up and evolve through the different floors, all throughout the novel. Which I adore.
The characters, even though they are going through terrible things, are relatable, and are entertaining to experience the story with. The first person point of view from Carl is the highlight of the novel.
The ex-coast guard is quick on the uptake about this whole gameshow thing. Oh yeah, this whole dungeon thing? It’s an intergalactic gameshow, but I will elaborate more later on.
The readers are learning at the same rate as Carl, which makes for pretty dynamic and simple story telling. The side cast is also hilarious.
GC, BWR, NW Princess Donut the Queen Anne Chonk, or “Donut” as she is affectionately called, is a tortoiseshell Persian cat. Literally just a cat that gains the ability to speak from the dungeon.
As you could tell from her name and breed, she is prissy. And entitled. And, quite a scary force on the battlefield. She uses magic and her charisma to make her way through the dungeon.
It is a deadly combo.
But even though the highlight of this novel is the characters, the world is fascinating. Magic. Aliens. Magic aliens! Game shows played with people’s lives in the balance, and trillions of lives that each have an impact on the story.
Hinting at corporations that rule the stars leaves loads of room for expansion, and having specific sponsors for each competitor has a super interesting mystery of who could sponsor for the better or for the better or for the worst.
The joy this book brought me was unique to say the least. This should also be said, it is a mature book, with some mature themes, and mature language. But it is hilariously filtered through the eyes of author Matt Dinniman.
His potential to become my favorite author is sky high, and I am stoked to read the next novel. I have heard great things about the second book, some people have even had it as their favorite in the series.
So my hopes are high, my thoughts are joyful, and as soon as I get paid I am going to Barnes & Noble to snatch myself a copy.