A review by samohtj
Dungeon Crawler Carl by Matt Dinniman

adventurous funny medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Plot
  • Strong character development? No
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? No

3.5

The peer pressure finally got to me. Full disclosure: I am severely prejudiced against the LitRPG genre and I was looking forward to roasting this book. However, by the end, I found myself unable to hate it, and eager to see what happens next. I've been dungeon-pilled, you could say.

One thing I can't deny: this book is a lot of fun. Consistent action, imaginative humor and entertaining characters bring something exciting on every page. The nature of the story forces new things to consistently happen, and I was almost never bored while reading. Despite the repetitive grindy nature of the first few levels, enough was happening internally and with the greater story to keep me wondering, and kudos to the author for that.

However, I do have my qualms. The humor in this book is crass and juvenile in a distinctly gen-x way, and though I did actually find it quite funny 99% of the time, there are a few jokes that were decidedly Not Funny and pushed too far, a subtle line that I hope the author will tread with more care as the series goes on. 

And although it didn't make the book entirely unreadable (far from it, in fact), all my worst fears about the nature and quality of the writing came true. There's a kind of Scalzi-esque style-orver-substance shallowness that pervades the writing. Yes, the aliens are a satire of capitalist disdain for the masses, and the Dungeon Crawl is a metaphor for exploitative reality entertainment, and Carl is playing the part of the straight man who is disgusted by the evil in all this, but those elements are stupidly obvious and buried in a sea of junk. I can only read so many video game ui tooltips and listen to so many gameplay wiki articles recited by the tutorial guildmaster before I start to wonder if it's worth reading 4,000 pages of this, even if it is really funny. This book follows the Andy Weir school of "demonstrating just how hard the author has thought through every detail of this scenario" that causes so much pop sci-fi to suffer, in my opinion.

This book ended up giving me exclaxtly what I was expecting: a thrilling popcorn read, stuffed with jokes and entertainment value, delivered at (I am sorry to say this) a gamer-brainrot reading level. I am cautiosly eager to continue the series, the next time I'm looking for some head empty fun time. Who knows, it might surprise me.

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