Matt Dinniman
An A Perceptual Shift Book Review
The joke is starting to become something much more serious.
After Dungeon Crawler Carl, I knew what I was getting into.
Or at least I thought I did.
Carl is still running around an alien dungeon in his underwear. Princess Donut is still a talking cat. The violence is absurd, the humor is ridiculous, and the entire thing continues to operate like someone combined a role-playing game, a reality television show, and the end of the world.
But Carl's Doomsday Scenario begins to reveal just how much more is happening underneath all of that.
The dungeon isn't simply a place Carl and Donut have to survive.
It's a system.
And like most systems, it has rules, incentives, people who benefit from it, and people who are expected to suffer because of it.
Carl begins to understand that survival isn't enough.
Every decision he makes exists within a game designed by someone else. The crawlers are contestants, entertainment, and ultimately commodities. Their suffering has value to the people watching.
That makes Carl's growing refusal to simply play along increasingly interesting.
He isn't just learning how to survive the dungeon.
He's learning how the dungeon works.
And once you understand a system, you can start figuring out where it breaks.
That's where I think this series begins becoming something more than an entertaining LitRPG.
There is still plenty of chaos.
There are monsters, quests, loot boxes, ridiculous achievements, increasingly bizarre characters, and enough violence to make you wonder what exactly is happening inside Matt Dinniman's head.
But there is also a growing anger underneath the story.
Carl is angry about what happened to Earth.
He's angry about what is happening to the remaining humans.
And he's becoming increasingly angry about being treated as entertainment by people who view his suffering as part of a television show.
That anger gives the story direction.
The relationship between Carl and Donut also continues to develop. What initially seemed like one of the book's biggest jokes has become one of its strongest relationships.
They're not simply traveling together anymore.
They're becoming a team.
And beneath all the insults, absurdity, and occasional cat-related narcissism, there is genuine loyalty between them.
That's probably what continues to surprise me most about these books.
They shouldn't have this much heart.
Everything about the premise suggests disposable entertainment.
Instead, Dinniman keeps finding ways to make me care about these characters and the world they're trying to survive.
Carl's Doomsday Scenario takes everything that worked about the first book and begins expanding the world around it.
The dungeon gets bigger.
The system becomes clearer.
The consequences become more serious.
And Carl begins changing from someone trying to survive into someone who might eventually become a problem for the people running the game.
Book one made me want to keep reading.
Book two made me realize I was invested.
And at that point, there really wasn't much chance I was stopping.
