The premise of this book is far-fetched and simple: A hostile alien civilization decides it wants all of Earth’s valuable materials, and in an instant it flattens all interior structures, killing the vast majority of the population, and takes what it wants. According to some galactic rule, the few survivors — those who happened to be outside — are given the choice to try to live on the surface or descend into something called the “world dungeon.” The protagonist, Carl, who went outside without pants or shoes, decides his only option is to enter the dungeon for warmth, along with his ex-girlfriend’s cat Princess Donut.
It’s an outrageous setup that invites so many questions: What technology could simultaneously level all buildings, extract all valuable minerals, and carve out an elaborate underground dungeon that stretches over most of the planet’s surface? But, much like the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy books, it’s way more fun to set those questions aside and just go along for the ride.
The dungeon is equally grotesque and entertaining. Like an RPG video game, enemies of varying strengths can appear around any corner, and the players — all of whom have just survived a horrific ordeal on the surface — now have to kill monsters (“mobs”) that would have been inconceivable (outside of fantasy novels or role playing games) just a day before. They don’t just need to kill in order to survive, but to gain experience points, hoard loot, and level up abilities so they are ready to face increasingly difficult bosses. They have one week to progress and descend to Level 2 of the 18-level dungeon — before Level 1 is flattened and anyone remaining is killed.
With a thin premise like this, it’s especially important for the characters to be well defined, and Carl and Princess Donut certainly are. Without spoiling anything, I think their relationship is what balances out the horrific violence of the dungeon. They are underdogs worth rooting for, and like most entertaining duos, they don’t always get along.
This book is mostly good fun at a fast pace. There were, however, a few times when I felt the fights with various mobs were a little tedious — imagine grinding for XP in a video game, but you have to read it instead of playing. I also think the dungeon setting — a maze of very similar, nondescript hallways — posed a challenge that the author mostly managed to overcome by interspersing scenes in special rooms, boss battles, etc. But still, I think some greater variation in the setting could have made things a bit more interesting.
All in all, Dungeon Crawler Carl was a very fun read, and I’m excited to see what happens next. The 7th book in this series came out this month (October 2024), so I’ve got some catching up to do!