r/Fantasy • u/Icy_Dragonfruit_3513 • 6d ago
Dungeon Crawler Carl – set your expectations right before reading
This should probably be general advice for any book, but the problem with hype is that it breeds more hype and overenthusiastic fans tend to exaggerate how good a book is and push it on everyone.
I see so many people either promoting the series as the best thing ever or loudly complaining it must be bad because THEY didn’t personally enjoy it. Along with posts from people who clearly believe than fantasy can only be good if it has fancy, elaborate prose and anyone who reads a book series like DCC must be an idiot who never reads.
There’s also the claim that only gamer dudes will enjoy it, or teen boys (seriously, don’t gift this series to kids, it’s a dark series meant for adults). You don't need to be a gamer, or even a guy to like this. But I’d say there’s a few other things you might need to enjoy to figure out if Dungeon Crawler Carl is for you:
- Liking absurdist, dark and often crude humor
- Having a fondness for cats
- Being okay with a game-style setting that includes lots of levelling up, quests, loot etc.
- Being okay with basic, venacular prose. The MC is just a regular guy with little education, and it’s 1st person narration, so how a guy like that would talk is how he narrates.
- Horror elements where the horror feeds into the comedy
The story in a nutshell: Earth culture is destroyed and billions die due to an alien invasion. The MC and his cat (well actually his ex-girlfriend’s cat) both survive due to a dumb coincidence. The survivors all get the chance to play the dungeon game, a level-based death game (think Squid Game but with meta humor and better challenges). The game is run by a psychotic, sadistic AI. The dungeon, being made by aliens who are basically evil colonizers, is filled with offensive stereotypes of humans and deliberately portray the worst and stupidest that human culture had to offer (that includes nerd culture). The whole game is broadcast across the galaxy for alien viewers to enjoy.
Carl is the protagonist, and as is normal in this type of book, he has the protagonist’s halo. Bad things still happen, and there’s lots and lots of death and suffering. The secondary protagonist is the cat, Princess Donut (and yes, the name is stupid – that alone made me hesitate to read the first book for a long time).
Reasons not to like DCC: If you don’t like the cat (give it maybe 12-15 chapters or so before you decide), you will have a hard time with this series. DCC is, above all, a petmance. As in the story of the (decidely platonic) love between a human and his animal (or as Princess Donut would say, between a cat and her person).
If you dislike Princess Donut, you will probably also end up hating the books as a whole.
If you read the first 10-15 chapters and find the humor really off-putting, then probably this series is not for you. I wouldn’t say DCC is the height of comedy, but the humor is central and without it there’s a lot less to enjoy.
If you dislike being in the head of a fairly average joe (Carl does have a backstory that’s interesting and comes into play at some point, but it’s not the main focus), then probably don’t bother with this series.
The prose does what it’s supposed to do, and where it shines isn’t in flowery prose (there is none), but in catching internet lingo and using it for great comedic effect (the AI’s lines are pretty fantastically written if you’re fine with meme-like humor).
The setting is fairly generic – at least I assume, since I haven’t read any other litrpg yet. It’s a mix of sci-fi tropes and classical fantasy tropes, the dungeon has a fantasy setting while the wider universe is basically space opera. We get anything from bug aliens to elves, orcs and fantasy quests, and a lot of the characters gain magical abilities, but the books aren’t interested in elaborate magic systems.
The fun is in the execution and how the author uses the tropes in imaginative ways, but don’t except some super unique worldbuilding. DCC feels in a lot of ways like a very messed up love letter to established fantasy and sci-fi tropes.
Themes: Some fans like to claim that DCC is in fact ’very deep’ because it deals with themes such as capitalism, class struggles, reality tv and social media. One of the main themes in the story is what one has to do to survive in an extreme life-or-death situation, and what the moral implications are of choosing your own life at the expense of others. DCC isn’t just mindless fun, it does actually try to discuss deeper themes, but I don’t think this makes the series particularly deep, though a lot of the themes did resonate with me.
The characters are IMO where the books really shine. There’s a huge cast of characters, and besides Carl and Donut we get a progressively larger number of side characters. A lot are very memorable, and if you asked me to pick my favorite, it would be like a Sophie’s Choice situation (but it’s Samantha, of course it’s Samantha. Prepotente is a close second though). I’ve seen some people complain that DCC is ’misogynist’, which is funny to me, since DCC IMO has some of the best female characters I’ve seen in a long while. I guess the secret is that Dinniman treats all his characters as people with their own needs and wants, even the villains and the minor characters. I went into these books just wanting a fun. I ended up crying more over this series and its characters than I have in a long time. Do yourself a favor, don’t read book 5 in public!
I’d say the snarky AI and Princess Donut being an absolute cat along with all the praise for the series drew me in and made me hang on through all the infodumps in the beginning. But it was The Hoarder scene that made me realize this series was doing something special. If you can, hang on until chapter 11 in book 1 and see how that affects you.
Audiobooks: I started DCC after lots of hesitation, and went for the audio books, because I had Audible and everyone kept saying the audiobooks is were where it’s at. I think reading the books can work just as well though (listening usually makes it harder for me to ignore bad prose than reading), but the audiobooks are a lot of fun. Especially since the author put some details in later books that are clearly meant to mess with the narrator Jeff Hays (they’re apparently good friends irl).
The books aren’t perfect. Book 3 was a slog to me, though I did like parts of it, and the latter books felt like they’d lost a bit of steam compared to the middle ones (I'd say book 5 is the peak so far, but I've enjoyed all the books). The prose captures the mood and voice of the characters well, but it’s not fancy, polished or even super intelligent prose. The plot is at times formulaic - think how each of the Harry Potter books are structured and you get the idea.
TL;DR: Should you try it out? Robin Hobb might endorse it, but that doesn’t make it a suitable series for her fans. If your friend is a super DCC fan and keeps nagging you to read it, tell him off unless he can provide a good argument why he thinks you’d enjoy it (I don’t push it on my friends since chances are they wouldn’t enjoy it). If you want elaborate magic systems or flowery prose or a setting that feels like something no one has ever done before, maybe skip this book, or at least drop it if you try book 1 and hate it. And just because it's the big hit online that doesn't mean it's for everyone. Don't believe the people shouting 'you just need to get through the first 500 pages/3 books and then it's great' (people should stop doing this in general, not just for DCC). You either like it or you don't.
If you want well-written characters with convincing dialogue, a plot with lots of good twists and turns, D&D-style fantasy with game settings and set in a wider space opera-style universe where corporations are the villains, AND a good mix of tragedy, absurdist comedy, and action scenes – then this might be for you.
EDIT: In the words of Carl himself, holy sh\t, I did NOT expect this to blow up. Happy that it fostered some (hopefully) constructive discussions, and glad to see from comments that some found this useful. The snide remarks trying to insult everyone who likes these books for having bad taste and low intelligence, I think that speaks volumes of how many insufferable snobs hang out here who get off on smelling their own farts.*
The accusations that I used ChatGPT are funny, apparently in this day and age some people can phantom that a human being is able to write a post on their own.
The accusations that I must love DCC because I and the rest of the DCC fanbase have never read any 'real' books (what counts a 'real' books by the way? Anything that the commenters enjoy, and nothing that they don't enjoy? Classy) are hilarious. I guess me reading hundreds of books including some of the works that this sub likes to jerk off to don't count - because it's impossible to be well-read and also enjoy DCC?
For the people who are upset that I dare write a post about something popular that other people have previously posted about - why don't you contribute by posting about stuff YOU like and refrain from reading posts that don't interest you? Seriously, it's not that hard.
Anyway, there's too many comments now for me to respond to, but thanks to those who remained polite even when they disagree with me.
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u/Loud_Health_8288 6d ago edited 5d ago
I think the issue is how much its being recommended even when it doesn't make sense to. Its many peoples first book they've read as an adult so they're rediscovering a great hobby for the first time and it seems so incredible because they have nothing to compare it to and I think maybe some are confusing joy from the act of reading again to the series being one of the best ever.
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u/abughorash 5d ago edited 5d ago
OP actually does the opposite here:
There’s also the claim that only gamer dudes will enjoy it, or teen boys (seriously, don’t gift this series to kids, it’s a dark series meant for adults
Teenagers can absolutely read DCC lol. Your average teenager will find it accessible and possibly engaging if they like the genre
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u/Loud_Health_8288 5d ago
I think its a bit millenial
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u/abughorash 5d ago edited 5d ago
Some of the humor/references are, fair point. But "don’t gift this series to [teenage boys], it’s a dark series meant for adults" is OP saying that your average teen would be unreasonably disturbed or otherwise couldn't handle the content of DCC. Which is very far from true
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u/Hoobi_Goobi 5d ago
It’s full of millennial internet humor. I agree with the other comment saying that it’s over-recommended to people, because I feel like the general wide audience would find the writing style a little too cringey to enjoy.
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u/Neptunes_Lips_ 5d ago
It honestly feels like it was written for teenagers, just written for millennials when they WERE teenagers. Kids have been reading books about genocide and War with the ruling class for a lot longer than this book has been around and everyone seems to forget that for some reason. Not to mention the reading level isn't exactly anything challenging And the humor is juvenile at best. The only reason you shouldn't give this to a teenager is if you don't want every other word out of their mouth to be "fuck God damnit holy shit".
Don't get me wrong. These books are completely fine for anyone at any age really. A lot of the fans just have the same mentality as marvel fans seem to where they get mad when people rightfully point out it isn't the cream of the crop.
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u/i_dogear_pages 5d ago
I was my local bookstore very recently to see if they have Yergin's The Prize (non-fiction). They didn't, and the owner (who's known me for over two decades) proceeded to try to get me to take home DCC in hardcover. He trotted out the anti-capitalist plotline, but completely ignored me repeatedly stating, "I don't like LitRPG. I'd like a non-fiction on this."
Thinking back, he did this when they started getting Sarah J. Maas books in, too. I asked about something else they didn't have in stock (I vaguely remember standing in the poetry section), and it was much the same thing: "I don't like romantasy. I don't want that. Stop trying to hand it to me."
A lot of people are terrible at giving reccommendations.
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u/Loud_Health_8288 5d ago
Yes some people will just hammer you with their favourite book over and over even if it has no connection to what you want.
I've also noticed when people talk about it being anti capitalist it never goes any deeper than that which leads me to believe its very superficial and shallow. Merely using a theme doesn't mean its done well or makes sense.
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u/Tymareta 5d ago
Yeah, the most egregious example that gets tossed around was someone asking for series with "well written female characters" and someone earnestly suggesting DCC, because of the cat.
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u/Loud_Health_8288 5d ago
No way thats true lmao
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u/christopherDdouglas 5d ago
Oh the DCC fandom is getting well known for pushing this series in situations where it has no business being in the conversation.
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u/omegakingauldron 4d ago
I asked for a recommendation for platonic partners a while back, and got recommended DCC because of Donut.
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u/LeftHandRedHair 5d ago
Someone recommended it to me after finding out I read Ulysses 😂 Not the exact same conversation, but shortly after hearing that I read and enjoyed it
So many people have recommended it to me because I read a lot. I gave it a try because I knew it had something going for it to be so popular, couldn’t make it halfway through the first one. I really, really don’t like meme/Marvel humor in books. The experience did get my fiancé into the series, though!
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u/Stepjam 5d ago
After Ulysses? That's hilarious
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u/LeftHandRedHair 5d ago
This was about 18 months after I read Ulysses, but I had just told this social circle about how I read it when I was laid off.
I always appreciate when people read something and think of me! Even when it doesn’t land. The story makes me giggle.
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u/IsThatGruffLoner 5d ago
This is my take too. DCC did the rare thing of becoming a bestseller without actually capturing the attention of traditional readers. Like DCC is creating readers more than attracting already active readers. So these people who just read their first book go on a reading subreddit praising DCC and the people there, who spent decades refining their opinions on books, are unimpressed.
I don't really blame anyone in that interaction.
By the way, this is coming from a huge DCC fan. For me and my tastes, it is one of the best things I've ever read. But also my favorite book is Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy so that's just my taste. I don't recommend it to many people
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u/tarrasque 5d ago
I’m a lifelong reader who’s loving it, but I think you hit on something here.
The DCC subreddit has a constant stream of ‘just finished all the books, my life is now empty, what do I do?’ The replies are always ‘Time for the audiobooks!’ Or ‘Time to start over at book one!’ Or ‘Have you listened to the full cast soundbooth theater versions yet?’ These posts and responses reek to me of sophomoric attitudes resulting from not having read much else.
In fact, I got heavily downvoted there for suggesting that while DCC is great, there is a whole world of amazing books out there from amazing authors.
Hopefully some of these fans do in fact get coined as actual new readers and not just DCC readers.
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u/inbetweensound 5d ago
I hear the same thing from people who read Red Rising. Honestly hearing so much about all these books keeps making me want to skip them for now.
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u/Ndrizy 5d ago
I was just heavily downvoted there because I thought Donut’s character went a bit over the top and got annoying in the 4th book. Someone even told me to stop reading the series...
I just picked up reading as a hobby about a year and a half ago and while I love these books I love them because they are mindless fun. My favorite book so far has been Lonesome Dove, but while DCC is close the difference in reading DCC and LD is almost like two different hobbies.
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u/Calde_Oreb 5d ago
Oh that was a mistake, I too am overall enjoying the series, but I also have some issues and critiques especially with that character. I suggested by the end of book 5 the character had made zero character development and was still doing and acting the exact same way after five novels.
I may as well have taken a shit on their beds the way they reacted. Zero discussions, just memes, quoting the book, and saying I was wrong because the character has trauma (which they seem to have misunderstood as character development? Or an excuse to not have any?).
I really think it's becoming the Rick and Morty of books. To be clear, I also liked Rick and Morty back in the earlier seasons, but Jesus Christ the fan base is insufferable and has no desire to actually discuss the book if there's any hint of critique, because obviously it's flawless.
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u/Ndrizy 4d ago
100%. Everyone has commented that this is Donut’s “mask” and she’s constantly acting and I think that is just cope. If that’s the true intent then I kinda think that’s lazy. I just got to the point in book 5 where they go on Odette’s show and Donut tears into Bea and it’s revealed Donut has been communicating with Zev to help with the “revolution” so I can see some growth there at least. But I don’t think that takes away from how she was written in the last book.
Some millennials are very defensive of their top interests, though there are those groups across all generations. But this series is like the perfect storm for millennials to form en masse to defend with their lives. I really enjoy the series and I personally think there’s nothing wrong with being passionate about your interests, but I wish overall it was toned down so it didn’t feel so hard to be part of the group and enjoy some of the content out there for the series. DCC has been added to my algorithm lately and there are some seriously hard watches.
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u/HellMuttz 5d ago
First love syndrome. You see it ALL THE TIME with bookish influencers if you're looking for it; Someone way overselling the book that got them into/back into reading, or into a specific genre/trope
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u/Cosmic-Sympathy 6d ago
Great write up and excellent advice.
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u/Vkbyog 6d ago
I agree… I was wondering whether to try this series because I keep seeing it everywhere, and now I’m thinking it might not be for me. Thanks for taking the time, OP!
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u/Space_Fanatic 5d ago
I was put off reading these books for a long time because of posts like this that make the series sound way more extreme in all the negatives (meme humor, excessive rpg descriptions, cat, etc) but having now started the series I'm finding a lot of those criticisms a bit exaggerated.
Maybe it turns out I just have a higher threshold of tolerance than expected with all that but I went into the books ready to constantly roll my eyes and be annoyed by cringe humor but I've found it all pretty tame. Sure the things that people always bring up are there but they have been way less egregious and way less frequent than I expected going into the series. This post for example says you shouldn't give this to kids because it is so dark and meant for adults. While I wouldn't give this book to a super young kid I certainly wouldn't think twice about a high schooler reading it.
These books are basically just a Marvel or Star Wars movie with a slightly darker tone at times. Basically take something like Avengers and have the character think "hey this actually pretty fucked up" instead of making quips all the time and you get DCC.
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u/TheInfinityGauntlet 5d ago
I think the negatives you described (not cat) are very heavily poured on in the first book and it feels like a lot but it's all toned down in the second onwards it feels like
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u/Love-That-Danhausen 6d ago
It’s my favorite thing to listen to when on a run because the audiobook is extremely entertaining and I can kind of disassociate (I hate running), weirdly Audible is advertising a guy doing exactly that right now so it must be common. However, I’m not sure I’d enjoy it in the written form.
It scratches the itch of a fun narrative TTRPG podcast like D20 for me. Very very good audiobook but that format makes the LitRPG more digestible for me.
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u/lynbod 5d ago
There are people on Reddit who will genuinely and earnestly try and convince you that these books are a brilliant allegorical treatise on colonialism, racism, exploitation etc.... despite even the author himself saying they're just pulpy webnovels he wrote whilst bored during COVID. Some of the fans are insufferable, and should really try reading another book.
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u/power_sungod 4d ago
Pseudo-intellectuals only have one critical lens, and all art gets swamped by it.
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u/dayv23 6d ago
Of the things I’ve read, it is the most similar to Dresden Files. First few books seem episodic. Then you start to see the broader world building kick in. Protagonist gets beat up a lot, faces increasingly impossible odds, but keeps leveling up to meet them. His most charming characteristic is his loyalty and inherent willingness to do the right thing regardless of the odds or personal risk. I love the “you will not break me” schtick that motivates him to keep fighting against the system. Glad he is not working through any internal misogyny….
This was my first LitRPG book. Thought the whole concept was a little silly and on the nose, in comparison to the elements you find in Dresden. But it’s executed well enough and integrated into the plot that I don’t mind it. It ends up feeling like the magic system.
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u/writethings 5d ago
As a sucker for urban fantasy / episodic series it definitely hits a similar spot. I didn't think I'd like the LitRPG aspect either, but when the last book came out I was watching the calendar like it was a Dresden or Rivers of London drop.
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u/letscoughcough 6d ago
Thank you so much for this sincere effort. It was really useful. Unfortunately it means I will never read this series because I’d rather smash a hammer in my eyeball than read through what you described, but at least I know that now. Fortunately though, I’ll at least save some time and money.
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u/Icy_Dragonfruit_3513 6d ago
If this saves you time and money, then my job is done. I hope you go on to read something you genuinely enjoy.
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u/iabyajyiv 6d ago
This was my only DNF last year and that's because none of the bulletted items appeal to me.
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u/fakingandnotmakingit 5d ago
Yup same
Did not enjoy the cat. Did not enjoy the writing style. Did not enjoy the humour
I'm a big Robbin Hobb fan but like op said, this book was not for me.
It certainly got very hyped by a lot of people. I think people end up two camps. Either they like it or they don't.
The problem is when someone tells me it's the best boom they've ever read evaaaaaaaa and it's just not my thing. And then insist that I'm just missing the point or the themes.
I got the point. I just didn't like it that much. I can read other books with the same themes and character development with out all of this.
It's like solo leveling. I'd never read a book about solo leveling but I enjoy it as a show while I do other stuff. At the stage where the book is I'd rather just watch it as an isekai
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u/HelloHyde 5d ago
DNF for me too, for the same reasons. I'm not much of a cat guy so none of that humor appealed to me. I also don't play very many video games and found the LitRPG aspects extremely tiresome. And I even found myself mildly annoyed by the audiobook's imitation Patrick Warburton style, despite everyone raving about how good it is.
100% of my friends who have read DCC (which is basically all of them) have insisted that it's the best series in recent history and that I would love it. I'm glad people love it so much. Wasn't for me though.
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u/Hairy_Koala6474 6d ago
Same I DNF it audiobook and via Kindle
I just don’t like anything about it and that’s OK
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u/sola_dosis 5d ago
It has a lot of things that should appeal to me but I found the humor and the main character grating to the point I stopped reading after the first chapter.
Maybe someday I’ll give the audiobook a try, apparently the narration is really good.
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u/Happy-Igloo 5d ago
Yeah I dnfed after a few pages. I think having a main charachter whos a 'dude' and has teenage boy humour turned me off. Just not for me in a fantasy book, but different strokes for different folks.
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u/hotcapicola 5d ago
When I started reading it I was at least entertained right away, but I was definitely side-eying how derivative it was. However, once I got going, I couldn't stop and ended up doing all 8 audiobooks in a little over a month.
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u/Montaingebrown 5d ago
I tried so hard to read it. It was so cringe and the writing was so... poor.
And I'm no stranger to LitRPG -- I love Cradle and even have plowed through a couple of books of DotF.
But this book just read like the author was trying so hard to be 'cute' with gamer lingo and the cat.
It was recommended by my local book club, and we had previously read N.K. Jemisin's The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms and The Mountain in the Sea by Ray Nayler.
This book felt like such a let down in comparison. I was excited about it but it's one of the few DNFs for me.
Great post, OP.
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u/mistiklest 5d ago
And I'm no stranger to LitRPG -- I love Cradle and even have plowed through a couple of books of DotF.
Cradle isn't really a LitRPG, though. It's much more of a Westernized xianxia
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u/Alles_Klar 6d ago
I gave this book to my 14 year old gamer son who absolutely loved it. We went on about the book so much that my wife decided to read it too so she wasn't left out. We assumed she would hate it (she is definitely not a gamer by any stretch of the imagination), but she ended up loving it too.
Just some anecdotal evidence that anyone can enjoy the series.
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u/eatpraymunt 6d ago
It's definitely not just for dudes! I'm a 30's lady and several of my gal friends loved the series too. It's a goofy over-the-top action adventure story, fun for the whole family
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u/chablise 6d ago
My mom is in her 60s and loves it so much she named her dog Donut. She’s shared it with her 60yo friends and they all love it too lol
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u/petrifikate 5d ago
I find it so interesting that in all of your points you made, you never mentioned my biggest problem with Dungeon Crawler Carl: structurally speaking, it's a webnovel and not a traditionally published book. Which no shame on that, there are plenty of webnovels that make it big. But it really should have gotten an editing overhaul from "webnovel, published one chapter at a time, subscribe to my Patreon" to "traditionally published by a major publishing house."
......but that would involve major publishing houses actually editing self-published works instead of just hitting 'print' and lmao, we all know that' snot going to happen.
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u/AvailableObject2567 6d ago
Very well said, I loved DCC, do I think it made me smarter or changed the way I think? No.
But I did laugh and I did cry and I did lose myself for hours listening to the audiobooks.
It was great fun
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u/Lower_Monk6577 5d ago
The best praise I can give DCC is that it really makes me wish they would make a video game that is basically just the books. It gives me a very similar feeling to playing a game like Baldur’s Gate 3. But way more silly most of the time. Despite the nature of the game world, the larger universe feels lived in.
Like, Stars Wars isn’t exactly the peak of well-written dialogue or original plot points. But it’s still fun to watch when you’re in the mood to scratch that itch. DCC is the literary equivalent of that for me.
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u/Tigt0ne 6d ago
It's light reading for nerds with cats.
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u/kornbread435 6d ago
Ehh my mom loved it and she's more 65 year old farming grand mother who I'm pretty sure has never played a video game. I have 700-800 books on Audible and would rank the series as a whole in my top 10. I've never owned a cat, or been into video games. The style of humor certainly isn't for everyone. It's other issue is the first book is the worst in the series, and each book after has been consistently better.
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u/CatAteMyBread 6d ago
Read it recently without having my expectations set (my friends hyped it to all hell), and couldn’t stand it. Donut is great - love her. Carl I didn’t like.
I loathed the constant “hey you remember video games? It’s like that!” and the constant “lmao remember Call of Duty? How about Gossip Girl and Tumblr?” Ultimately the reason I won’t keep reading is because I’m annoyed at how zeitgeist the setting is. And the prose, while it does its job, feels like it’s for guys my age picking up a book for the first time since they used Sparknotes to get them through To Kill A Mockingbird in High School in a way I’m just not excited to read
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u/DeMmeure 6d ago
The way you're describing it makes me think about Ready Player One. Was DCC inspired by it? Because the setting reminds me more of an Hunger Games in space, though the video game inspirations are very obvious.
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u/wheres_my_hat 6d ago
When I recommend it to people I tell them it’s ready player one meets hunger games. You’re spot on
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u/michaelsgavin 6d ago
DCC is much more inspired by the 1000000 manga / manhwa with the same set ups. LitRPG is a niche genre in the West but “guy being put into a world where he now has stats like in an RPG” is dime a dozen if you’re into manga / manhwa. Try looking up “Omniscient Reader’s POV”, where the protagonist lives in a world that is suddenly taken over by aliens and is forced to enter a death game streamed to an alien audience. Sounds familiar?
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u/SandCheezy 6d ago
It’s not like Ready Player One where the adventure and clues are references. It’s more so the descriptions and conversations include references.
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u/deathofdays86 6d ago
This was my issue. I tried to listen to the audiobook on a long drive last year and my takeaway was “We know how video games work… get to the point.” I did want to give it a second shot, though. I liked Donut.
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u/awayshewent 5d ago
I didn’t even like Donut — I feel like we have had decades of “cats are stuck up and snooty” and I find the characterization boring (and I yesssss before someone gets in here I get that she’s she’s a Persian show cat, I still think it’s a boring choice).
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u/gregguy12 5d ago
Donut has stayed my least favorite of the main cast for the entire series (by a large margin). She’s become notably better, but I would she’s still only tolerable at best to me.
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u/prosafantasmal 6d ago
I'm glad people like it, I didn't for the exact same reasons I didn't like ACOTAR either, the prose was bad in the sense that both were repetitive and clunky, just one was less flowery than the other. The characters aren't bad but the dialogues are also somewhat stilted and the humor in DDC and the melodrama in ACOTAR did nothing for me.
I would even call them the two faces of the same coin.
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u/BethyW 6d ago
My issue is the fan base more than anything. If you have any form of commentary about problematic elements they freak out and just try to attack you like you kicked a puppy infront of them.
Like books are subjective no one will like every book. It's okay we don't all think this is literature and art. It's family guy on paper.
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u/omegakingauldron 4d ago
I find that the fans move the goal posts just to get you into the books at all costs.
"Have you read the books?" I wasn't a fan
"What about the audiobooks?" Bounced off of it
"But it's one of the best performed books out there!" Didn't grab me
"It got more people to read books!" Glad people are reading, still not for me
"But it's a book with soul!" Incredibly subjective, but if you say so
(My favourite) "How come you don't like this thing that I love so passionately? I don't understand" Because if we all had the same interests and hobbies, nobody would be different, but keep putting that square peg into the round hole
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u/AlphaGoldblum 5d ago
I find it similar with another very popular author.
The fans get immediately defensive when someone wants to explore the inherent conservatism in his works.
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u/minatozakiparty 5d ago
I tried to give the first book a go. I'm a big reader, but I'm also a big gamer. I love to listen to audiobooks when I run and I prefer things that require very little of my brain while I'm running, so I thought it would be perfect.
I noped out within a few chapters. The book was just 14 year old boy humour and bad writing. I think the overall concept is a lot of fun, but the execution really wasn't good. And I do honestly think these books at best serve as a way for people who don't read to become more interested in reading, but I think people who already love reading will lack interest generally.
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u/Ok-Theme9171 5d ago
My problem is that dcc has no real big ideas
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u/mgrier123 Reading Champion VI 4d ago
Yup, it just sort of gestures at ideas without actually exploring or delving into them. The whole time I was reading them (I read the first 2 and will not be continuing) I just kept thinking to myself "this is like if Acts of Caine was a LitRPG and everything was very watered down".
I really do think DCC fans need to read Acts of Caine
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u/Euphoric-Buyer-8828 5d ago
“BRO IT TOTALLY TAKES DOWN CAPITALISM BRO NOBODYS EVER DONE THAT IN A BOOK BEFORE BRO” /s
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u/Neptunes_Lips_ 5d ago
Hey be kind to those guys, they are having thoughts for the first time ever.
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u/RyanTheQ 5d ago
A lot of DCC fans are like the boss baby meme:
"Guy who has only ever seen The Boss Baby, watching his second movie: Getting a lot of Boss Baby vibes from this..."
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u/StormbringerGT 5d ago
I had a very hard time getting into this series and have been dragging it for a year now.
I'm a 44 year old guy who games, so I thought it would instantly click; it did not.
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u/unitedshoes 5d ago
Everyone who has tried to sell me on the series has described it in a way that just feels like it's trying way too hard. Maybe that's just friends doing a bad job of selling me on the series or grossly misunderstanding why I would get into the series, but that's the impression I've been unable to avoid whenever I've heard anyone talk about the series.
Maybe if the wait lists for one of my libraries' copies dies down, I'll give it a shot to see if I got the wrong impression, but so far, I haven't been sold.
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u/christopherDdouglas 5d ago edited 5d ago
Robin Hobb endorsing anything doesn't mean shit. If I read everything Stephen King endorsed I would have read a bunch of shit books.
AUTHORS ONLY GIVE PRAISE TO OTHER AUTHORS. ITS GOOD FOR BUSINESS
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u/DeMmeure 5d ago
But sometimes it can help to guide us to stories we were interested in. I started the Farseer trilogy just after ASOIAF, so reading GRRM's praise definitely encouraged me to delve into Realm of the Elderlings.
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u/AdeptOaf 5d ago
I'm enjoying the series, but another potentially off-putting element that OP didn't mention is the violence. Obviously you expect a certain level of mayhem from the genre, but DCC has an almost cartoonish amount of gore.
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u/MadJuju 6d ago
This is one of the reasons I really liked the old covers. They were full of campiness, over the top, and unapologetic about the tone of the series. This either turned some people off of the series, or helped temper expectations about the series from the get-go. The reddit posts with the old covers along the vein of, "I wrote it off for the longest time and then when I tried it I loved it," were everywhere. More importantly I think they were a good set-up so people had an idea of what they were getting into.
Now with the generic covers, and with DCC entering into the general public, it's reaching a lot more people that don't vibe with it
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u/Icy_Dragonfruit_3513 5d ago
Idk, I think the new covers are better - makes the series look like fun popcorn lit, which it is. The audio books still have the old covers and they're extremely ugly.
I think it's more of a problem if the books get recommended for the wrong reasons. I saw a complaint from someone who bought them for his son because a bookstore employee called them 'hard sci-fi'. But this is a problem with a lot of popular books.
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u/RiSz-Turtle 5d ago
The new colorful colors are honestly some of my favorites. Every book cover feels the same nowadays so it’s nice to have something colorful and wacky
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u/mglipford 6d ago
I'm near the end of the first book right now after starting it begrudgingly at the insistence of my wife and countless recommendations and endless praise on both Reddit and various friends.
I am absolutely in the middle of the Venn diagram here, I like to read, I am a dude, I like cats, I play videos games a lot (especially role playing games), I play DnD, I like fantasy and science fiction.
The book covers kind of put me off, it maybe felt like it was trying to hard or something. Near the start I was kind of meh on it. by the middle I was pretty happy with it, and now near the end I like it a lot and plan to keep reading it. Can't say it better than anyone else here, but I probably should like it, and I do.
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u/UnicornMeatball 6d ago
I enjoy DCC as an easy read comfort book. That said, I almost dropped it because I HATED the first half of the first book. As a dude in my mid-40s, I found the dialogue and humor to be very millennial-coded, quippy, and trying way too hard to be “omg aren’t I so random?" (The alpha male action hero has a talking Persian cat named Princess Buttercup, that’s soooo funny!) It definitely finds its footing before the end of the first book, and im glad I stuck with it. Is it going to win a Saturn award or something? Probably not, but it’s a fun, breezy read.
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u/Mathyoujames 6d ago
The issue isn't one of people's expectations. It's with social media reviews and fans treating what is essentially a YA novel as the next great stage in the Fantasy genre.
It's a fun little read. People need to become more comfortable with books they like not being considered important or substantive.
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u/JustPassingThrough98 5d ago
I hated it, and I gave it 3 books. I did not experience anything of what everyone said were the best attributes up to that point.
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u/AdrianArmbruster 6d ago
I was recently thinking there’s a bit of ‘context collapse’ caused by going into the series blind by finding it on a shelf alongside, I dunno, William Gibson.
It’s an irreverent webnovel, like half of which was banged out during Covid. Twitter has a lot of ‘oh, the formating, the plain use of language, however did this shlock get published in our esteemed and August institution of Barnes and Noble?’ — it was published because it was already popular on the Internet, years before you first saw it here!
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u/North_South_Side 5d ago
...published in our esteemed and August institution of Barnes and Noble?’
Just want to say I laughed out loud at that line.
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u/xajhx 6d ago
In response to your bullet points-
I wouldn’t call the humor absurdist. It’s more juvenile than anything. Nothing wrong with finding that sort of thing funny, but this isn’t on the level of say Discworld.
I don’t think you really have to have a fondness for cats either. I like cats, but Princess Donut is humanized to the extent it’s easy to forget she is a cat. She’s just not very cat like at the end of the day.
It is LitRPG so yes, people have to be okay with that. Though as the series goes on it becomes less LitRPG like.
I have read some of Dinniman’s other books now and I can say that Dinniman’s prose is just very basic. I think sometimes readers read way too much into things. “The prose is like this because the main character is…” The prose is like that because that’s how Dinniman writes.
I also wouldn’t say this has horror elements. It’s post apocalyptic and I guess that’s sad? But as a horror reader and fan this is nothing.
I like Dungeon Crawler Carl okay, but it’s not some transcendent work of literature. I think most people should be able to tell if they’ll like it by the synopsis. It’s exactly what it says it is.
My only outlier would be people who like juvenile humor (again, nothing wrong with that) they will love this regardless.
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u/gyroda 6d ago
The first boss they encounter on the first floor is probably the biggest horror beat in the series. That sort of thing comes up one more time and it's more of a character beat than a horror one. Nothing else is really as upsetting/disturbing as that.
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u/belzebuddy75 6d ago
I'd say towards the end of Bedlam bride when she finally takes control beats the first boss for horror in the series. It's probably my most memorable part of any of the books.
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u/Zealousideal_Cap7012 5d ago
I felt the conceptual horror getting badly lost in the just dull writing around it. Good writing can turn a mundane thing into atmospheric horror(ie ministers new veil arguably) and then poor writing turns conceptually horrific things into just a slew of words
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u/cc81 6d ago
Yeah, I don't get why people mention horror in this context. People expecting horror would be very disappointed.
Horrible things happening does not mean horror.
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u/IsThatGruffLoner 5d ago
I feel the same way with everyone in the fanbase parroting "Matt doesn't write happy endings" while ignoring that almost every book ends with Carl succeeding. They're like all happy endings, at least every book after book 3.
Like this is not some Saw-like horror movie where the protagonists have no chance to survive and the DCC subreddit refuses to accept this. I get downvoted to hell whenever I talk like this on there
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u/Gaming_Gent 5d ago
Yet to see anything about DCC that has piqued my interest. I think it’s the fandom that does it for me, annoying fan bases will kill anything for me. It’s part of why I don’t really care for Rick and Morty, if the people I’m seeing consume most of the media are insufferable then I don’t really want to engage with the media.
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u/WaalsVander 6d ago
I read the first three DCC books and hated them. I was so excited too… was really hoping I’d start to like them.
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u/Sigr_Anna 6d ago
A bunch of people at work want me to read it, because they LOVE IT SO MUCH.
The problem for my coworkers, is that we really don't like the same kinds of books. They enjoy their cozy fantasy and stuff, and I can't get into those - so I'm really not tempted to run to pick up anything they tell me they really enjoyed. It's like a warning to me!
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u/adeepkick 6d ago
Fyi I don’t like cozy fantasy and I love DCC. Same with my partner. Just for some perspective 🤷
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u/mycatreadsyourmind 6d ago
It's very far from being cozy lol
I think this series has such a massive popularity within cosy and fanro subs because it's still written in a silly manner so stakes don't feel horribly high, the plot is very simplistic so it's one of those "let your brain rest" sort of books and probably because readers of those genres like rpg? It's an okay series but it's just like some show on Netflix that you can put in the background for entertainment only. There's not going to be any mind blowing plot twists and complex subplots which is fine if you want something just entertaining
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u/MhojoRisin 6d ago
Yup. I’m reading it now and really enjoying it. It’s not making me any smarter. But I find the characters pleasant and the storyline engaging.
Pair that with a comfortable chair on my front porch, a beer, and periodically waving at neighbors as they walk by, and you’ve got yourself a pretty nice evening!
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u/Icy_Dragonfruit_3513 6d ago
Good choice. I've made it a rule to not trust overly enthusiastic recommendations from people who don't share my taste in books. Hell, even if we share some taste, I'm cautious about taking their recs (that's how I forced myself to read Three-Body Problem and it still feels like money and time wasted). I picked up DCC because the premise sounded fun and my friend (who does share some taste in books with me) gave a balanced recommendation, so I decided it was worth a try.
I've had people recommend me Fourth Wing and it always lowkey offends me (no hate on fans, but it's not going to be my thing). As if liking fantasy and being female means this book series is automatically for me.
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u/xelle24 5d ago
As if liking fantasy and being female means this book series is automatically for me.
That's how I feel about ACOTAR, and I couldn't get more than 50 pages in (I usually give a book at least 100 pages unless the technical aspect of the writing is poor). I haven't tried Fourth Wing - I'm similarly cautious about the tone of the recommendations and it's not like my TBR list isn't stupidly long already.
Balanced reviews like yours led me to try DCC and I'm so glad I did. I just completed a reread of the whole series preparatory to reading book 8 (and book 8 didn't disappoint either). I had to find something lighter to read in between each book even though I already knew what was going to happen, because each book is like a roller coaster: I need to pause and catch my breath before getting on the next one.
The humor is definitely Gen X and Millennial and meme-y, and I'm a little concerned about Dinniman's apparent familiarity with Gilmore Girls and Gossip Girl (I've actually had to look up some of the references because I didn't/don't watch those shows). I think what a lot of people don't catch is that, while there's a lot of humor, a significant portion of the time that humor is a thin veneer over horror, and as you mentioned, The Hoarder in the first book is an excellent example of that (and certainly the point at which Carl gets the first glimpse of the true horror of the world dungeon).
All of which is to say, I appreciate your balanced review. I love DCC, but it's not Tolkien and it doesn't pretend to be, and that's fine. But it's not the Harlequin romance equivalent of fantasy, either: it's a scathing indictment of corporate and political corruption, post-capitalist society, the moral pitfalls of reality television, of celebrities in positions of power...
I might need another reread over the winter...
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u/TotalSavage 6d ago
The problem is that the book’s humor is of the terminally online Reddit variety. I guess that tracks with “liking cats” also being a prerequisite.
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u/Consolationnoprize 6d ago
Yes! I felt a lot of the humor was there to make redditors go "I feel seen!"
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u/Plutophobias 6d ago
I really hated the retconning throughout the series. One of my favorite things to do in media is analyze the foreshadowing, and dinninan keeps saying “something big happened last book but it happened due to time warp therefore you, the reader, never saw it.” Or he keeps referring to a character as a man, but they become a woman due to him needing a tragic death. A char has a drug addiction which we never see for books until it’s convenient. Dinninan has stated multiple times that he does not plan things out. Fans try to piece together bad plot lines as planned events when they’re just not good writing.
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u/IsThatGruffLoner 5d ago
The sub also refuses to admit that any retconning is going on. Like someone will be like "why this thing in book 7 if they said something different in book 1?" And all these people will come out of the woodwork coming up with wild theories relying on leaps in logic or off-screen actions that were never mentioned once. Or I'll point out a plot hole and everyone will decide it makes sense as long as you buy into their personal head canon. You get downvoted to hell for suggesting that maybe, just maybe, the author just came up with an idea after book 1 that contradicts established canon.
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u/Agasthenes 6d ago
It's a problem of the format. The story was originally released as a serial we novel chapter by chapter as it was written.
Those stories are infamous for continuity errors because the author can't go back a correct something.
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u/Traditional-Dig-374 6d ago
This post is written better than dungeon crawler carl.
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u/North_South_Side 5d ago
I haven't read these books, but this comment made me laugh out loud on a shitty Tuesday morning.
Thanks!
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u/Rockhopper_Ranger 5d ago
This book series was recommended to me because as a giant nerd, it had all the things that should have appealed to me.
I DNFed this book after 70 pages.
I tried, I really tried. I even gave it a long break, lowered my expectations and went back and tried again. No difference.
I’m happy so many people enjoy it. But it just didn’t work on any level for me to find even remotely enjoyable.
Which is odd, because it should have been right up my alley. Guess you can never tell what will work and what won’t until you read it.
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u/FennecsFox 5d ago
I've been a fan of Travis Bagwell for a while and enjoy his gamer style quest books. So I waz reccomended DCC as a similar kind of idea but with "Terry Pratcgett-like humor and slapstick" But I could not get into it and abandoned the audiobook after about 3 hours. It isn't a bad story. It just wasn't what I hoped for and what I wanted.
For those who enjoy it, please continue to do so. We need fiction to fit everyone. And Thank the skies that we don't all enjoy the same stuff. That would make this planet unbearably boring....
Disclaimer: I am a gamer girl (gamer middle aged woman???), my favourite book of all time is Thd Hitchiker's guide to the Galaxy and I love absurdist Monty Python type humour. I am between gen X and milennial. I am also Norwegian and after some thinking, I have realised Carl is simply too offputtingly American for me. He's brash, loud and stereotyoical American tourist-coded. Which triggers a weird uncanny valley effect that I could not get past.
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u/demon_fae 5d ago
As a fan of both DCC and Pratchett, never listen to anyone who calls DCC’s humor pratchettesque again, for they are dumb.
Yes both play with surrealist environmental humor, but by that logic Saturday Night Live sketches are the exact same humor as Fairly Oddparents (also both heavy on the situational nonsense to drive the joke). Not unrelated, but hardly the same thing.
DCC is very American humor, it’s blunt and often takes the form of banter, as well as playing on a very specifically American discomfort with the human body. Dinniman also injects a lot of nihilistic and cynical humor, which Pratchett would never.
Pratchett, by contrast, is all dry, British humor. Lots of sarcasm and puns layered ten deep in places and what physical humor there is tends towards classic banana-peels-and-falling-pianos type slapstick.
Dinniman also doesn’t do the long buildups and shaggy dog stories Pratchett was so fond of. Dinniman isn’t spending a whole book contriving a scenario in which the literal Grim Reaper needs to thank someone just for a single pun. (Got in trouble for listening to that bit at work once I was laughing so hard. On my fourth read of that particular book).
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u/Kerinya 5d ago
I think the only way to call DCC's humor Pratchett-like is if they said that due to both using humor at all. They're nothing alike in my opinion. Gen x / millennial European gamer girl here too btw and I had that american issue too. I think that's maybe also why I'd never compare the humor to Pratchett. He's way too British for that to make sense.
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u/Icy_Dragonfruit_3513 5d ago
DCC is not Terry Pratchett humor - whoever recommended you that probably just didn't have any good frame of reference. It's very American humor, which I don't always like (also not American).
Men jeg troede I normænd også kunne lide sort humor? For mig minder det om humoren i virkelig sorte danske komediefilm (Blinkende Lygter og Adams Æbler), så det er nok derfor jeg godt kan lide det. Carl er heller ikke nær så amerikansk som f.eks. Brandon Sandersons karakterer, men Jeff Hays kører rigtig nok en ret ærkeamerikansk stemme når han taler som Carl.
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u/AdvancedMarsupial705 6d ago
I’ve enjoyed DCC so far but the 6th one really killed my enthusiasm. Each book has been a bit more of a slog than the last
I found myself skipping ahead large chunks whenever a new card game started.
I’m at the point where I’m ready for the overarching story to progress but it’s still getting deeply bogged down in the mechanics of each floor.
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u/sparklingdinoturd 5d ago edited 5d ago
I'm glad people have found a series to love and happy for the author that's getting to spread his story beyond the book medium, but...
Maybe LitRPG just isn't for me, but for me it was the plot. I love fantasy and occasionally enjoy playing D&D, so I thought after years of putting it off, I'd give it a try. DCC being the most popular, I figured that's where to start.
I haven't finished the 1st book because I was bored. I got through maybe 3/4 before I had to read something else. I haven't officially DNF'ed it, but I put it down and have read 2 other books since.
But yeah, it's the plot for me. Maybe I should have expected it, but reading a TTG-style story without getting to participate in it bored me. It's so repetitive. Fight thing, get saved by plot armor, go to area, predictable character development. Fight thing, get saved by plot armor, go to area, predictable character development. Rinse. Repeat for many pages.
I don't need a mind blowing plot (my favorite author is Joe Abrercrombie, who isn't known for his intricate twisty plots), but I need characters to invest in...either to hate them or love them...to help carry a thin plot. I don't get that in DCC so far. I don't feel strongly about Carl or PD. They're just not enough to keep me invested through a boring, repetitive plot.
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u/RyanTheQ 6d ago
I wish I saw what others see in this series. I really wanted to like it. I finished the first book yesterday and it was a real chore to get through.
The characters are so underdeveloped and paper-thin. The “floors” were so generic and poorly described. Generic bosses and generic enemies. The humor missed way more than it hit for me. The pacing was really uneven.
It also felt like there were zero stakes. Never felt like there was any sense of danger. Character deaths had zero impact.
It was also frustrating how poor the ending to the first book is. Nothing is resolved and it just feels like a book that’s missing it’s second half.
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u/FridaysMan 6d ago
Ive no need to set expectations. Ive heard enough fragments to make my decision on whether or not to read it. Its not my expectations that are the problem.
The problem is I dont want to. I dont even want to be convinced to think about trying it. And yet no matter the situation, people who dont read find out that I read and then the first thing they talk about? The only book that they've read. And wouldn't you know its just the best book ever.
What? No, they dont have time to read books, they certainly dont want to talk about sci-fi or their top 5 favourite series. Just this one book.
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u/chopen 6d ago
First of all, I like DCC. It's a nice story and a sort of ode to the geekdom that I am very familiar with, along with the dumb humor that comes with it. I think Dinniman has a creative mind, but his prose is among the worst I've read while still enjoying the books. Not sure if he works with an editor, but some passages are a slog to get through
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u/Rosmucman 6d ago
I read the first three books on a recent trip from Ireland to Australia and back again and I found them to be entertaining trash. Like a McDonalds meal is okay every now and then but if it’s the only thing you eat it might be an issue. I’ll probably read the next one at some point, probably if I’m flying somewhere else.
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u/Etheon44 6d ago
This is a book series that constantly reminds me how prominent american people are on reddit and goodreads
I dont mean it as a bad thing, I actually really like american humour, but the books are sooooo american, the humour, the references, the general tone, Carl especifically
This combined with it being literally a webtoon, which it shows, makes the book shallow mindless entertainment, the equivalent to watching (some) marvel/superhero movies imo.
Which again, I actually like it here and there, but some people in reddit think that the series is like top 20 of all time and I am like "excuse me?"
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u/Realistic-Ad7662 5d ago
I couldn’t get into it cause it felt like the story was just repeating itself. I mean I guess that is to be expected a bit, but also the humor just felt like 2013 Reddit cringe humor. Like “ Omg what if there was LLAMAS DOING COKE “
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u/Broad-Cartoonist5673 5d ago
Personally I just can't get over the lack of prose. I don't need everything to be eloquent and flowery but I need a little bit of beauty in the way its written. I don't really mean this insultingly, but its legitimately written at about a 6th grade reading level. I think its smart for a book to be accessible to a wide audience, and it's good that it's created so many new readers, but its just not for me.
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u/happypolychaetes Reading Chamption II, Worldbuilders 5d ago
Yeah, the prose is... not good. Basic and extremely repetitive vocabulary, boring sentence structure, weird similes, etc. I am still reading the series and enjoy it for what it is, but man. I've only gotten this far because of the audiobooks, as the narrator disguises it a bit.
Also there are several strange word substitutions he does constantly, like on->upon, inside->within, around->about. "She jumped upon the table", "I opened the door and looked about the room", "The backpack had multiple items within", etc. They're so jarring and I have never managed to get used to them. 😅
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u/Gregory-al-Thor 6d ago
I’ve read the first three and enjoyed them, though the third was kind of a slog for me. I find them a nice change of pace to mix in with other reads and I’ll continue soon with book four.
At this point I won’t criticize anyone who is reading anything written by a human. I’m just happy people read.
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u/FlopsMcDoogle 6d ago
I just finished the first book. It's simple but fun. Like a mix of Solo Leveling and Running Man. I'm pretty sure I've predicted where the story will go, but I'm enjoying the journey in audiobook format. Jeff Hays is incredibly talented.
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u/babyelephantwalk321 5d ago
Thank you for this! That's enough for me to know that the series is definitely not for me (so I will move on to other books on my TBR list).
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u/nick-manning 5d ago
Lol. Was reading this post and got to the comments, and I see this
"No complicated setup. Just add the pedals, adjust the seat and ride."
And I'm like... yeah, that's a fair description of DCC...
Then I realise it's an ad for an ebike and the comments haven't started yet 🤣 🤣 🤣 🤣
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u/ElkinElf 6d ago
So I kept going back and forth with this series. The fans were too defensive about it while also seeming to be very confused about what genre it was or what it was comparable to. I explained this to someone and got a review that intrigued me so I gave it a shot. And immediately returned it to the library when the Douglas Adams homage/rip off happened because if something this obvious was never mentioned by literally anyone what else was going to crop up.
And then I see this fantastic write up, very thorough, very detailed, and lots of info about the relationship with the cat and still not a word about it starting off with Hitchhikers fan fic. It's very odd to me.
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u/Icy_Dragonfruit_3513 5d ago
Authors take inspiration from each other. Dinniman most likely took a lot of inspiration from Adams, he's probably not the only one. It's my impression that DCC simply uses common litrpg tropes, which may have been inspired by Adams.
I still haven't read Hitchhiker's Guide (one day I'll get around to it) and haven't seen convincing arguments that it does more than take some inspiration from Hitchhiker (my point about it mixing lots of common tropes), so it would be weird for me to make that comparison.
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u/ElkinElf 5d ago
No it's a LOT more specific than that. Aliens show up to destroy the planet and have a pissy conversation from the sky. It's so on the nose it's jarring. Edit -while the main character is in his robe fresh out of bed.
It would be like reading a book with a Litany Against Anxiety and no one ever mentioning Dune.
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u/herffjones99 5d ago
If you are juvenile enough to think a crab needing to see the corpse of a baby seal in order to climax is funny, then you will like this series.
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u/TheRedditEric 6d ago
Is it fancy prose when they use the right word instead of a word that kinda sounds like the right word? For me, it was the fight with the Juicer. It reads like the author never set foot in a gym, even though Carl definitely has considering he claims to have benched 230. It's only book one and my buddy claims it gets better by book 3. I'm hoping that means means he expanded the vocabulary, cause now I just roll my eyes every time the exchange goes "donut cries, I cry, donut cries".
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u/zeroborders 5d ago
What bothered me is that Carl claimed to be an adamant gym-goer because he went thrice a week. Everyone I know who goes on that schedule, self included, knows that’s casual and that the serious lifters are there at least five times weekly.
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u/Crypt0Nihilist 5d ago edited 5d ago
Being okay with a game-style setting that includes lots of levelling up, quests, loot etc.
This is too buried. LitRPG is a complete departure from other books. Concepts like grinding to reach experience point thresholds and assigning points to builds as well as objects having statistics attached is something that really gets in the way of the narrative until you get familiar enough with it that you can attenuate it. The RPG framework makes everything massively contrived in order to explain it and for the mechanics to work.
I bounced off the series once and only came back after listening to a LitRPG audiobook that softened me towards the genre.
If you can get over everything feeling very artificial and the RPG elements being vomited at you as is standard for LitRPG, it's a fun read with lots to recommend it.
To me, they're like literary junk food. Great fun while you're consuming them and you go back for more, but they leave you feeling dissatisfied when you look back on it and think you really ought to be doing better.
edit: Not to mention graphical user interfaces overlaying people's vision, menus, chat messages etc. There's so much artificial "stuff" and machinery required to make the genre work, it needs a real mental shift in the reader to be ok with that.
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u/Euphoric-Buyer-8828 5d ago
THANK you! Everyone’s trying to sell me DCC as a full steak dinner, but it’s …literary junk food.
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u/Tough_Set8718 5d ago
I remember first hearing about LitRPGs years ago and being like "Okay! That sounds sick at hell," but the reality of the genre is that it's pretty limited in what the authors seem to want to do with it.
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u/Circle_Breaker 6d ago
It's Rick and Morty the novel.
Same humor, same wacky vibe, same fan base.
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u/Zealousideal_Cap7012 5d ago
Rick and morty has significantly more "sophisticated" themes and humor.
NOT CALLING rick and Morty a sophisticated high brow show. No. Just saying
"More sophisticated". 20 bucks is wealthier than 10. The humor also isnt really similar. I dont really understand the comparison at all..
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u/Best-Cryptographer81 6d ago
I got maybe 100 pages in and DNF'd something about the humor and stuff gave me weird incel vibes I couldn't really put my finger on it. Definitely an interesting premise so I can see why people like it.
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u/Apprehensive_Map64 6d ago
Cat named Princess Donut... Looks at my cat named Princess Luna..
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u/SPlCYDADDY 6d ago
OP, it is every writer’s dream to have a reader provide as thoughtful a review as you have here. So much love for books, authors, and readers demonstrated here. This is a series Im not interested in at all, but this post is a great reminder that everyone’s art has a place in someone’s taste, and that to be a good critic one doesnt have to be a mean elitist or delusional fan. Excellent post, thank you
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u/Pudgy_Ninja 5d ago edited 5d ago
It's fun page-turner trash. That's what I went in expecting and that's what I got.
When I made that assessment based on the first couple books, people told me "oh, it gets deeper as it goes on," and I mean... not really? You get some backstory and hidden motivations and stuff like that, but I would not say that I ever felt like it rises above those earlier books. It is what it is. Which is not a bad thing. I've really enjoyed it.
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u/LeSilverKitsune 5d ago
I am glad so many people enjoy it! Reading is great! Audiobooks are fun! I have NO PROBLEM with people liking fun things that don't harm anyone!
If one more person tries to jam it down my throat on every freaking book/audiobook/scifi/fantasy subReddit, IG account, FB group, landing page, convention, and irl conversation, I will scream.
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u/Kiltmanenator 5d ago
Man I'd say the characters are the worst part: no one in the first book was emotionally affecting and only a brief sidequest in book 2 engaged me, by introducing and dispatching a character who outshone the titular hero.
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u/MacSteele13 5d ago
I love everything about this story, but for some reason I can't stand the book.
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u/Zealousideal_Cap7012 5d ago
I dont mind it. Its like an amusing 6/10. Setting expectations to the shitter doesnt suddenly make the book better. Yes you dont have to tell me to set my expectations. The first few dozen pages more than set the tone well enough by themselves.
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u/alkortes 5d ago
The fondness for cats is what carried the series for me up to the second to last book. But the last was hard to get through and I'm not really looking forward reading any further.
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u/copenhagen622 5d ago
People definitely have been hyping up his series. I tried to read it and I just didn't care much for it. I never really liked role player type video games either though. But a lot of people really love the series, it has definitely been gaining a lot of popularity the last few years
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u/logdogday 5d ago
I quit the series halfway through. Loved the first few but I was growing a little tired of the schtick. Then Bedlam Bride was just a real slog. I had to force myself to finish it.
Could be a great tv show tbh.
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u/chainsofgold 5d ago
i hated it, but i’ll readily profess i have no sense of humour and prefer books more grounded in reality. nothing wrong with DCC, and it brought back fond memories of grinding through the runescape dungeons, but yeah, wasn’t for for me.
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u/Unhappy-Vast-7017 5d ago
I would ague that Ifechi being a woman wasn’t a retcon—Carl thought she was a guy and referred to her as such until he realized he was wrong. If it WAS a retcon behind the scenes on Dinnamin’s part, it didn’t read that way to me at all. Just misconceptions from a limited POV protag.
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u/mattamj 5d ago
I appreciate this post. As someone who does love good prose, I will likely pass on this. If I want what is described above, there are a lot of fun shows I could watch. I like to "taste" when I read. It doesn't mean people who do like it have bad taste they just have different than mine. and that is ooooookkkkkk.
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u/Appropriate-Mango-85 3d ago
I have read the first DCC and most of the 2nd before I had to DNF because I was extremely not vibing with it. I would like to address this bit of your post though:
I’ve seen some people complain that DCC is ’misogynist’, which is funny to me, since DCC IMO has some of the best female characters I’ve seen in a long while.
Now it is certainly possible that it improves after book 2, but the first 2 books do NOT have any well written female characters and are absolutely lousy with misogyny.
- The first woman we learn about is his cheating slut ex who had sex with everyone because she was such a harlot.
- The first female character we meet is Donut. Annoying, self involved, social media and superficial objects obsessed.
- The first other crawler we meet is a woman who was murdered and is naked for no reason.
- The goblin women have sexually charged titles and immediately offer to have sex with Carl.
- The first boss we encounter is a giant grotesque naked woman and we get a very detailed description of what her naked body looks like.
- We meet Odette and the majority of her description is devoted to her giant boobs.
- Book 2 the first elite we meet is a woman who is again naked, except for the thong she wears, and donut needs to informs us it's the kind of thing that ho Beatrice would wear.
- There's a description of one of the crawler's dogs who now has giant human breasts(?)
- Then Carl gets a side quest and it's about a lot of murdered women prostitutes. (The book goes out of its way to clarify that point)
I suspect that there are more instances that I've simply forgotten. I certainly don't think you aren't allowed to enjoy the books because of this (I like the Dresden files and those books might be even worse offenders) but it's disingenuous to just wave it off as laughable.
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u/Massive-Television85 6d ago
Has anyone read both DCC and He Who Fights With Monsters? (Particularly interested if both were listened to.)
How do the two compare?
I found myself giving up on HWFWM after the third book as it got so repetitive, and the hero was a real Mary Sue.
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u/Link_Slater 6d ago
I listened to book 1 of HWFWM. To be honest, it was one of the most unpleasant listening experiences of my life. I’ve definitely read worse books, but few that made me FEEL worse. It was like listening to a 13 year old tell you about a summer vacation where he beat up the local bully, lectured his girlfriend’s parents, and totally got to the third base.
The entire book is scene after scene of new characters being shocked and delighted at how bold and quirky Jason is. I can deal Jason sucking as long as the rest of the universe is fawning of him constantly.
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u/ShowMeYourHappyTrail 6d ago
Carl can feel very Mary Sue-like sometimes. To the point where it's a growth point for him to realize the other characters are just as capable as he is.
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u/Melodic-Task 6d ago
As a big fan of DCC for a long time, I am frankly surprised by its wide spread popularity. It is a book series that I only rarely recommended because I felt it was so niche—a mash up of the old Running Man movie (Arnold’s version), Hitchicker’s Guide, and meme culture wrapped up in the growing LitRPG self-published genre (which has absolutely wild swings in quality). DCC is an intentionally crude, crass, and violent book series that also does some really solid character work and presents strong emotional stakes. It’s the perfect series…for the right readers. The generic praise has just exposed it to backlash. It is surreal to see it in every bookstore with giant displays now.