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, but 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 rest of the series. It made me wonder if Matt Dinniman was just a one-trick pony for, when you rely on absurdity the way he does, things will almost always be hit or miss.
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. And yet, I felt that the third volume steered the story in new directions that provided glimpses of better and more ambitious things to come. And if the latter is still true for this one, unfortunately
The Gate of the Feral Gods is more akin to the second installment in terms of quality. If not for the epilogue, which opens the door for so many possibilities, this book would have been the weakest of the bunch so far.
Here's the blurb:
New Achievement! Total, Utter Failure.
You failed a quest less than five minutes after you received it. Now that’s talent.
A floating fortress occupied by warrior gnomes. A castle made of sand. A derelict submarine guarded by malfunctioning machines. A haunted crypt surrounded by lethal traps.
It was supposed to be easy. One bubble. Four castles. Fifteen days. Capture each one, and the stairwell is unlocked.
Here's the thing. It's never easy. Carl and his team can't go it alone. Not this time. They must rely on the help of the low-level, I-can't-believe-these-idiots-are-still-alive crawlers trapped in the bubble with them. But can they be trusted?
Welcome, Crawler. Welcome to the fifth floor of the dungeon.
As mentioned in previous reviews, 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 move forward. To be honest, everything about this annoyed 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 vexing and I could see this becoming a problem down the line. Oddly enough, four books into the series, I guess that I've somehow gotten used to the RPG mechanics and they no longer irritate me as much as before.
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 in
The Dungeon's Anarchist Cookbook. I was hoping that the lower dungeon levels would be as imaginative and captivating. Alas, the bubble with its four quadrants that was the backdrop of
The Gate of the Feral Gods didn't really work for me. I've come to realize that whatever universe serves as a level's environment plays a big role on my level of enjoyment for any particular novel. Hence the reason why this fourth installment failed to wow me.
As mentioned before, chances are that your sense of humor might be what will make you love or hate this series. Then again, what with this being the fourth volume, if you're still around it probably means that you can live with that. Like its predecessors, as a self-published work
The Gate of the Feral Gods 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. The dungeon AI 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. Princess Donut has become a bit of a liability, I feel, and she gets on my nerves more often than not. Which doesn't bode well for the rest of the series, for I'm sure that she's in for the long haul. The supporting cast continues to play bigger role in
The Gate of the Feral Gods. Once more, Mordecai provides a lot of insight on everything and Katia continues to shine. It's nice to see Carl and Princess Donut interact with other crawlers. As was the case with the third volume, having various crawlers share information and work together was one of the highlights of this novel. Once again, 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 the epilogue shows that things are moving in unanticipated directions outside of the dungeon. In many ways, that was the very best part of
The Gate of the Feral Gods and it sets the stage for an escalation that may shake the dungeon to its core.
Let's hope that Matt Dinniman can get back on track and that the rest of the series will maintain this level of originality and silly inventiveness.
The final verdict: 7/10
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