This is the 3rd book in the Dungeon Crawler Carl Series, and it follows the formula of the past books: the preposterous premise (earth has been turned into a massive dungeon crawler video game), silly characters, creepy enemies and bosses, ridiculous level design, slimy sponsors, and so on.
I found this third entry to be a bit more entertaining and funny than the second book. Maybe I’m just learning to lean into the zany and absurd world of Dungeon Crawler Carl, and to roll with all the absurd things that happen. It’s not a particularly brilliant series, nor one that is likely to stay with me for a long time, but it’s good popcorn fun.
The series also benefits from the fact that characters level up as part of going through the dungeon, just as you would in a video game, which acts as a lovely mechanism for character growth. This third book also introduces a big underlying mystery that I suspect will be developed over the course of the next several books. Moreover, I’m listening to this series as an audiobook, and Jeff Hays’ narration is simply superb. It’s probably the main thing that keeps me reading (or, er, listening).
