Part of the charm of the story is that the bizarre, hostile, and horrific situations Carl is put in only serve to more deeply reveal the ironclad goodness and beauty beneath his gruff exterior. He is rough, crude, smart, kind, and practical. The story has a moral backbone without becoming moralistic, and a dark, playful streak without becoming lurid. At the same time, however, it has a lot of heart. What a guy.”ĭungeon Crawler Carl doesn’t take itself too seriously (how could it when one of the main characters is a sentient cat named Princess Donut who shoots magic missiles out of her eyes?). I’m a normal book.” But if you give Carl and Donut a chance, they’ll win you over. The cover sure doesn’t say, “Curl up with me next to a fire. And there is our hero, Carl, who looks like he is fresh out of a Top Gun spinoff series but for some reason isn’t wearing any pants. There is a grinning goblin wearing a pot on its head (with the aforementioned “murder dozer”.) For some reason, there is a cat running along in the bottom corner. There is that giant yellow apocalypse font.

If you are anything like me or lots of other people on the internet, you might be tempted to judge the book by it. Point of Order: Before going on, let’s talk about that cover. Imagine Survivor with “murder dozers” (see cover). Carl and the cat find that they - and everyone else still alive - are contestants in an evil, galaxy-wide game show in which they must fight to survive, and, of course, level up and they descend deeper and deeper. All over the planet, stairways open up to a subterranean labyrinth filled with traps, monsters, and loot-a dungeon so enormous, it circles the entire globe. When stepping outside to chase his ex-girlfriend’s cat, Carl watches as every building on earth is suddenly flattened.

Dungeon crawler carl by matt dinniman