Dark, bizarre, humorous, insanely imaginative; that was my description of Matt Dinniman's Dungeon Crawler Carl in a nutshell. I was hoping that Carl and Princess Donut's journey through the lower levels of the dungeon would be as entertaining as the first volume turned out to be. Carl's Doomsday Scenario was still a fun read in its own right. And yet, it failed to recapture the magic that made its predecessor such a special read. I was hoping that this was a case of the second book syndrome and that the author would up his game in the third installment and the rest of the series. It made me wonder if Matt Dinniman was just a one-trick pony. When you rely on absurdity the way he does, things will almost always be hit or miss.
I'm glad to report that with
The Dungeon's Anarchist Cookbook, Dinniman stepped up to the plate and proved that the first installment was no fluke. True, some elements are becoming rather repetitive and the humor is not for everyone. Still, I felt that this third volume steered the story in new directions that provided glimpses of better and more ambitious things to come.
Here's the blurb:
Welcome to the Gun Show!
The top ten list is populated. The sponsorship program is open. The difficulty is ramping up. The first three floors were nothing compared to what Carl and Donut now face.
The Iron Tangle. An impossibly-complicated subway system built out of the world's subterranean railway systems, all combined and then tied together into a knot. Up is down. Down is up. Close is far. The cars are filled with monsters, the railway stations are less than safe, and the exit is always just a few stops away.
But there is hope. For the first time, the crawlers are all working together. The loot is better than ever. And the secret to unraveling it all may be hidden in the pages of a seemingly-useless book. Welcome, crawlers. Welcome to the fourth floor of the dungeon.
As mentioned before, LitRPG is a literary genre blending science-fiction and fantasy with video game and computer RPGs mechanics and conventions. Think character stats, experience points gained by battling creatures and completing quests, numerical rules, and a structure focusing on progression and character advancement. Expect character sheets, levels, and loot earned by killing enemies and bosses. It's all progression-oriented, with the plotlines heavily emphasizing on leveling up in order for the story to progress. To be honest, everything about this is unappealing to me. I feel that it's an inordinate amount of gimmicks getting in the way of the storytelling. Though it featured all of these gimmicks, somehow
Dungeon Crawler Carl, through its humor and originality, managed to sidestep numerous pitfalls and keep everything fresh and entertaining. And even if I found the first installment to be an often laugh-out-loud wild ride that made me go through the whole thing in just a few sittings, those RPGs elements were already getting annoying. Not enough to truly get on my nerves that first time around, but I could already see this becoming a problem down the line. I was hoping that Dinniman could keep the plot fun and interesting enough for me to overlook such gimmicks, but
Carl's Doomsday Scenario was nowhere near the novel that its predecessor was. That put the RPG mechanics more in the forefront, which in turn made them more irritating. Although confusing, the Iron Tangle plotline kept things original and unpredictable throughout
The Dungeon's Anarchist Cookbook. Having said that, I still feel that too many pages were devoted to Carl and company fighting various monsters to gain experience and level up. I'm not sure why we need to go through this, as most of these scenes could take place in the background without readers losing anything in the overall reading experience.
The worldbuilding continues to be totally absurd. Once again, forget about conventional SFF worldbuilding. In order to enjoy this series to the fullest, you must be willing to embrace the ridiculous. It's the absurdity of it all that made the first volume so compelling. You never knew what to expect and that's what made
Dungeon Crawler Carl such a fun read. Dinniman struggled to keep things as interesting in
Carl's Doomsday Scenario, yet the level-spanning network of train/métro lines known as the Iron Tangle worked much better this time around. Yes, it's a complicated mess, but it was cool to follow Carl and the others as they tried their best to figure it out before the collapse. Here's to hoping that the lower dungeon levels will be as imaginative and captivating.
As mentioned in my past reviews, chances are that your sense of humor might be what will make you love or hate this series. Like its predecessors, as a self-published work
The Dungeon's Anarchist Cookbook didn't go through any sensitivity reading before being released. It is thus filled to the brim with quirky, dark, and often juvenile humor that won't appeal to everyone. Once more, there is an amount of snark throughout that I really loved and found refreshing. Though the lewdness is a bit toned down in this third installment, the obnoxious AI that announces the Achievements and provides details to Carl and Princess Donut remains one of my favorite aspects of these books.
I always say that first-person narratives can be tricky, but I maintain that Carl remains the perfect point of view for such a batshit crazy series. Though he can be crass, once more in this book he shows a level of compassion that can makes him quite endearing. Being forced to go through this ordeal with his ex-girlfriend's cat continues to be hilarious, though Princess Donut is starting to lose her luster a bit. The supporting cast plays a much bigger role in
The Dungeon's Anarchist Cookbook. Mordecai provides a lot of insight, but it's the addition of Katia and Elle which allows certain secondary characters to shine. Dinniman went out of his way to supply information about other popular crawlers in the first two volumes, and it was nice to see Carl and Princess Donut interact with some of them in this one. Having various crawlers share information and work together was one of the highlights of this novel. Once more, there seems to be a lot of foreshadowing that hints at a lot more to come for the protagonists, things that go beyond the game and have to do with the politics of the various factions that comprise the universe. How this will affect the game and the crawlers remains to be seen, but Zev's leave of absence shows that things are moving in unexpected directions outside of the dungeon.
With the train back on track, no pun intended,
The Dungeon's Anarchist Cookbook appears to be a return to form for Matt Dinniman. Let's hope that the rest of the series will maintain this level of originality and silly inventiveness.
The final verdict: 7.75/10
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