Dungeon Crawler Carl (Dungeon Crawler Carl #1)
by Matt Dinniman
What is it about:
The apocalypse will be televised!
A man. His ex-girlfriend's cat. A sadistic game show unlike anything in the universe: a dungeon crawl where survival depends on killing your prey in the most entertaining way possible.
In a flash, every human-erected construction on Earth—from Buckingham Palace to the tiniest of sheds—collapses in a heap, sinking into the ground.
The buildings and all the people inside have 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 followers, your views. Your clout. 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.
What did I think of it:
I got this book as a present from a friend who absolutely loves this series. And after reading this book I can understand why.
Carl and Princess Donut end up in a dungeon after aliens destroy earth. Only by beating the dungeon can Carl hope to get back to a normal(ish) life.
I loved seeing how Carl handles what is thrown at him, and I loved the interaction between him and Princess Donut even more. There's lots of humor in between tense and gruesome events. Some really squicked me out, others got me thinking. Because next to this being a very humorous lit-RPG this book doesn't shy away from putting a rotting finger on social issues.
All in all this book is a wild ride, and I might buy the next one once I've reduced my TBR a bit.
Why should you read it:
It's a cool (as my friend calls it) 'Cozy Splatter Fantasy'
