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Dungeon Crawler Carl books 4 & 5
"The Gate of the Feral Gods" and "The Butcher's Masquerade." I'd say this series is pretty solidly scifi now, so I'm tagging it that way.
The series continues to be extremely inventive and entertaining, and psychologically deeper than it has any right to be. I don't remember if I mentioned this in my previous posts, but it reminds me a lot of Dresden Files - it's a combination of the tone (humor-action-heartbreak coming at you more or less nonstop), and the hero whose entire thing is a) causing lots of property damage to the point where it's a running joke for the people around him, and b) doing the right thing even when he has to put himself through a meat grinder to make it happen. (Book five was especially psychologically hard on him, and I don't think it's going to get any easier.)
The character development continues to be really interesting, especially for Donut. I love the hints that most of the players have something secret going on that the protagonist is unaware of, in the same way that Carl is hiding the Dungeon Anarchist's Cookbook even from Donut - Donut was hiding her conspiracy with Zev from Carl, and now we have Katia and the tiara that means she and Donut are going to have to duel to the death on the ninth floor. Presumably most of the players have something like that. I'm very curious what Lucia Mar's whole deal is with the split personalities and the hints that she's somehow sidestepped the "there are no child dungeon crawlers" rule.
I knew Bea was alive! Did not expect the context in the slightest, however. Donut getting to tell off her former owner on galactic TV for the way she treated her (and Carl) was fantastic. I also did not expect Ferdinand (aka Gravy Boat), let alone that he's now a party member, or at least he will be when they pick him up again in a couple of floors.
SAMANTHA IS FUCKING HILARIOUS. For anyone reading this without having read the books, Samantha is a decapitated sex doll head possessed by the spirit of a goddess that makes her both insane and indestructible. She moves herself around by rolling (and often gets stuck and has to scream for help), she chews on things, she has the attention span of a toddler and TYPES IN ALL CAPS, and Carl gets in the habit of using her as a ballistic weapon. The entire sequence where he's trying to get the technique down for launching Samantha at distant enemies with mouth-activated bombs strapped to her head and she keeps setting them off prematurely, setting her hair on fire, and plummeting down in flames in random locations while furiously screaming - I had to put the book down because I was laughing so hard. I was delighted that they didn't lose her on the sixth floor; I was expecting her to go out one way or another in the big boss fight. Samantha improves every scene she's in 100%. Given the way this series goes, she'll probably break my heart eventually.
The way they matter-of-factly skip the incredibly complicated maze of the seventh floor in a single chapter by simply drilling straight down to the eighth floor was also hilarious, especially with the meta-context that it's too much like the Iron Tangle and nobody needs to go through that again.
And they keep collecting more NPCs and finding new ways to bring things with them from floor to floor. It's too bad they lost the flying house on the sixth level - I was sad about that! But I'm looking forward to seeing the whole group of NPCs again on floor nine!
All the outside-the-game context is also really interesting (from the game as a way of dealing with runaway galactic overpopulation, to everything we're finding out about how miserable life is for a lot of people to the point where it's worth it to sign up to hunt crawlers in exchange for giving their families a better life, the mystery of what the Voltay and the Plenty are up to, and whatever the heck the primals are/were, etc). We still don't know a single thing about Agatha's whole deal, and in fact we haven't even seen her the last couple of floors!
I have slowed down a bit because these books are LONG and occasionally I need to take a break from the nonstop carnage and the video game conceit, but I'm definitely having a great time. Also, skipping floor seven means that we're going to get to the ninth floor before we run out of currently published books, and that one promises to be a wild ride.
Moving on soon to book 6, "The Eye of the Bedlam Bride"! No future spoilers, please!
The series continues to be extremely inventive and entertaining, and psychologically deeper than it has any right to be. I don't remember if I mentioned this in my previous posts, but it reminds me a lot of Dresden Files - it's a combination of the tone (humor-action-heartbreak coming at you more or less nonstop), and the hero whose entire thing is a) causing lots of property damage to the point where it's a running joke for the people around him, and b) doing the right thing even when he has to put himself through a meat grinder to make it happen. (Book five was especially psychologically hard on him, and I don't think it's going to get any easier.)
The character development continues to be really interesting, especially for Donut. I love the hints that most of the players have something secret going on that the protagonist is unaware of, in the same way that Carl is hiding the Dungeon Anarchist's Cookbook even from Donut - Donut was hiding her conspiracy with Zev from Carl, and now we have Katia and the tiara that means she and Donut are going to have to duel to the death on the ninth floor. Presumably most of the players have something like that. I'm very curious what Lucia Mar's whole deal is with the split personalities and the hints that she's somehow sidestepped the "there are no child dungeon crawlers" rule.
I knew Bea was alive! Did not expect the context in the slightest, however. Donut getting to tell off her former owner on galactic TV for the way she treated her (and Carl) was fantastic. I also did not expect Ferdinand (aka Gravy Boat), let alone that he's now a party member, or at least he will be when they pick him up again in a couple of floors.
SAMANTHA IS FUCKING HILARIOUS. For anyone reading this without having read the books, Samantha is a decapitated sex doll head possessed by the spirit of a goddess that makes her both insane and indestructible. She moves herself around by rolling (and often gets stuck and has to scream for help), she chews on things, she has the attention span of a toddler and TYPES IN ALL CAPS, and Carl gets in the habit of using her as a ballistic weapon. The entire sequence where he's trying to get the technique down for launching Samantha at distant enemies with mouth-activated bombs strapped to her head and she keeps setting them off prematurely, setting her hair on fire, and plummeting down in flames in random locations while furiously screaming - I had to put the book down because I was laughing so hard. I was delighted that they didn't lose her on the sixth floor; I was expecting her to go out one way or another in the big boss fight. Samantha improves every scene she's in 100%. Given the way this series goes, she'll probably break my heart eventually.
The way they matter-of-factly skip the incredibly complicated maze of the seventh floor in a single chapter by simply drilling straight down to the eighth floor was also hilarious, especially with the meta-context that it's too much like the Iron Tangle and nobody needs to go through that again.
And they keep collecting more NPCs and finding new ways to bring things with them from floor to floor. It's too bad they lost the flying house on the sixth level - I was sad about that! But I'm looking forward to seeing the whole group of NPCs again on floor nine!
All the outside-the-game context is also really interesting (from the game as a way of dealing with runaway galactic overpopulation, to everything we're finding out about how miserable life is for a lot of people to the point where it's worth it to sign up to hunt crawlers in exchange for giving their families a better life, the mystery of what the Voltay and the Plenty are up to, and whatever the heck the primals are/were, etc). We still don't know a single thing about Agatha's whole deal, and in fact we haven't even seen her the last couple of floors!
I have slowed down a bit because these books are LONG and occasionally I need to take a break from the nonstop carnage and the video game conceit, but I'm definitely having a great time. Also, skipping floor seven means that we're going to get to the ninth floor before we run out of currently published books, and that one promises to be a wild ride.
Moving on soon to book 6, "The Eye of the Bedlam Bride"! No future spoilers, please!
no subject
I am fascinated at how deftly the author keeps raising the stakes. We start off in book 1 with the very simple stakes of "Carl wants to survive", but that very rapidly becomes "Carl will do anything to ensure Donut survives". Then (still in book 1!) we pick up the Meadowlark crew, and Carl has to struggle balancing wanting to help them with knowing it puts Donut at more risk. Then Donut picks up Mongo, and we get Katia (who will prioritise Donut over herself, but Donut won't allow this), and over the course of the Iron Tangle Carl's sense of responsibility expands to include every crawler (at least, the ones who aren't trying to kill him). AND THEN we get Juice Box and the NPCs, so now not only is Carl trying to make sure the Earth people make it out alive, he's suddenly got a giant population of other entities to worry about (and the author very deftly gives us _just_ enough of the NPCs to make us care about what would otherwise be an abstract mob).
And on top of that we have all the outside-the-dungeon politics, with Carl increasingly getting embroiled in not just making sure everyone gets out alive, but also that the whole system gets shutdown. It's a whole pile of conflicting motivations and goals, and it works beautifully to keep that sense of urgent momentum.
I am _fascinated_ that the author has set up "no one has EVER made it past this level" (13? 14?) - when there's 18 levels to the dungeon. That's not even that close to the bottom! There's at least 4-5 levels no one's ever experienced (actually, that means Mordecai's get-out-of-jail-free knowledge base has an expiry date - _he_ doesn't know what's on those floors!)
Samantha is indeed the best. :D
no subject
I am _fascinated_ that the author has set up "no one has EVER made it past this level" (13? 14?) - when there's 18 levels to the dungeon. That's not even that close to the bottom! There's at least 4-5 levels no one's ever experienced (actually, that means Mordecai's get-out-of-jail-free knowledge base has an expiry date - _he_ doesn't know what's on those floors!)
Yes, same! And a related corollary is how fast the stakes escalate between floors - the sheer amount of gore and impossibility of winning on the floors we've already been on was A LOT, and we've already had them encountering gods, and they're only just past floor six! And we know that the floors are basically becoming impossible for most people by floor 10, and are literally impossible for everyone by floor 13 (which I think is the one that's the historical max). As you say, that's a LONG way from the end! (I've now read enough of the opening of book 6 to know that players will be having to defeat gods to beat floor 10. How far up does it go from there??)
....I also feel like the last book or two are setting up the means by which Carl can theoretically get through floors that no one has ever beaten before. He's cheating in ways few people ever have - not just pulling together the crawlers into a more unified group/army, but bringing along increasing numbers of NPCs, getting a lawyer and starting a corporation outside the game, trying to make the stakes of the 9th floor as lethal for the factions as for the crawlers, etc. I can totally see this group - whatever's left of them - plausibly making it to the 13th floor and beyond without being unrealistically overpowered. I could also see jumping or sidestepping some floors the same way they did floor seven ... of course I'm not even very far into floor 8 yet. :D