I’d seen Dungeon Crawler Carl all over the internet before picking it up. A lot of people had picked it up as their first LitRPG and were raving about it, so I knew I had to pick it up at some point. After an internal dilemma about spending £20+ on a book I wasn’t sure if I was going to enjoy yet, I bought it from Amazon and began to read it quite quickly after it arrived, as I was excited to get into it.
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Dungeon Crawler Carl tells the story of our main protagonist Carl and his ex-girlfriend’s cat Princess Donut and how one day their world is quite literally thrown upside down by an alien race and they’re forced into a “dungeon” in which they must play through a video-game-like scenario for the entertainment of this alien race. This is all told in the form of a LitRPG too (more on what that means later).
Dungeon Crawler Carl plot – 4.5/5
I had SO much fun reading Dungeon Crawler Carl, it’s a book that never really takes itself too seriously and this is a rare find these days in a book. As aforementioned, the idea behind Dungeon Crawler Carl is fairly simple – a man and his ex-girlfriend’s cat are essentially thrown into a video-game-like setting as a result of an alien race taking over Earth. They then must level up, pick up loot, gain new skills, use health potions and all the expected RPG elements to stay alive and progress through to the next level.
Along the way, they realise their adventures are televised and must appease the crowd and sponsors to help them survive, creating a different dynamic to the story altogether, where they must now try and have “catchphrases” and perform combat with “style”. I found this aspect the most interesting and how it then leads to Carl himself rebelling and showing resistance to this atrocity.
Dungeon Crawler Carl is a LitRPG, which means, as I’ve touched on previously, that the book is, in all intents and purposes, a fictional novel but that embedded within it is the character levelling, gaining loot, gaining new skills and generally doing things that you would expect from an RPG video game or tabletop game. As a huge video game, and specifically RPG, nerd, I found this aspect SO interesting and the novelty rarely wore off as Dinniman introduced new ways to keep you interested as they levelled higher.
Dungeon Crawler Carl characters – 4.75/5
Oh, you thought I raved about the plot and how much I enjoyed all of that? Well, the characters in Dungeon Crawler Carl are even better. Carl and Princess Donut are filled to the brim with personality. They crack jokes, they express a wide range of emotions, they make mistakes and most importantly, they make you vouch for them.
The dynamic between them is utterly hilarious, with Donut taking the dungeon very seriously, trying to impress whilst bossing Carl around and Carl being nonchalant, rebellious and constantly lacking any real drive.
On top of our two main protagonists, there are a host of great side characters we meet along the way who you’ll remember long after reading the book. These range from the lovable to the detestable and almost everything in between.
Though technically not characters, some of the imagination on show here from Dinniman with some of the “villains” and “characters” is really enjoyable too.
Dungeon Crawler Carl final rating – 4.5/5
Reading Dungeon Crawler Carl is some of the most fun I’ve had reading all year and the unique genre made it even more fun for the inner nerd inside me. With a host of brilliant characters, our main protagonists taking the cake and a story that builds a world that impresses, it’s not only fun for nerds but a genuinely enjoyable book for anybody who’s looking for something a lot more light-hearted than the fantasy genre can often offer. I went into this thinking that it being LitRPG would mean it would lack in any real depth, but there’s a lot of potential here for the sequels to take this light-hearted initial book to a whole new level and I’m very excited to find out.
Buy a copy of Dungeon Crawler Carl
