★★★★☆ This Inevitable Ruin, by Matt Dinniman
A climactic Dungeon Crawler Carl novel
This Inevitable Ruin
Matt Dinniman
A climactic Dungeon Crawler Carl novel
This Inevitable Ruin is the seventh novel in Matt Dinniman's Dungeon Crawler Carl series. In this novel the crawlers are on floor 9.
Floor 9 of the dungeon is Faction Wars. We have been building towards this point for six novels now. On floor 9 various factions of the Syndicate (those extraterrestrials who have paid for the right) occupy the lands surrounding the city of Larracos and battle each other. As on other floors, crawlers try to survive and level up for subsequent floors. Crawlers who survived the ninth floor were historically offered deals on floor 10 to leave the dungeon with some sort of job. (Well, when I say job, what I really mean is indenture.) In the past only the crawlers risked their lives. Soldiers of the Syndicate, if they died in the game went back to their real lives.
It's different this time. Carl and Donut and Donut's fan club, the Princess Posse, got themselves certified as a faction. They also got the NPCs (Non-Player Characters) certified as a faction, Team Retribution. Team Retribution is allied with the Princess Posse. With the help of the Dungeon AI, which has gone rogue (something that apparently always happens, though floor 9 is earlier than usual), they managed to push through a rule change. Now all participating in Faction Wars are risking their lives. As for the crawlers, if they die in the dungeon, they die for real. This time it's for ALL the marbles!
in previous novels we have been exposed to some of the palace intrigue of the factions. They, of course, have established interests, alliances, and rivalries among themselves. In This Inevitable Ruin the factions are there in the dungeon, battling Team Retribution and the Princess Posse, and the other factions. It gets really complicated and I will admit I didn't understand it all, but I got the gist.
This was good, but I feel that it is swift approaching the GRRM-Song of Ice and Fire singularity, where a series becomes so complicated, with so many characters, that the author can't wrap it up and dies, dissipating in a mushroom cloud of subplots and minor characters. There is at least one more novel coming, A Parade of Horribles. I hope that it is the last, or second-to-last -- not because I'm tired of Dungeon Crawler Carl, but because I'd like the story to end cleanly before Dinniman kicks the bucket.
It's still fun, though.