Spoiler-free
Dungeon Crawler Carl has been all over the internet the past couple of years, receiving very high praise. Not only from those within the LitRPG space, but also reaching further afield.
What is LitRPG? In simple terms, LitRPG stands for literary role-playing game, which basically means it will typically blend elements of sci-fi/fantasy with elements of a video game. So, do you need to play video games to understand this book? Absolutely not, but if you do play video games, then you absolutely should!
The premise of Dungeon Crawler Carl is that the world is ending and being taken over by an alien species. Carl, along with his ex-girlfriend's cat Princess Donut, is given the choice to stay in a dying Earth or to join the cast of an intergalactic survival dungeon crawling gameshow. Basic purpose of the show: Climb to higher levels of the life-thretening dungeons for the viewing entertainment of all the galaxy.
Given this ridiculous premise, I went into this expecting for a whole lot of silly, humorous fun and that's exactly what it turned out to be.
It's also important to note that this series has received a lot of love, especially on reddit, for the Audiobooks narrated by 'Jeff Hays'. As an avid audiobook listener, there simply became too many comments and recommendations for me to ignore. So what could I do, but humbly oblige?
Anyway, on with the review:
The LitRPG game mechanics were handled really well and added a comforting nostalgia to the narrative. It's honestly just so fun seeing all the different skills level up and let me tell you, there are skills for absolutely everything! From your more typical combat skills to tieing your shoe laces.
Princess Donut is the standout star in this book for me. She really carried the story on her furry back. She was the perfect offset to Carl with her snappy, sassy responses. She's incredibly witty and snarky, and the narration for her voice couldn't have suited this character more.
My favourite parts were definitely all of the talkshow/interview sections. This is where Carl and Donut get taken out of the intense action of the dungeon and are placed within a, more typical to Earth, talk show environment. Well, I say typical to Earth, and I guess what I mean by that is absolutely not typical to Earth, as this is still an alien game show for the viewing pleasure of all kinds of alien species. Princess Donut was in her element here, and it was just delightful to see. As soon as the first interview started with Ordette and Princess Donut was like, 'Shush Carl, I got this', I knew I was in for a treat.
The interviewer Ordette was also a lot of fun, and the fact that she and Princess Donut got on so well was hilarious. I loved all their chit-chat about Earth's TV programs, such as Gossip Girl. I really hope that in the future instalments the world opens up more and that we see more of these gameshow aspects come into play.
Now the bad... Where this book lacked for me was in the action scenes. Now, I'm not a huge fan of action scenes in general, but I found these ones to be particularly hard to visualise. It was kinda like BOOM boss battle, fighting fighting, 'ACHIEVEMENT UNLOCKED survived having a tentical up your ass', and I'm just like, wait... What...? I go back to relisten and no, I didn't miss anything. It's just a bit wild like that... I'm exaggerating, of course, but my point still stands. Sometimes, the action was just too convoluted, and I struggled to stay focused on what was actually happening. Also, I knew the stakes were never that high, so did it really matter?
I also found the actual dungeon itself hard to visualise. It was hard to picture the crawlers' surroundings at any given time, which was honestly really frustrating at times. I will say, though, that the mob designs were all incredibly unique and added to the overall humour of the book.
Carl grew on me a little bit, but on the whole, I wasn't a big fan of his character. Controversial opinion, but the narrator's voice for Carl grained on me. It was kind of like an All American douchebag jock voice, which I guess is suitable for Carl, actually. I confess, I did love his relationship with Donut, and I have a sneaky suspicion that he will start to grow on me a lot more in future instalments.
So to summarise, this was a very fun, silly, humorous read with cool game mechanics, but a little too heavy on muddled messy action scenes for it to be anything more than just a fun time for me. I will definitely be continuing the series and wouldn't hesitate to recomend it to anyone who loves video games, or is just wanted something fun and fast paced. In fact, I have already gifted the hardback to a gamer friend of mine, who wishes to get more into reading, so there you are!
Thanks for reading! - Ang
🌕🌕🌕🌗🌑 - 3.5 Stars
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