★★★★☆ The Dungeon Anarchist's Cookbook, by Matt Dinniman
Carl takes on responsibilities
The Dungeon Anarchist’s Cookbook
Matt Dinniman
Carl takes on responsibilities
At novel 3, Matt Dinniman's Dungeon Crawler Carl series is compiling a record of progress. Novel 1, Dungeon Crawler Carl, was clever enough to be amusing and make me want to continue. Novel 2, Carl's Doomsday Scenario, was better -- Dinniman managed to increase the stakes, so that I began to care about the fight Carl had taken on. Novel 3, The Dungeon Anarchist's Cookbook, is better yet.
There are many things going on here. But I think the most important of these many things is that Carl is becoming a leader. He was already effectively the tactical leader of his little group, consisting of himself, Princess Donut, and Donut's pet velociraptor Mongo. When I say "tactical leader," I mean that Carl is the one who makes battle plans and sees to their effective execution. Princess Donut is the formal recognized leader of the group, but she really is more concerned with publicity than anything else. Publicity is important, to be sure. Crawlers who are popular with viewers get perqs, such as gift boxes from fans. But by and large Princess Donut follows Carl's lead, although she would indignantly deny it.
In this installment Carl, Donut, and Mongo are joined by another crawler, Katia. Carl and Donut take her in hand in their different ways, and by the end of the book she has been effectively integrated into the team. More than that, Carl takes on the responsibility of coordinating actions and plans with other crawlers who do not belong to his own group. He begins to envisage bigger goals than just surviving. The Dungeon Anarchist's Cookbook (meaning not this novel, but the book within the novel after which it is named), which he receives as a fan gift, plays a role in broadening his consciousness.
The world-building in DAC felt overdone to me, as if Dinniman bit off more than he could chew. The fourth level of the Dungeon is, it turns out, a train system. It's a very complicated train system that doesn't make sense as a way of getting from one place to another. As a device for tormenting dungeon crawlers, however, it does. Surviving the fourth level depends on figuring out the train system, and this problem rather takes over large parts of the narrative. I couldn't help feeling the novel would have been better served by a less involved dungeon architecture.
That brings up another point. I was repeatedly impressed by Dinniman's imagination. He's a fount of bright ideas, and if you slow down to appreciate them, it makes the story more enjoyable.
Dungeon Crawler Carl is on an upward trajectory. I will certainly continue reading.