Daniel Andrlik reviewed Dungeon Crawler Carl by Matt Dinniman (Dungeon Crawler Carl, #1)
Fun fun fun
4 stars
This book had no business being as much fun as it was. Even though I had seen it recommended by friends, I went in skeptical, but was sucked in right away. It's by no means high literature, but Carl and Princess Donut's escapades are a delight. What this book lacks in substance it makes up with pure candy-coated silliness. This was the perfect weekend read.
Admittedly, I am solidly in the target demographic, being an avid TTRPG player, and there was plenty of fan service along those lines. Added pluses for some nose tweaking to the manosphere as well. On the surface, this could have come across as a different take on Ready Player One, but this one didn't leave the same bad taste in my mouth.
There's a lot of world building going on in this first book, with many hints of darkness to come, and without spoilers I …
This book had no business being as much fun as it was. Even though I had seen it recommended by friends, I went in skeptical, but was sucked in right away. It's by no means high literature, but Carl and Princess Donut's escapades are a delight. What this book lacks in substance it makes up with pure candy-coated silliness. This was the perfect weekend read.
Admittedly, I am solidly in the target demographic, being an avid TTRPG player, and there was plenty of fan service along those lines. Added pluses for some nose tweaking to the manosphere as well. On the surface, this could have come across as a different take on Ready Player One, but this one didn't leave the same bad taste in my mouth.
There's a lot of world building going on in this first book, with many hints of darkness to come, and without spoilers I can say the ending is kind of abrupt and odd. So I'm taking this down a star. I'll have to see how I feel about the second one plays out and ends to really understand if I like it as a series, but on the whole I found this first entry delightful.