Dungeon Crawler Carl Book 3
by Matt Dinniman (2021)
(Not a review, just some notes to help me remember the things I've read. But written this way because it's the Internet, and some people will stumble across this page.)
I first heard of this series in 2024 (if I remember correctly) at World Fantasy Con in Niagrara Falls, NY. I know people who'd read the entire series to date by this point. I started to reserve them and find out what it was all about. (Apparently, it started as a self-published book.)
In book 3, Carl and the gang make it to the fourth level. They materialize on a subway train that is about to pile into a station filled with monsters. They make their way into a private car and barricade the door until they can figure out what they have to do. They hear the rules and find that they need to get to one of a handful of stations that will have stairs that won't open until six hours before the collapse. The problem is that the trains are seem to be ready for the higher number stations, but the start are at lower stations (12, 24, 36, 48, and 72).
They have to figure out the pattern to where they can transfer and which trains can go backward in a loop. (Basically, it's the named trains versus the colored lines, but some of the colors are a little exotic.)
I have to give Dinniman credit for writing an entire book with trains. It's not an easy thing to do. Unlike buses, they can't be hijacked and taken cross-country. They have to follow the tracks. Having a lot of tracks makes it easier of course.
That said, Carl and company start to communicate more with the other crawlers through the chat features, which helps with orgranization because some things can't be done by a handful of people. That said, it didn't seem like this level was big enough for the number of crawlers that should still be on it. Carl helps save many people, but there should be so many more. And even if there were hundreds of colored train lines, one wonders why we didn't see more random crawlers.
Along with the stairs twist, another twist presents itself. Another character arrives to present Carl with a choice of fan gifts, but the guy has history with Mordecai who then lunges at him. But because this is a safe room, Mordecai has violated the rules and gets a time-out that will last to the day before the level collapses. That means Carl, Princess Donut, and Katia are on their own, without extra support, to figure the mess out. Mordecai was giving them hints and trying to map out as many train lines and transfer stations as he could.
Meanwhile, Carl's prize appears to be a useless cookbook, until he examines it away from everyone else. It's the dungeon's version of the Anarchist's Cookbook, which passes hands from crawler to crawler in different games, and it found its way into Carl's. If he sells it or dies, it'll be lost to all for this edition of the game. He spends a lot of time reading it. (It's been established that he's an avid reader when he's not building bombs and traps.)
It was an enjoyable book, and I had to cram in the ending because it was due back at the library. It got a little intense as things started to go wrong but everything works out in the end for most of them. Katia starts to come into her own, and the situation with her old team gets resolved in an unusual way. Also, the first guy who attacked Carl in the dungeon makes a reappearance to offer a plot twist for a later book.
I have other things to read, but I saw that the next book is available now without a wait time. Unfortunately, by the time I'm ready, I'm sure there will be one. As it is, someone was waiting for book 3.
If you stumbled across my page via the Internet, please check out my new book series that starts with, 7 Flashes of Science Fiction, seven glimpses into possible futures for our world and the worlds around us.
Also, check out my other short book series, Burke Lore Briefs. A fantastical fivesome of flash fiction and short stories. (Amazon only shows the first three books in the image. Go figure.)
