Tag: Dungeon Crawler Carl

BONUS STATUS REPORT: My stomach is currently considering the implications of the vegan corn dog I ate for lunch. We got it from Delhaize. Package says it is “Korean-style” but I have no idea what such words might mean in such a context. It was good but the Best By Date for Doug to eat anything like microwaveable food was something 2015. We’ll see.

I appreciate that I tend to get long-winded in every. single. post. And that this has a chilling effect. I put off writing things because I know I am going to write for days to say just a few basic things. Can I change this about myself to get back into more casual shit-posting? I don’t know.

Both of these unrelated things are just building up to having two limitations – my stomach is on stage 2 of contemplation, stage 3 is of an unknown character – as I type up a super quick (*wink*) response to the fact that I signed up for Matt Dinniman’s Patreon page so I could keep up with the Dungeon Crawler Carl books as they trickled out as well as the increasing sea of ephemera. Book 8, A Parade of Horribles, has just now – in the past day or so – wrapped up and there’s an unknown gap before “Book 9” [which is sort of like Books 9 and 10, according to the author, though how that really plays out I do not know].

CAVEAT 1: the version of the book published to the Patreon is something like a polished rough draft, with scenes and elements cut and altered before the finished book. Things get added to make later scenes make more sense. Things get cut for time. A later update will say something like, “Oh, I added a few paragraphs about this…,” and then have those paragraphs out of context. That is to say you gain something for reading them this way but you also kind of lose the final edit and polish.

CAVEAT 2: I am going to spoil nothing in plain-text, but will obfuscate a few words and sentences if I feel they might spoil things. Only click them if you don’t care about DCC, don’t care much about spoilers, or are prone to forgetting. Oh, I guess if you have already read the thing, that too. Though some elements of speculation included might irritate you if you hate that sort of thing.

THOUGHTS AT THE END OF BOOK 8 IN ITS CURRENT FORM

Goddamnit, Matt.

The last few chapters had so many things hitting at such a huge scale that I had to physically get up and walk around a couple of times. It was punching. Super good. Even the “stupidity” of the last big plot shift before the epilogues. The lore dump is huge and I would say that I had already guessed around 90% of it as explained. It’s kind of just there in the text already, with some between-the-lines reading.

One element – SZwS SZr zbHSZroweG pw1 1H3r 1HeS Hi wDSA-I4FHyA1S SZwS erber1rDS1 FAir 14ePAPADy AD A3breiroSAHD – was kind of a new one to me.

ROoSO oM 3OdW r6MMoT1f 3odv 36 3Od “356 Oj1FdM TdS69oWb 6Wd, jbjoW” MUTr163 3Oj3 63Odm5oMd Kdd1M Fdmf dn3mjWd6UM vdMro3d TdoWb o9r6m3jW3 36 j3 1djM3 6Wd SOjmjS3dm jWv sjm1’M 6Fdmj11 bm653O 36 3Odmd TdoWb 96md 3OjW 6Wd vdKoWo3o6W 6K MUmFoFj1.

I think it has been somewhat there, that fact, but also never quite laid like that, especially in that it sets up, for instance, 8 mAfZSfZQ O7tZ77Q 48P6 8QS tA7 cK [tA7 fOILfsm fQ7], 8 mAfZSfZQ O7tZ77Q 48P6 8QS NfQst [tA7 P7866e S8lQ7S tP8DL0 fQ7, Ost K’l Qft msP7 LR K Zfs6S Ose Lt sQ67mm Lt Z8m *P7866e* RfP07S], fP 9fmmLO6e 8 mAfZSfZQ O7tZ77Q ofPS708L [tA7 9ftLfQm l8mt7P] 8QS qS7tt7 [tA7 lfmt 6Ly76e tf ZLQ ufSAffS], ZAL0A Lm 9ft7QtL866e tA7 iJuz 98e fst tA8t DLI7m 48P6 tA7 fQ6e fst A7 08Q D7t.

THOUGHTS OF THE BOOK PRIOR TO THE LAST 10%

Trying to be really unspoilery, but there is a tonal shift between the first 90% or of the book and the last 10%. My math might be off, especially if the full-release of the book trims some chapters. There is a moment where the general scope changes. It all makes sense in the context of the dungeon, and is telegraphed. ANYHOW…

I suspect that for a some people the vibe difference between Book 7 and Book 8 will be jarring, in that the parts that made Book 7 rough to take are still there but the parts that made Books 1-6 beloved are kind of not.

In a lot of ways, Book 7 is the kind of book that tends to end most series. A big build up with a huge number of threads and a lot of stakes and deaths and shifts.

Book 8, until that final “10%” is much more like the earlier books with Carl and Co having to bounce off a never ending series of rules and rails and changes. Only without the more “innocent” joy that was often in those books where every impossible problem was solved with stupid (or sometimes stupidly smart) solutions. That still happens, but it feels a lot less like a person just a little too dumb to understand game design tripping over exploits and more like a person being given a bunch of extra saving throws because they are dating the DM.

It also commits the usual sin of such fiction – one shared by a lot of the type – that the series starts out as effectively a story about people working together and then they find more friends and allies and it all about a group of beautiful people weathering horrible things then it gets to BIG BOY LORE GOD mode and those friendships start taking back seat to mechanics.

Dinniman course corrects around the half-way point, and does a good job of it, but by then you have several of the “lessons” learned from previous books just gone and some extra characters just deeply underutilized. Book 7 set up a lot of interesting things for Books 8+ but character growth comes really close to stuttering until its hard forced to take a step back from the edge.

Dungeon Crawler Carl is the kind of series that turns baby (goblin) killing atrocities into a kind of wry joke that you laugh out but kind of hate laughing at. The 7th book had to set some of that aside, and make you actually really hate baby (goblin) killing, but the 8th book makes a misstep in leaving it set aside too long, I think. It needed to step forward or step back and it just of stepped in place for a good bit of it.

Very few non-Carl – maybe not even Donut – characters really get a chance to act to their fullest. There are exceptions, for sure, and some absolutely lovely moments but its the rails of the earlier books hitting the seriousness of the 7th.

I still really, really enjoyed it, but I missed the sense of a group of friends sitting around a table playing a roleplaying together that other books had managed to hit. Despite the atrocities they were living through or maybe because of them. This is largely just friends having to suffer.

aK7 C XLLmDSqXQD RnbD nF QdD QnKX9 RdqFQ qR QdD RQq9QD7 9n2D RQnmh VDQODDK gXm9 XK7 vXQqX XK7 dnO dD dXR 9nRQ nKD nF dqR qbLnmQXKQ SDKQDmR Qn dqR SdXnR.

THE RE-LISTEN AND THREE PIECES OF ABSOLUTELY BASELESS SPECULATION

Not much to say here, but have been – much more slowly – going back through the audiobooks and just enjoying them in bursts of half-an-hour-to-an-hour a day. I’ll either have to increase the time or speed up the read-speed when I get to the later, chonkier books. The idea is just to continue to enjoy them but also listen out for a bunch of details that got buried under the weight of so many damned characters and threads.

While doing it, I started sorting through my wild speculation mental folder, and I have come up with a few ideas [though one I already wrote above, I will put it down here]:

[Not really spoiling any book, but I’ll still obfuscate it, but about something that happens early on, very early on] K3 bOU3 kW8dQ O8G tOvz qyNvWwOwzR OcOu3. kW8dQ zOQ3v fORf fb3 QbWdCbQ fb3 b3OvG m3vGq8O8G gOzzq8C b3v. tOvz cOf cOuq8C dN 4vWy O 8qCbQyOv3. ib3f3 QcW Qbq8Cf z3OG QW Qb3y w3q8C Owz3 QW 38Q3v Qb3 Gd8C3W8. 1’U3 cW8G3v3G 4Wv O yq8dQ3 q4 Qbqf cOf z3OGq8C dN QW fWy3 uq8G W4 NzWQ NWq8Q, 3fN3gqOzzR fq8g3 zOQ3v C3Q 8WQ3f OwWdQ fWy3Qbq8C 4dguR w3q8C dN cqQb m3vGq8O8G O8G Qb3 4WWG fQd44, 3Qg.
[Book 7] vs3KIQC lZL LhQ s0 zss6 j, ybw4L zsY CKgC CZL QsLCh’l 0LLF KhglZwhO 3ZLh CZL lsb4ZLC AKIF QLCPwlL 8LwhO K8FL ls ILKQ Cs5LshL 8g lsb4Z. c KF5sCl lK6L lZwC KC K 6whQ s0 “c 0LLF rslZwhO” 3Zw4Z ZKC FsIL wh lZL OK5L/hsNLFC. vZKl lZLIL wCh’l l3s PFKgLIC – lZL abFsOwCl NC 7PslZL4KIg – 8bl K4lbKFFg lZILL KhQ AKIF ILPILCLhlC lZKl bCL s0 vZL rslZwhO wh OK5L KC K 5LlKPZsI hsl LNLh lZL 7c bhQLIClKhQC gLl.
[Book 8] I1b wSpb q 91sEl uCSP9 s9, 91b wSpb q’w 5pb99y WPpb 91u9 9HS CbsEVW CbsEV 8SwCsEbJ 9SVb91bp sW VSsEV 9S Cb 91b esEuz uEWHbp. q HuW 91sElsEV 91b Xq uEJ…dupz? dupz uEJ 2SEP9? FSPsW uEJ QuwuE91u? q JSE’9 lESH. dupz + 91b Xq uEJ 91bE 1b 9ps5W 91b 2SSwWJuy? 3SW9 Se wy uEWHbpW ebbz rbpy 8zs81b.

In the context of that last one, bfT3 OfdSY bfTF5 fk3 k o6Ybbe 3Y6TY3 ZfōFYF HkF5k sT1Y kFl Pk6S’3 k3gYF3TdF 3YYH3 kSHd3b 58k6kFbYYl….18b OY’SS 3YY..

Anyhow, enough of all that. I’m off to play some Dragon Quest VII and grind job tiers.

Also, Stage 3 has been fine. Stage 4, we’ll see, but I think the hot dog passes the “won’t make Doug want to die” test.

600 Days…

By Doug Bolden

On 2026-01-21

In Reading, Technology

Today, I hit this count…

All five of those read books, and the book I am currently reading, are Dungeon Crawler Carl. The first couple of books started out as roughly reasonable in their page count and the later ones have grown to books of a certain size. The sixth one, the one I am currently reading, is close to eight-hundred-pages long. I think the seventh one is similar.

At any rate, I have no good “number of pages read” metric to say off the top of my head and won’t get up to do the math but I’d wager that “more than three” will suffice as a page count total.

One of the earliest posts on this rebuilt blog was about hitting the five-hundred-days-of-reading mark. I included some caveats, there, that are still roughly applicable. The past century of days has tended to be more legit reading, hitting somewhere between fifty- and two-hundred-pages per day on average, but many of the points are otherwise valid.

I’m still refusing to make any specific goals, but I do appreciate the irony that letting go of caring about shiny made-up medals is helping to actually do more of the hobbies I like.

Reading Induced Insomnia, Dungeon Crawler Carl, and Becoming Mostly Ok with Audiobooks

By Doug Bolden

On 2026-01-14

In Reading

*Snagged from mattdinnamin.com. Used without permission but you should click that link and find out more. Trust me.*

Something of a sysadmin style notice, but if I clicked the right clicks then this will be the first post where comments are turned completely off by default. There will probably be “discussion” posts, not that anyone discusses things on my blog, but due to all the normal reasons that people hate leaving comments over – reasons #1 through #10 being annoying spam and reasons #11 through around #24 being variations of security issues – it will only be the odd post out that has comments. I’ll leave on pingbacks for the moment, partially because I use those to form a matrix of ideas but I am not precisely attached to having to have them.

Now, on with the show…

Reading Induced Insomnia, Rank: 7 Days

I have gone too bed too late for too many nights in a row. Due to reading. I know from experience that being in a relaxed state and reading an hour or two past my sleepy-bye time tends to leave me almost nearly as rested as sleep but this past week it has gone on a bit too much so I have to cut myself off for a few nights. Grammpy Doug needs his 22:00-22:30 bedtime or he gets the fuzzy brain, Space Pilgrims.

The reason for it?

Dungeon Crawl Carl Series, Rank: 4 Books and Counting

The reason for this is exactly due to one thing, I’ve been reading through Matt Dinniman’s rather delightful Dungeon Crawler Carl series. I’m on Book Four – The Gate of the Feral Gods – and remain thoroughly invested.

It is a series that has been on my radar for a couple of years though I had misunderstood the basic setup this whole time and so a lot of references to it made no sense to me out of context.

I knew the general LitRPG concept, books where characters are player in a game and are aware of the concepts, which is funnily enough how a lot of people play their actual RPGs. “I cast magic missile using the mirror, which should give it +1 to hit!” The kind of thing that their characters wouldn’t really be able to suss out with precision, though it’s the kind of detail that would pretty unfun to try and always encapsulate in purely in-world terms. To each their own.

The misunderstanding is that I was under the impression that the Earth had been turned into the Dungeon World by using existing structures. I was expecting something kind of like a violent take on The Mall World concept. Fitting into a particular flavor of 1970s-1990s dystopian film and novel where death games were played out in bits of the real world.

Dungeon Crawler Carl is a lot weirder than that but I’ll leave it to the reader to find out how. It’s probably more spoiled everywhere now, as the series is picking up more and more steam.

At any rate, I enjoy very nearly everything about the books. Carl and his caring but righteous indignation. The sassy chaos of Princess Donut. Most of the NPCs and other PCs. The skill systems and nearly ineffable game rules. The violence and extreme solutions. The cosmic horror tinged with corporate horror as people competing in death games far over their heads deal with horrors that are kind of a parody of the earth but also glimpses into a universe that very nearly makes no sense to humanity.

Carl would likely have resonated even harder with a younger Doug back when I was a bit more self-righteously angry about things, but as a slightly mollified older man with a child and having to navigate – *gestures at everything happening in 2026* – I can still enjoy a person that fits like a broken cog in a machine and getting away with it.

If you like stuff like fantasy-tech ARPGs with complex skill trees, dramatically soul crushing developments, a bunch of soon-to-be-dated references that are pretty timely at the moment, huge explosions, and sarcastic humor while people are covered in gore and being lectured by an increasingly unhinged AI “gamemaster,” give it a shot.

There are a lot of reviews out there. This is not really a review. Just an acknowledgement that in a little over a week phrases like, “Goddamnit, Donut,” and, “NEW ACHIEVEMENT UNLOCKED!,” have entered a kind of general vernacular in Huis van Bolden.

Some of the foot-fetish humor, and especially the degree that the character’s distaste in being forced to engage in it while friends and companions more or less laugh at him for feeling sexually harassed is an odd glitch note in the text. I mean, sure, he’s also being forced to bash in the heads of people. It just hits funky.

Becoming Mostly Ok with Audiobooks, Rank: 1(ish)

At least around 30% of my “reading” the series has been via the Audible exclusive (?) audiobooks narrated by the absolutely phenomenal Jeff Hays. To put how good his narration is, if DCC had been a flop for me I would probably have just tried to find more books narrated by that man. He is great.

Audiobooks and I have tended to never quite get along. The reasons are many. My reading speed tends to be a bit faster than reasonable narration. I like to glance back and forth a good bit to check charts, footnotes, or whatever. Just to sometimes compare scenes and get a feeling of the writer behind the words.

While I tend to read fairly fast, I do sometimes like to slow down and think more about the situation, enter into a kind of liminal reading space. Audiobooks have ways to mitigate this, especially in conjunction with ebooks that track the progress between the two, but I can’t imagine audiobooks ever really replacing that mental space in my brain. Especially those with mediocre or particularly slow readers, which ends up just draining me and making me kind of hate the book in question.

Another reason is a bit more petty and barely holds up to scrutiny over time. Back, around 20-years-ago, when I was in library school there was the rise of three “variations” of literature among the librarians: young adult fiction, audiobooks, and ebooks. None of which were new but all of which were being simultaneously pushed as a forefront for helping to inspire reluctant readers.

For the lattermost two, there was this tribal desire to try and claim only one format as being “authentic books.” I heard multiple library students say they hated ebooks because they preferred the { smell | feel | texture | taste | whatever } of “real books” but then they would talk about how 90% of their reading was listening. “Amazon actually owns all your Kindle books,” they would taunt as they downloaded another low fidelity book via Audible [which was bought out by Amazon around this time].

These arguments are partially why I tend to refer to physical books as “Dead Tree Fetishism” (where the act of owning a bit of dead tree is more important than enjoying the text via that medium) though I obviously adore physical books.

My irritation at this, despite accepting one aspect of their argument – that good audiobooks are akin to a transformative work that approaches the material in a different way – made me cranky at the wider audiobook world.

A more reasonable final reason is that my brain is slightly incompatible with audiobooks. I tend to dance around the threads in my brain and audiobooks always had the effect of only occupying perhaps one of them at most, and sometimes the other threads would just be a bit too loud to focus. With some mental practice, I have been able to more overcome this.

I have no specific numbers, and refuse to make a specific goal, but in general I think I will try to get my “Tolerates Audiobooks” to at least a Rank 2 or 3 skill before the 2026th floor collapses and we are thrown into whatever chaos exists on Floor 2027.

Just picture, Space Pilgrims, next year’s Doug: *gestures at all that stuff going down in 2027*.

At any rate, I’m so sleepy I just dropped my keyboard while typing in some act of physics rebellion I do not understand, so I’ll wrap this up, here.