Oh my god! That was a close one! The end of Carl’s Doomsday Scenario was almost the end of Carl and Donut. But they made it through, right out of the frying pan into the fire. Level four is a crazy maze of trains. If they can figure out the puzzle, maybe they’ll make it to the next level, but it’s not going to be easy. Especially since Carl has decided that, despite what Mordecai says, he actually can save them all. Matt Dinniman’s third installment of the Dungeon Crawler Carl series, The Dungeon Anarchist’s Cookbook, kicks the excitement up to the next level.
[Warning: My review of The Dungeon Anarchist’s Cookbook contains some spoilers!]
Choo-Choo!
And people say the subways in New York are bad! In the dungeon, the trains are filled with literal monsters. Carl, Donut, and Katia have to fight their way through the trains while trying to solve the puzzle of where the stairs are and how to actually reach them. Mordecai starts trying to map the thousands of different lines for the group but then the game throws a giant wrench in their plan, an old “friend” of Mordecai shows up to give Carl a prize and Mordecai tries to attack him, in the safe room, which is a big no-no. Mordecai gets zapped away, and the trio is left on their own to try to figure out what is going on with the lines.
Luckily, Katia has plenty of experience riding rail lines around the world and excellent problem-solving skills. She figures out the pattern, and Carl starts telling everyone he can about it so that as many people as possible can be saved. But of course it isn’t that easy. It seems like as soon as they do one thing to help people out, the game does something to make sure those same people are in trouble again. Carl keeps remembering what Mordecai told him, “you can’t save them all”. But then he thinks, “They will not break me. I will break them,” and he finds a way to help the other crawlers again.
Losing Mordecai was a horrible “prize,” but it wasn’t all that Carl got. He also got a cookbook. At first, he thinks it’s a second horrible prize. But then he realizes that it’s more than a cookbook. It’s a hidden item that the game runners don’t know exists. It contains all kinds of secrets from previous crawlers. More than that, it holds their thoughts and perspectives on what’s happening in the game. If Carl can survive long enough to put it to good use, it might be exactly what he needs to “break them”.
Princess Donut is growing up
When Donut first became sentient, she was very similar to a spoiled toddler. Despite her high intelligence, she never stopped to think or plan things out; she just did them and left Carl to deal with the fallout (which led to his catchphrase “God dammit, Donut”). But in The Dungeon Anarchist’s Cookbook, we start to see a change in that. She still often does things without checking with anyone else, but when Carl asks her if she even read something or thought about something, she tells him she did. And many of her observations are much more insightful.
We can see her growing up right in front of us. She’s still very self-absorbed and impulsive, but it’s starting to be tempered with a kind and caring nature. Carl isn’t the only one who wants to help the other crawlers anymore. Donut also cares about them. It’s like watching my kids grow up and finding out I did okay with them after all.
We can also see just how much she cares about Carl. There are several times when Carl is in extreme danger (it really looked like we were gonna lose him at one point). And Donut charges in to save him! It’s really sweet (and okay, rather funny too) to imagine this little cat riding into battle to save a huge man because she loves him. And they really do love one another. I think Donut knows more than she lets on about what was getting ready to go down before the world ended; she just didn’t have the ability to process it yet. Now that she’s becoming more emotionally mature, she knows how much Carl cares for her. Eventually, there’s going to be a reckoning about that, and I’m going to be sobbing big, ugly tears all over the place as I read it. And I absolutely can’t wait!
The Dungeon Anarchist’s Cookbook is another great installment
What makes the Dungeon Crawler Carl series so great is the perfect blend of stupid and heart that Dinniman manages to hit. Everywhere you turn, there is something so incredibly stupid going on. Or the gore is so beyond extreme that it’s no longer gross, it’s just funny. But at the same time, there’s the sweetness of Carl and Donut’s relationship, and the compassion that Carl has for not just the other crawlers but the NPCs as well. There are the deeper issues of control, slavery, and power that Dinniman wraps in such a ridiculous wrapper that people reading can’t get angry; they’re too busy laughing. The beauty of it is that even if they don’t exactly see the deeper hidden under all the blood, the message is still getting through to their subconscious. On some level, they are absorbing what’s so messed up in Carl’s world, and maybe they’ll see how that relates to our own world. And then maybe, just maybe, they’ll be motivated to change it.
Rating: 9/10
The Dungeon Anarchist’s Cookbook by Matt Dinniman is available now!
Learn more about the book at the official website for the title.
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