REVIEW: Carl's Doomsday Scenario (DCC, #2)
Reading the first book of Dungeon Crawler Carl back in February, I almost dropped the series. 47% of the way through, I was this close to dropping the book until it started revealing the wider context of the crawl, like the politics and the popularity, ‘cause it felt like it was too deep in the tutorial. Like, once we got past the hump of him and Donut being forced into the dungeon, it didn’t feel like there was much story going on past them fighting through the crawl.
To some of you, I know, it’s like “so? that’s the point!”, but for me, I don’t even play RPGs like that. It didn’t appeal to me, at first.
So here, coming back several months later to Book 2, it felt like hitting the point in a game where the tutorial’s done and you start doing the things the game is for. Like when you finally leave the cave in Skyrim, or taking your stoll out of Goodsprings. Carl, Donut, and their pet velociraptor enter a new sprawling city floor and end up facing two main quests — one scripted by the show producers involving an undead circus controlled by a sentient vine, with the other focusing on a secret conspiracy behind dead prostitutes falling from the sky.
Two totally different plots, yet the book touches on them back and forth throughout the book, almost like how it feels playing games like New Vegas and bouncing between two entirely different yet deep questlines at the same time.
Unlike those, this isn’t just a game.
THE MOST DANGEROUS GAMESHOW
DCC makes this being a gameshow even clearer in the second book. It’s so integral to the premise that the humor revolves around such insane combinations that could only exist for the shock value of a show. It started with crack-dealing Llamas in the first book. It continues with dead prostitutes falling from the sky. A grotesque, undead animal circus led by a sentient plant. The magistrate leading the city, who’s thought to be alive, turns out to be a corpse used for very strange purposes.
And the System AI has a foot fetish.
Everything exists in a very visceral and unrelenting sense of violence and horror. In one of the last action scenes, a giant magic bomb prepares to detonate and sends waves of magic throughout the area, triggering magical equipment and making people explode. In full detail. After certain fights, Carl and Donut get completely covered in gore, and the book never shies away from getting as violent as it needs.
Because it’s all a game show. It’s for entertainment — not only for us, but for the crazy world the dungeon exists in, and for that world, such gore is prime.
I didn’t feel like dropping this at all as I was reading, and unlike the first, I got through it in two weeks instead of a whole month! After all, and it’s ironic for me to say this as a LitRPG author myself, but I don’t like the books that go too far into the gamey side of our genre. When I look at other works in LitRPG or progression fantasy, it feels like many focus so much on the RPG that they forget the Lit. A progression fantasy where the only story is that progression, instead of a compelling narrative with great arcs and development and cool fight scenes with crazy power growth. Some LitRPG focus so much on the skills and grinding and growing that they forget to actually tell a gripping story with good characters, like 1% Lifesteal, a book I dropped. Again, some might hear me complaining about my lobster being too juicy, but it’s not for me.
And DCC doesn’t do that. Here, we got more focus on Carl’s character, even more exploration of Donut, moments of them tricking or taking advantage of the politics, all alongside the insane action.
It’s still very light and absolutely a series I plan to come back to between my heavier reads. At this point, I still wanted to wait before starting Iron Gold, next in the Red Rising read, so I thought I’d go with 1% Lifesteal. I thought I’d end up enjoying it.
But…well, that’s for next review.