Good evening!
Tonight I will present to you my argument for why you should listen to (or read) the Dungeon Crawler Carl series.
Book one’s cover art.
And my argument is this: There is no other book(s) that does humor like DCC. Because no other book can.
Let me explain. First, context.
Dungeon Crawler Carl is an action-comedy in the a litRPG book genre. I like this definition of litRPG I made up:
“LitRPG is a story set within a world that follows Dungeons & Dragons-like logic.”
It usually involves a “real world” human from modern times getting frisked away to a fantasy land- perhaps discovering they’ve gained floating health bars, and interact with their environment using video game logic. (e.g. infinite invisible inventory.)
It’s silly, placing rational human in an inherently un-rational situation, which is why so many litRPG’s are humor-focused.
Bro unrelated, but literally as I wrote that last sentence Twyla, (the goober on the left,) got her head stuck in a paper bag handle and freaked out!
She was tearing across our apartment! I ended up getting to her and took it off, and her poor little heart was beating so fast xD
So here’s the meat of it:
There are multiple levels of humor in DCC working in unison.
The AI is crass, problematic, your dose of inappropriate, unethical, but really funny “too-far” style humor.
Princess Donut is young, full of pop-culture & “reference” humor.
Carl is the balancer. He is funny in his own right, yet also as the story is primarily told from his POV, it adds a grounding perspective. He’ll disparage a fucked-up joke, which allows the humor to exist while simultaneously not taking away from the plot’s emotional moments.
Mix this with some of the most satisfactory character growth out there, (holy shit book 8 ending,) an unpredictable story, and smart characters that avoid stupid pitfalls, and you’ve got the book series that has taken the world by storm.
The book premise is silly. But Matt Dinniman can write, and he writes for the person who’s read a lot of books, and plays his cards to keep them on their toes.
It’s a masterclass in subversion, anti-clichés, and pure fun in a format that encourages breaking the rules.
Please, try it. Spend 15 minutes listening to the fantastically voiced audiobooks, or read it for the same period of time.
That’s enough to give you a taste of the most unique dish I’ve had the pleasure of finding in all my reading years.
