Book Review: Carl's Doomsday Scenario

The aliens have come, and they’ve transformed Earth into a multilevel, video game–like dungeon. It’s the newest season of the galaxy’s most watched game show, Dungeon Crawler World. Now on the third floor, Carl and Donut have to fight harder than ever. They’ve already proven that a Coast Guard vet and once-and-forever feline royalty are an almost unstoppable team. Their ratings are off the charts. Viewers can’t get enough. But the dungeon gets more dangerous each day, and now there’s a whole new problem to deal with: Quests.

They call it the Over City. A sprawling, once-thriving metropolis devastated by a mysterious calamity. But these streets are far from abandoned. An undead circus trawls the ruins. Murdered women rain from the sky. An ancient spell is finally ready to reveal its dark purpose. Can Carl and Donut solve the mystery in time? And can Carl finally find some pants?

Carl's Doomsday Scenario by Matt Dinniman, book 2 in the Dungeon Crawler Carl series, will be published September 24, 2024. Ace/Berkley Publishing provided an early galley for review.

I had a lot of fun with the first book in this series and was excited that the second's re-release was coming so soon. Less wait between volumes is always good, especially for a story like this one which is designed for a longer series.

Now that Dinniman has gotten a lot of the set-up out of the way with the first book, he is able to dive headlong into the plotlines and progression of this LitRPG series. That means even more crazier encounters and complex narratives being set up and executed in the form of quests. The quests usually keep things into controlled, organized blocks. Overall, I found this volume's pace to be much quicker because of this.

I like too that he is open for changing and evolving the main characters (Carl and Donut). He adds and subtracts elements (gear, abilities, etc.) in order to give himself new toys with which to play in upcoming encounters. This certainly keeps things from being repetitive and predictable.

I am on-board for the next volume which is coming later in the Fall.