#31Days: Dungeon Crawler Carl (Book, 2020)

content warning: blood, gore, violence against women, violence against animals, violence against children, foul language, grieving

Dungeon Crawler Carl is a ride. It's an experience. It's a wholly original blend of video game mechanics, deadly game tropes, fantasy/folklore/D&D archetypes, and action-horror lit that will have you saying "well that's a sentence that's never been written before."

Author Matt Dinniman introduces us to Carl, an unwilling participant in a deadly game built around the destruction of Earth for natural resources and entertainment. After his girlfriend's show cat Princess Donut jumps for freedom during a snowstorm, Carl runs outside just in time to watch the world we know be leveled to the ground. Every building, every car, every unnatural structure collapses flat to the ground in a second, leaving only the lucky creatures outside alive. A strange voice can be heard inside his head announcing the rules: enter the dungeon for a chance to survive or stay on the surface and fend for yourself. Carl and Donut quickly escape the cold for the relative safety of the unknown dungeon.

Dungeon Crawler Carl is the first book in the popular genre series, setting up the basic premise, major characters, and specificity of the rules in this bizarre intergalactic reality show. Carl and Donut have to fight to survive a series of 18 distinct levels designed by the hosts of this season's games. That alone has horrifying implications. Earth is not the first planet claimed for the game. Humans are not the first species forced to fight or die against creatures previously thought to be make believe.

Much of what we learn in the first novel comes from the use of video game-style voice-over and menu screens. Carl can access data on how many crawlers are left, as well as his base stats and rapidly growing upgrades as he learns to fight in the dungeon. Donut is also a crawler based on her weight, but a magic biscuit transforms her into a talking cat with beyond-human levels of intelligence capable of being Carl's partner in the dungeon. Add-in their hard-earned tutorial guide Mordecai and you learn a whole lot about how normalized the horrors of this show have become in the universe.

This barely scratches the surface of the darkly funny, creative, and utterly horrifying world of Dungeon Crawler Carl. The first book stacks on layer after layer of new unsettling twists until you just accept each new Earth-stereotype-flavored abhorration thrown your way. Pause too long and you, too, will be lost to the horrors of the dungeon.

Dungeon Crawler Carl by Matt Dinniman is available in hardcover, paperback, eBook, and audiobook.

#31Days is an annual tradition around here, even if the results aren't always published. For decades now, I've watched and reviewed a different horror film every day in the month of October. 2026 sees the return of the reviews to Sketching Details in real time.