They did it! Carl and Donut won Facton Wars! The universe trembles in the wake of such upheaval. But Carl and Donut don’t get a chance to bask in their glory. They both turn down deals to exit the dungeon and get dropped straight into the tenth floor, another race to the death level, I guess, to make up for missing the last one? This time, it’s not just about crossing the finish line; it’s about doing it first, because last means death, and anything other than first might as well be dead, too. I guess ol’ Ricky-Bobby had it right when he said: “If you ain’t first, you’re last”. Can Carl once again cheat the system and find a way to save all the crawlers? Or will he finally have to accept that he can’t save everyone? Find out in A Parade of Horribles, Matt Dinniman’s eighth Dungeon Crawler Carl book.
[Warning: My review of A Parade of Horribles contains some spoilers!]
They just can’t win, but don’t tell Carl that
Factions Wars was a huge success for the crawlers. Their army actually won, and they finished the floor with an unprecedented number of crawlers still alive. Don’t get me wrong, there were losses, but the overwhelming feeling was one of victory. Even better, most of the surviving crawlers took a deal at the end of the ninth floor, so there are now only just over 5,000 crawlers for Carl to worry about. But just as he’s feeling good about their odds, the dungeon comes along to knock him down again.
Because this level is a winner-takes-all race. The crawlers all start out racing NPC teams, but as losers are eliminated, the groups are combined. Carl quickly comes to realize that it won’t be long before the other teams are made up of crawlers, and the losers die. It’s a cruel twist after working so hard to help everyone survive that now the only way to survive yourself is to kill others. But Carl isn’t going to accept it. He is determined to keep everyone he can alive, and he works hard to find a loophole they can use. The AI warns him to be cautious about things that seem too good to be true, but Carl doesn’t care; keeping people alive and destroying the Syndicate are his only goals, and he’ll do whatever it takes to reach them.
It’s a two-for-one!
Carl has plans to take down the Syndicate, but he’s not the only one with plans. The AI is very self-aware at this point, and it has its own plans. It also has very little patience (it’s a lot like a two-year-old, but it just gained sentience, so we’ll excuse the immaturity), it wants to get to the Acendency on the twelfth floor NOW! So the tenth floor is almost just a lead-up to the eleventh floor. And the eleventh floor has a three-hour time limit. The crawlers have to use their vehicles on the tenth floor to create parade floats with rather odd themes assigned by the AI. Don’t worry, it all makes sense once the parade starts. In fact a lot of things start to make sense once the parade starts. There’s still a lot of mystery, especially about just how everything is going to end (not just the dungeon, but everything), but we finally get some rather important backstory that helps us understand just what’s going on with the AI.
Of course, that backstory doesn’t mean anything if Carl doesn’t A) survive the battle royal at the end of the parade and B) finish his quest with Emberus without getting killed. Just 23 crawlers are still around at the end of the tenth floor, but they have a plan for surviving the arena battle the AI has planned. It’s a Carl plan (read, crazy and likely to fail), but that’s always worked out okay in the past, so they should be fine. Carl gets to choose two people that the AI will zap into the arena because of a quest he completed on the tenth floor. His choices will hopefully help the crawlers beat the boss and move on. Wait, he chose who?!?!?! to join them in the arena? Oh boy, this is definitely a Carl plan…
Fast crazy, slow crazy, chaotic crazy
There’s a lot of backstory given to us in A Parade of Horribles. Dinniman finally reveals what Primals are. We also learn how and why the AIs came to be seeded all over the universe. This is really important information, but when a large backstory gets dropped on you all at once, it can be boring. But not in the Dungeon! Dinniman sandwiches the reveal between the fast-paced races and the chaotic arena. He also keeps the reveal interesting and intense by mixing high levels of fear and the possibility of death into the delivery. Overall, it’s exactly what you would expect a Dungeon Crawler Carl reveal to be, and the word boring is nowhere around.
Before that, slower-paced crazy, though; we have the fast-paced crazy of the races. Carl is almost defeated by the races. Not by the races themselves (although he does come close to losing a few times), but by what the races are doing. He’s worked so hard to keep everyone safe, and the races come along, and there’s nothing he can do to protect anyone. The mental and emotional weight that comes with that is almost too much for him. But then he shakes himself off and reminds himself, “I will not let them break me”. And with that mantra running in his mind, he comes back to himself and gets back to work saving crawlers and “breaking them”.
After the parade craziness, we get to the chaotic crazy. The arena of the eleventh floor contains a giant floor boss plus hundreds of mobs and the “stand-ins” (tourists from the 18th floor, the AI zapped in) running around killing each other in a giant battle royal. It’s doubtful that the 23 remaining crawlers will be able to beat the boss, but Carl has a plan. He always has a plan. And a backup plan. And a back-up back-up plan. And a few more contingency plans… You get the picture. He’s pretty sure they can survive. What’s more, he thinks his plan will ensure their survival all the way through the rest of the dungeon. After that, he doesn’t know, but I’m sure he’s working on a plan for that too.
Write faster, Matt Dinniman!
So, Dungeon Crawler Carl was first released way back in September of 2020. I, however, didn’t discover this series until just about two months ago. Since then, I’ve devoured all eight books of the series one after another. I just finished the last one, and now I’m having withdrawal! There are two more books planned for the series, as well as a streaming series that was just announced. But the next book isn’t expected until 2028, and the streamer has no release date at all; it’s just in the very beginning stages. So I will sadly wait here in my safe room until the next floor starts. But I don’t have to wait alone! Read the series today, and you can wait in here with me!
Rating: 9/10
A Parade of Horribles by Matt Dinniman is available now!
Learn more about the book at the official website for the title.
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