Dungeon Crawler Carl by Matt DinnimanMy rating: 3 of 5 stars
There’s definitely something in the air in Washington state, with indie SFF authors getting the right amount of attention to hit it big. Repping Eastern Washington in this regard is Spokane’s Travis Baldree and his Legends & Lattes world, and now for Western Washington, there’s Matt Dinniman of Gig Harbor hitting it so big with Dungeon Crawler Carl that Ace bought up the seven books already published and have reissued them all in hardcover.
For the hype this series gets, it doesn’t quite live up, I’m afraid. In that respect, it’s kind of like Fourth Wing for the boys, big dumb fun with a propulsive first person narrative, but more than a bit of mature commentary hiding behind all the stupidity. Essentially, picture if Douglas Adams and Jonathan Maberry collabed on a litRPG. There’s a clear Hitchhiker’s Guide influence since the series begins with aliens all but bulldozing the Earth and forcing the survivors into an intergalactic game show that resembles a D&D dungeon crawl. And the Maberry influence (with a touch of early Scalzi too, before Scalzi came to overcompensate for his Republican past) comes from Carl himself being a grizzled Coast Guard guy who’d probably love to crack open a cold one with Joe Ledger, if he wasn’t so busy bodyguarding for his ex’s now uplifted cat, Princess Donut. It’s also got a touch of Maberry’s political incorrectness - not to the point of actually writing harsh racial slurs (always in villains’ dialogue), but still showing a more progressive bent by specifically criticizing incels and other shitty types, and also doing a pretty good job humanizing characters who otherwise might not be. For instance, Carl’s first boss, the Hoarder, a monstrous woman straight out of Barbarian. But it’s very clear - especially if you speak Spanish - that she’s greatly despairing and deserves mercy in this sadistic alien game.
Since I’ve struggled with Fourth Wing for three books to date, I suppose I’ll try to at least match that in this series, but I’m definitely not buying any sequels at this moment. And if I continue past Book 3, it’ll be largely thanks to Princess Donut.
(No one spoil me about her, but know I will be massively disappointed if she suffers and/or dies.)
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