Dungeon Crawler Carl Book 2
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.)
This book picks up immediately where the first book ends and doesn't give much of a recap, except for its nightly recap programss, which Carl and Donut have become regular guests on, and on which they've been featured on many nights.
The pair have made it down the stairs to Level 3, but as a twist, teams are randomly teleported to some point in the level, so the people Carl helped defeat the boss of Level 2 are somewhere else. He's still in contact through system messaging. This also means someone else, Katia, will temporarily join Carl's team because she's been cut off from the people she'd been traveling with.
On this level, everyone has to choose a class and specialty. They also choose a race. Princess Donut picks cat because why would she want to be anything other than a cat. Carl is also cautioned that he has an image and if he drastically alters it, he could lose followers and that might affect future sponsorships. One of the things that they do choose is a class for Donut that comes with Mordecai as a manager (which he's initially upset about for reasons he doesn't disclose). Mordecai has been through this game for many seasons and has some knowledge that could prove useful.
The third level is wide open, unlike an underground tunnel crawl. And side quests are programmed in that present themselves. Mordecai tells them not to get tangled up in them because they need to be practicing their skills and gaining experience killing monsters. But the quests are persistent, particularly one involved dead prostitutes, bird people, and a weird cult. It builds up to an explosive finish
While I was upset by the lack of an ending in the first book, and the fact that for all the talk of lower leverls, we only got two, in this book, we start and end on the third level and we knew that the party is on their way to the fourth where the next book will start.
As for the title, Carl has become very adept at using explosives and the third level side quest story line could have disatrous results as well.
I enjoyed this book, now that the tutorial was done and with the format changed a little bit. As mentioned elsewhere, I've started the next one. The library has gotten some ebook copies which are returned automatically, as opposed to the hardcovers, which are returned whenever the reader feels like bringing it back.
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.)
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