i collect scoliosis

All of which is to say, I read through all seven books of the Dungeon Crawler Carl series that are out to date (thanks, free Kindle Unlimited subscription!), and now I have a lot of thoughts and no one who cares about them ;____; I played myself ;_______;

This series is such a hard sell in general, because on the surface it looks like male power fantasy garbage, it's litRPG, and there's a decent amount of mildly obnoxious dude humor at first. But a) it's only slightly male power fantasy garbage, b) it's not tedious litRPG and in fact the genre evolves and shifts into more straightforward SFF the further in you get, which is clever on a meta level and also a relief, c) to the extent it is litRPG, it mostly isn't boring and annoying about it (no stat nonsense for the sake of stat nonsense), d) the mildly obnoxious dude humor is often genuinely funny and to the extent it is obnoxious, there's some in-universe reasoning for that.

Anyway, the premise is as follows: Earth is suddenly and devastatingly mined for its natural resources by aliens. This results in the death of billions: everyone who was indoors is instantly killed. Anyone who was outside gets a chance to enter the "dungeon", which offers a chance for the remaining humans to compete for an alleged chance at freedom and sovereignty if they reach the bottom floor, but it's basically The Hunger Games: a propaganda exercise that's meant to earn money for the aliens running it as a game show, only this is a dungeon crawling RPG rather than a Hunger Games/Battle Royale situation. No one has ever reached the bottom floor. The best result most achieve is to reach the tenth floor, where they can take a deal for some variety of indentured servitude.

Enter Carl, our hero, a former (late 20s? early 30s? don't recall his age, but somewhere around there) Coast Guard technician who is outside when it all happens because he chased after his ex-girlfriend's cat, Princess Donut, a best in show tortie Persian cat. Carl and Donut enter the dungeon, Donut eats a magic treat and becomes a sapient talking cat, and the books follow their struggle to survive and fight back against the cruel and inhuman system they've found themselves in.

Tonally, the series is interesting in that it manages to balance a very bleak, dystopian premise with genuine hilarity and moments of legitimately heart-wrenching emotion. Also, this is not a "lone heroic super cool guy saves and fixes everything" kind of story. This series is interested in teamwork and community in dire circumstances, and the found family of it all is genuinely moving. As a whole, it's just bonkers entertaining. I love when I can tell the author is having a blast, and you can absolutely tell that Matt Dinniman is having an absolute blast.

Anyway, a list of things I enjoy about this series and/or a list of general thoughts, some of which include mild spoilers:

Three trusted friends each recommended Matt Dinniman’s Dungeon Crawler Carl series of novels to me, but the series stayed toward the back of my queue for almost a year because I found the name of its emergent genre, “LitRPG” unappealing to the point of avoidance. I started the first book about a month ago, loved it, and read the following six immediately. I refuse to recommend you a LitRPG series, because I don’t want this at the back of your queue when it belongs at the front.

After reading the first few chapters of book one, in which Seattleite shipyard worker Carl and his ex-girlfriend’s award-winning cat are drawn into an alien-built underground dungeon where video game rules are enforced, I realized the book is basically structured as a written Let’s Play for a non-existent video game. I counter-propose the term “Lit’s Play” and I will strongly recommend you Matt Dinniman’s Dungeon Crawler Carl series of Lit’s Play novels.

The Dungeon Crawler Carl novels are full of well-grounded human characters coerced, tricked, or forced into comedically ludicrous scenarios with all sorts of bonkers aliens and dungeon NPCs. These situations are structured to condemn systemic exploitation in a way that feels to me like they could have been imagined by Kurt Vonnegut if he were young enough to have grown up reading Douglas Adams and playing D&D. The dialogue is snappy too, and if you enjoy books-on-tape, the narration and voice-work for the characters by Jeff Hayes is masterwork-quality.

If you’re dubious about whether this series is for you, here’s a few points I’ve noted that might encourage you to read it:

The first couple books introduce basic abilities, spells, and game mechanics that the characters try to find ways to exploit. Malicious compliance is king. As the series progresses, the equipment and abilities the characters gain access to and their interactions with other players compound to create new exploits that are increasingly wild and frustrating to their enemies—and delightful to readers like myself!

By book three, The Dungeon Anarchist’s Cookbook, it’s also obvious that Matt Dinniman isn’t only a gaming nerd. He wanted to do a lot of research on trains, track gauges, subways, and other railroad technology, and shares his passion that subject in all sorts of fun ways in the Iron Tangle level of the dungeon. It makes me smile when folks are excited about their interests and Dinniman’s definitely add to the fun!

By book four, The Gate of The Feral Gods, it became clear to me that the series is heading toward Game of Thrones levels of complexity in terms of competing factions with internal strife squabbling about the problems they are most familiar to distract themselves from the shadows of emergent threats they deem impossible. Dinneman does a great job of grounding the external galactic intrigue to in-dungeon events, which keeps its presentation as goofy as everything else. If you appreciated how Bojack Horseman used animal puns to facilitate its unbearable dive into the crushing horrors of addiction and depression, you’ll love how Dungeon Crawler Carl cranks everything familiar and bizarre about game logic up to 11 in order to showcase the depravity of exploitative systems of government and commerce.

I won’t say much about the later novels, except that they rewardingly build on the groundwork of the first few books and escalate everything in ways that made me cackle throughout. After finishing book seven, I immediately restarted the first book, and I’m enjoying it thoroughly.

Spoilers below:

Carl comes across his first (i believe) killed crawler, Rebecca W., (Killed by Crawler Frank Q.) and comments on her being entirely naked. He assumes the goblins came through and looted her clothing, etc because they cannot access a player inventory. This one I was willing to let slide as a world building note, even though the woman being entirely nude irritated me. Then.

Then we meet Frank Q. And when Carl asks if the man has any pants Carl can borrow, since the collapse happened with him only in boxers and all, Frank Q. gives Carl comically small women's pants. Despite mentioning the firefight, and the many other people killed in it whom he supposedly looted.

Frank Q. stripped her. Which is a deeply revealing character moment. This man is willing to execute his fellow humans on the FIRST FLOOR of the dungeon, and he doesn't even have the basic decency to leave a dead woman her underwear.

Then there's his interview with Odette, who is described with truly COMICAL boobs being supported by a table. And yeah it made sense and wasn't egregious guy-writing so I was just gonna roll my eyes --

Then they're off air and Odette literally steps out of the boobs. They're a stage piece.

Not to mention the fact that, for as scary as Frank Q. Is when he's introduced, his partner, the woman, is ultimately the bigger, scarier threat.

99 year old Ms. McGibbons is a sweet old woman with dementia -- who cheerfully recounts her absolutely wild youth. And later goes from level one, with zero kills, to level 13 or 15 on level three, in a maximum of 8 days. She's both supportive to the group, but ultimately not shoved into a maternal role in the least.

Of course there's so many more, Katia, Imani, Helka, even Gum Gum and Quil! but just. I really, really appreciate the women in these books, from Donut, to Tsarina Cignet and Maggie My. I also really appreciate the way DCC subverts stereotypes and expectations just in general.