FORMAT/INFO: Dungeon Crawler Carl was published by Ace books on August 27th, 2024 by Ace Books. It is 450 pages long and available in hardcover, ebook, and audiobook formats.

OVERVIEW/ANALYSIS:  Carl never would have guessed that chasing his ex-girlfriend's cat outside in the middle of winter would be the thing that saved his life. As fate would have it, however, that's exactly when aliens showed up and wiped out most of the human race, and only being in the wrong place at the right time kept him alive. But if Carl wants to stay alive, he has no choice but to enter the 18-level dungeon the aliens have erected underground. It's part of an internationally broadcast gameshow, one where fans and sponsorships can make all the difference in whether or not you live until the end. Can Carl, along with the cat Princess Donut, survive the gauntlet of death long enough to gain a following that will help them win?

Dungeon Crawler Carl is a fast-paced bingeable adventure that I found hard to put down. Despite a rather bleak premise (what with most of humanity being wiped out and the rest being put into a deadly televised game show), the book itself leans into the absurdity of the situation. One minute Carl is chasing a runaway cat, the next he's trying to outrun a bunch of goblins in a tank and being awarded loot boxes for surviving the situation. The author manages to keep things light-hearted most of the time, without fully losing sight of how dire the stakes are. An in-game counter, for instance, keeps a tally of how many humans are remaining on the planet - and that number is steadily dropping all the time.

Underpinning this whole story is the LitRPG architecture of the narrative. Upon entering the dungeon, Carl is given a virtual interface that acts much like a video game UI. He can see everything from a mini-map to enemy health to his own stats. All of these elements are a critical part of how the story gets told. There are lengthy discussions about the minutiae of the game, everything from how the menus work to how to grind experience to level up abilities.

You'd think a stat heavy story would be dry as dust, but I found myself thoroughly engrossed. Now admittedly, I'm part of a prime target audience. I'm a gamer who enjoys watching D&D actual plays, who doesn't fast forward when players are doing the "boring" level-up part of the game. So in many ways, I found sections where Carl and his new tutorial guild master go over stats and loot boxes and how everything works extremely soothing.

But I think for the mainstream audiences, there's some drama in figuring out how this works because it's literally life and death. If Carl can't figure out a build for the game, if he can't figure out how to use potions and weapons and the difference between a neighborhood boss and a city boss, he's dead. Sure, having a familiarity with games in general will help get you invested, but I think the stakes keep you invested as well, even if you aren't an avid gamer.

I will say, I did chafe a little bit against some of the chauvinistic writings for the "in-game" descriptions of achievements and lore. I understand that they're supposed to be written by an AI that doesn't have an ounce of political correctness in its coding, but the AI was already crude and condescending enough. It didn't need that element thrown into the mix on top of everything else.

I can't end the review without shouting out the narrator for the audiobook I listened to. Jeff Hayes has a great range of voices that helped keep things entertaining. It's a testament to both the story and the narrator that I got through this audiobook in a mere 10 days; normally a book of this length would take me 6-8 weeks on audio!

Dungeon Crawler Carl somehow takes the end of the world and makes it an utterly consumable adventure. Carl only completes the first few floors in this adventure, but there's enough teases about what lies on the lower levels that I'm eager to see how the game keeps evolving. Hang in there Carl, I'm rooting for you!