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Mini, spoiler free review of Dungeon Crawler Carl, by Matt Dinniman (lemmy.ca)
submitted 2 months ago by to c/sciencefiction@lemmy.world
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Carl is outside in his boxers trying to get his girlfriend's cat out of a tree when everything with a roof on the planet is destroyed and the smaller number of survivors are made to compete in an intergalactic dungeon game similar to D&D. If this sounds kind of dumb, I described it correctly; it's kind of dumb. It’s also fairly entertaining and has a good amount of heart. People who have played any sort of role playing game, like World Of Warcraft, will probably be extra amused.

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[–] 0 points 2 months ago (2 children)

The cat goes in to the dungeon with him and is gifted with sentience immediately, becoming the protagonist's sassy partner. It's cheesey fun.

As others have pointed out, the book has a lot of over the top violence and death, so you might want to stay away. On the other hand, though, the author is far more into gore and comic book ultra violence than cruelty. Many people find Princess Donut -- the cat annoying -- but by book five no great harm has befallen her or any of the other protagonists.

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  • [–] 3 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (1 child)

    To quote the book #5:

    Tap for spoiler

    ”It’s going to get worse before it gets better. We are going to lose more friends. We’re going to have to do some pretty horrible things just to survive…”

    Book 5 is just scratching the surface, but the tones get worse, not better, at 5 you should understand this about the story.

    To say it’s not cruel, is so weird, and a few of the nonmain protagonists are gone, they don’t stay the same from book to book.

    To quote Dinnamin

    ”if I don’t like their voice, I kill them off”.

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  • [–] 3 points 2 months ago*

    I totally hear you. But the reason I disagree is that I think writers have a choice in how a death is supposed to strike the audience, and Dinniman is like a D&D GM who acts a lot tougher than he is.

    George R.R. Martin is the real deal: he's a ruthless writer of huge stakes: Ned Stark's death is designed to be as distressing as possible. It's intended to leave the reader with the devestated feeling that the world is highly unjust; that the more honorable the character, the more danger they're in; that the reader should be in a constant state of concern that the characters they care about could at any moment not only die, but -- more importantly for fiction imo -- be rendered meaningless. He is disgraced in death, and it's deeply painful for the reader.

    Conversely, Matt Dinniman is, imo, basically a softy. When good characters die, they leave a mark. Their friends mourn; they are honored and avenged; their lives leave indelible marks on the trajectory of the story. It's sad, but it's very sweet sorrow.

    That might change in the later books, but so far, Dinniman has been very gentle on readers when it counts.

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