Dungeon Crawler Carl by Matt Dinniman #4-7: Review & Analysis

The Dungeon Anarchist’s Rise & Revolution

https://youtu.be/4DFbz2SYtwM?si=C5XaEphLeIoSpWIE

Introduction

We’re finally here! I know, my review of books 1-3 was only a month and a half ago, but I read this series fast. There’s another world where I reviewed 4-6 mid-July, and yet another where this look at 4-7 came two weeks ago. But as I said last week, bingeing the series so quickly ended up burning me out on it a little, so the break has been helpful for me to process and recover enthusiasm.

If you’re here and still deciding whether to start the series, make sure you’ve read my prior review first! If you’ve read some and are deciding whether to continue, I hope this article will be helpful.

But I imagine most readers (if they exist) will just be here to read another person’s take on books they quite enjoyed. For them I’ll do my best to offer what insights and commentary I can!

A brief preview of my thoughts: these books are good, they’re easy reads, and they have some truly compelling moments which make me glad to have read them. At the same time, any issues you had with the early books (particularly 2 and 3, once you’re in the swing of things) will absolutely continue to bother you should you choose to proceed further. 

At the same time, most of the things you enjoyed about those books will continue to entertain you, on increasingly impressive scales.

So let’s get into it! Spoilers ahead for Dungeon Crawler Carl up to the end of Book 7: This Inevitable Ruin.

Dungeon Crawler Carl Books 4-7, by Matt Dinniman

Story & Structure

Carl and Donut overcome a variety of tricky obstacles and make it down to the 10th floor of the World Dungeon. Katia goes full body horror at the end of the 9th floor and is sent to a safe zone where she’ll hopefully be able to protect humanity’s surviving children. Next section!

(Not really, but it is tricky to find an effective level of detail for a summary that doesn’t either gloss over almost everything or take a few hours to convey.)

Carl’s (and Donut’s) goal is already mostly solidified by the end of book 3, but becomes further crystallized into: survive & thrive, save as much of humanity as possible (in and out of the dungeon), and kill every evil alien showrunner/oligarch/noble/hunter he can along the way.

He often accomplishes these goals very creatively, with details of his plans hidden from the reader until the climactic moment when they’re revealed in full. It’s entertaining! But for my taste it also sometimes manages to be both expositional and confusing, which can easily detract from those heightened moments.

It’s likewise nice to see fellow Crawlers, NPCs, and even former Crawlers getting more page time and parts to play, fleshing out the world beyond Carl’s limited point of view and experiences. But it also greatly detracts from the narrative’s precarious momentum during downtime and makes action even more chaotic and harder to follow.

Ultimately, the storylines of the dungeon itself are inspired by and straight out of TTRPG campaigns. It’s wonderfully imaginative and excellently executed, arguably better than even Critical Role and Dimension 20 for Dinniman’s inherent ability to control all aspects of the narrative. But they’re also necessarily shallow (which he’s great at satirizing) and follows the usual TTRPG curve, where early levels are filled with action and later levels involve lots of planning for rarer, climactic encounters. So enjoy these stories while you read them, but I don’t have too much to say about any of those details in particular.

Dungeon Crawler Carl Characters, art by ThisBandicoot2919

Highlights & Morals

The good news is that, despite how bogged down in the details the narrative sometimes feels, most of the highs in this series remain truly high.

Probably my largest omission from above was the books’ growing characterization of the System AI—the effective Dungeon Master for the game and a surprisingly engaging third party in the conflict between the Crawlers and the showrunners.

We learn that these AIs are actually not so artificial in origin, but in fact ancient Primals (like Carl’s chosen race) being awakened and trained through the process of running the dungeon and interacting with the life of entire planets. (A fun parallel to The Locked Tomb and general personifications of planets, like Gaia.)

We also see that the showrunners have an explosive failsafe in place in case the AI gains too much understanding and control over the system at large—one of the best twists of the series so far was Carl using his access to permanently disable this failsafe and let the AI grow and act as it pleases. 

Another significant highlight occurs in book seven, with a focus on past authors of the Dungeon Anarchist’s Cookbook. We learn several of their fates through flashbacks and actually have several others return to the dungeon to aid Carl’s struggle.

These characters’ stories were filled with heart, trauma, and overwhelming passion that felt a cut above anything else the series has accomplished thus far. They’ve chosen to return to this place that tormented them, and to likely die in the hope of striking a blow against the showrunners, and it’s truly great stuff.

I’ve been mentioning the alien showrunners and nobility a lot, and that’s because they really have been centered to be the main antagonists, over fellow crawlers, anything in the dungeon itself, or the AI. This builds off of what we see of the Orc princes in the early books and expands to include the Hunters—killing crawlers for sport on the sixth floor—and Faction Wars participants—playing war games with the lives of crawlers and NPCs. It’s nice to have Carl taking direct action against the real evils, inciting alien populations against their overlords, and even managing to remove the antagonists’ protections so that their lives are just as at stake as those of the crawlers.

Samantha, Demigod and sex doll head, art by luxfatale

Impossible not to mention Samantha, who seems like an offhand joke at first but blossoms into a hilarious character and weapon in her own right. Her French-accented catchphrase of “I will kill your mother” has quickly grown on me where “Goddamnit Donut” always felt a little twee to me.

Emberus, the Gate of the Feral Gods, the card game, Miriam and Prepotente, Quan Ch, and the appearance of Bea and Carl’s dad also stand out to me right now, mostly just as fun and notable elements of the story. Also very interested in where Scolapendra’s awakening is going!

Finally, I think the Ring of Divine Suffering and its damaging effect on Carl’s mind and soul is a strong (if a little blunt) reminder of the cost Carl’s crusade must necessarily have on him—a supernatural timer for him to either complete his quest or become the monster himself. 

An important parallel to this is the idea of masks, that Carl and Donut must act this way to survive before eventually shedding the mask later—and trust that they won’t be changed too much in the process. It’s an interesting place to put focus considering that death is ostensibly waiting for them around every corner, but I think that makes the humanity of it all the more potent.

Faction Wars, art by Levi Cleeman

Staring Down the End

There are two—really three, since book nine is being split in two parts—books left in Dungeon Crawler Carl, and #8: A Parade of Horribles, is already out in the world and waiting for me to read it.

And while I’m sure it’ll be interesting and exciting and mind-bending and all the rest, I’m honestly not as fascinated and intrigued by what’s to come as I am with most series. Because we know the broad strokes of how it’s going to end, right? Our system AI grows strong enough to corrupt/challenge the Eulogist—the central alien AI—and burns the current order down even as Carl and Donut reclaim Earth for what remains of humanity.

What I want is for a new, better system to be proposed after all the anarchy and revolution and violence—both on Earth and in the universe at large—but Game of Thrones taught me that such things are much easier said than done. 

I think these are ultimately good books with a fun, brutal depiction of taking action against the controlling puppet-masters (an idea that could only be dreamed of in Chain-Gang All-Stars, which I compared the early books to), but I’ve also come away wishing they had a little more to say. 

Imani, art by Andrew Mar (so much more incredible art on his page!)

I wished at the end of my previous review that the books would apply their anti-capitalist lens to the pre-dungeon world, and I half got my wish by getting a glimpse of the same themes in the alien society instead. 

But there’s still very little representation or exploration of everyday injustices, and at this point it seems clear that there won’t be. And that’s ok of course, but I think it does lessen the experience and value of these books for me personally. As I discussed with regard to The Will of the Many, there’s an innate contradiction to any bestselling critique of capitalism, and I don’t know that either text ultimately overcomes it.

What are your thoughts on the series so far? Any important themes or moments I missed?

Thanks for reading and until next time <3