So Barbara Peters of the Poisoned Pen told everyone in a recent newsletter that we should all read at least one book a year out of our comfort zone. This one is mine, as recommended by Pat King, also of the Poisoned Pen. 

Short version of the plot: Aliens squish flat every structure on the earth everywhere all at once and provide doors/portals/whatever into a structure made out of the ruins for those four million surviving earthlings. The survivors include IT guy Carl and his ex’s cat, Princess Donut, who are then forced to fight for their lives against a series of aliens and demons and monsters and whatnot in a Hunger Games that is being broadcast live to trillions of viewers across the universe.

The structure, called the World Dungeon by our new alien overlords, has 18 levels and before Carl and Donut survive the second level there are less than a million earthlings left. So a mostly fatal experience for most of us, who suffer imaginative and exceedingly bloody ends.

Dinniman is a lively and engaging writer, especially his dialogue. Carl to Mordecai, their Guildmaster:

“None of this shit makes sense,” I said. “But yes, I understand what you’re saying. I’m on an intergalactic game show, and I have to be an obnoxious show-off in order to get eyes on me. And once I do have eyes on me, I might get a loot box with toilet paper in it. Does that about sum it up?”

Donut, her first words when a magic potion gives her the ability to speak:

“First off, Carl, my name is ‘GC, VWR, NW Princess Donut the Queen Anne Chonk,’ and I’m going to have to insist you call me by my proper title. I will accept just Princess or even Princess Donut but not if we are in the presence of high company.” She looked at Mordecai as if he was something she had just vomited up on the floor. “I suppose Princess Donut will do for now.”

And the rampage is on. Parts of the narrative are hilarious, like their first appearance on a talk show and the way the rules keep changing, but mostly the action is just, as the Dungeon’s unseen Caesar Flickerman intones at the ending of each message, “Remember, kill, kill, kill!” I am not a gamer and the way the game works is, ah, alien to me, but I found that if I skipped over what felt like an inordinate amount of detail about earned skills, abilities, magic items and weapons and explanations of which each did ad infinitum, the story moved along and I liked Carl and Donut enough to hang in there to the end.

A mostly fun read, what I see Amazon classes as “litrpg” which stands for literary role playing game (I guess?). There are eight in the series so far and I can wait for Dinniman to write the last one before I step back in to see how everything turns out. A book only a gamer could truly love. Or understand, for that matter.

Barbara? I am returning to my preferred fiction now.
PK? I’m glad I read it. Please don’t tell me how great the sequels are.

Book Review Monday Chatter Dungeon Crawler Carl Matt Dinniman