Dungeon Crawler Carl by Matt Dinniman : Audiobook Review

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.

Ok, I honestly have no idea where to start with a review for this damn book. I firsts stumbled across it a couple years ago when I was looking for a new book to listen to and can still remember thinking, “This sounds kinda dumb’ and promptly scrolled pat it in search of something I thought would be better. Then my D&D players started recommending it to me every time audiobooks came up, but I still wasn’t interested because I’d yet to find a LitRPG book I actually enjoyed. Finally, I caved when we had an extra Audible credit to spend, and I couldn’t think of anything else to get. And wow—I can’t remember the last time a book made me laugh so fucking hard or so often. Dungeon Crawler Carl is so ridiculously wild and over-the-top and I loved every damn second of it.

I’ve been kicking myself for weeks now over waiting so long to give this series a shot. I don’t know if anyone else has ever started or read a book and thought, “This is it –this is the series I’ve been searching I don’t know how long for, this is my new obsession, ” but that’s exactly how I felt almost right away with Dungeon Crawler Carl.  I’ve only ever felt that way about one other series, The Wheel of Time, which I’ve been rereading and obsessing over for 20 years. Just when I’d finally gotten my sleep schedule back on track, this book completely wrecked it—I found myself up at 4 a.m. nearly every night until I finished it.

There is no single element that I can point to and say, “This is why you should read this book,’ because honestly, everything about it is why you should read the book. Carl and Donut are two of the most well-crafted and relatable characters I’ve ever read about, and the story is both fascinating and utterly absurd. I mean Carl is running around this massive underground dungeon run by a batshit crazy AI with some weird fetishes while he wears nothing but a jacket and his heart-covered boxers, fighting goblins and other such creatures with his ex-irlfriend’s cat perched on his shoulder shooting magic missiles from her eyes– all while being broadcast across the universe. Nothing about that setup sounds like it should work and yet I can’t remember the last time I was so hooked on a book or series.

However, I will say the achievements they get throughout the book are one of the best things about the book and they only get better as the series progresses. Crazy Cat Lady, Janet Jackson’s Nipple, who wouldn’t want to know what Carl has to do to get those achievements? I don’t think I’ll ever be able to recommend this book enough. Even if you’re like me and don’t really enjoy the LitRPG genre I think everyone would love this book. Matt Dinniman has instantly become one of my favorite authors and I’d put him up there with the likes of Robert Jordan, Brandon Sanderson, and Robin Hobb. Don’t be a fool like me and just pass over this book or you’ll regret it as much as I do.

And while it’s great to read I would highly recommend getting the audiobooks. Jeff Hayes does a fantastic job narrating this book and I this his narration adds yet another layer to what makes this such a good book. So go out and get the book, the ebook, and the audiobook. Then get the rest because trust me you’re not going to be able to stop reading or listening to this series. Then you should go check out his Patreon because this is an author who deserves all the fame and attention he can get.