This was another winner in the Dungeon Crawler Carl series, it had that feel that I was looking for and enjoyed from this type of book. It continued this story perfectly and was everything that I was expecting from the world and from Matt Dinniman. I thought it had that feel that I was looking for and was glad I read this.

The best DCC yet! The blend of humor and pathos continues to increase in this series and the plot is absolutely insane in this one. The boss battles were great, and the depth of the characters makes rooting for Carl, Donut, and co to be fist-pumpingly great.

I am obsessed with the Carl the Dungeon Crawler series, and this book was just as good as the rest in the series. Every single one of his books has a unique distinct plot, with such a fleshed out world that is easy to understand. The book has a good mix between hilariousness and seriousness, and these genuinely really beautiful emotional moments (that are absurd!). Truly a fantastic book, and a fantastic series!

Ace Books and Berkley Publishing Group provided an early galley for review.

Last year, this series was a big part of my reading activity, so I am pleased to see the aggressive schedule of releases from the publisher continuing into 2025. Clocking in at close to 600 pages, this one is the largest installment to date.

Despite the length, this one again was a faster reader. This is likely due to several factors: Dinniman's pacing of the narrative is urgent, his methods of recapping through the daily broadcasts and the loot-drop descriptions are quick and breezy, and his dialogue is dominant yet informal. All of this works in this lit-RPG subgenre of the fantasy genre.

Dinniman also has a knack for creating multi-layered "worlds" for each level of this adventure, filled with interesting challenges to face and puzzles to solve. While the books are following a formula with many reoccurring elements, the changes in location really go a long way to make each subsequent novel in the series feel fresh.

For fans of the series, this is another solid addition.

3.5 stars, Metaphorosis reviews
Summary
Carl, Donut, et al have reached level five, where dungeon crawlers have been split into hundreds of 'bubbles', each with four different quadrants. And of course, there are quests all over. This time, many of them involved gods, feral and otherwise.
Review
The seams began to show in the previous book, and here the stretch to keep things fun is even more evident. There are so many groups and characters and quests to keep track of that it’s all something of a muddle. Dinniman does a great job of keeping the characters engaging, but not so well on clarity of his overcomplicated plots. That said, this was a lot more fun and quicker to read than the much shorter book I read just before it.
As noted previously, part of what’s appealing is that Carl is smart and practical, and makes all the right choices. Unlikely as it may be, he probably falls in what some call the ‘noblebright’ category, because he’s compassionate and make the ‘right’ moral choices. In a world that’s awful and violent (I mean his), it keeps the tone lighter in that he’s clearly a good person many of us can identify with.
Dinniman’s juggling a lot of balls in this series, and I find it hard to keep track of most of them. I can’t say they drop, exactly, but they do vanish from sight for long enough that you just have to take on faith that they’re in the right place the next time you see them. The physical environment in particular can be hard to keep track on. It’s not a crisis, but it would be more fun if I could consistently picture what in the hell was happening.
As with book three in the series, the loot boxes, etc. are beginning to wear thin. There are only so many amazing tools you can find. Dinniman clearly recognizes this, and is introducing some new dynamics. He also leans more heavily in this volume into the arc of the series overall – Carl’s long-range plans for the sadists (or maybe just capitalists) that run the dungeon. That’s a very good thing, as the story is beginning to really need more than just level-based scenery. However, to achieve Dinniman’s goals, Carl’s intentional hiding of information from the reader has become much more evident.
There’s an odd little epilogue to the book that is interesting, perhaps important, info to have, but doesn’t feel it fits well in the book. That’s preceding the official ‘backstage’ extra, which is more obviously stuck on and not (so far) essential to the plot.
All in all, still fun, but starting to wear. Happily, the next level/book should bring the capitalist dungeon investor factions more directly into focus, allowing Dinniman to bring out that side of the story more. He’s also clearly slimming down the immediate cast, though I didn’t see that as a major need.
I received this book for free in exchange for an honest review.

With the crazy ending of book 5, I wasn't sure what to expect going into this. I think the concept of the card game was really cool and I love that each level feels so different than the last. Humor was still present as usual. This book felt more serious, which makes sense as the characters are experiencing violence that hits much closer to home than they have dealt with previously. I thought parts of this were a little bit slow, making it not quite as bingeable as the previous book but I still loved it overall. The ending was ominous and dark and makes me nervous to see where we're heading going into book 7.

I absolutely love this series and can’t wait to get my hands on the hardcover edition. I’m thrilled to hear there’s a movie in development—it’s so exciting! I can’t wait for the story to reach an even wider audience and for more people to get hooked on it like I did. This series deserves all the attention it’s getting!

Welcome to the fifth floor, crawlers!

Our favorite crawler team of Carl, Princess Donut, and Katia, will have to work with a cast of new crawlers to accomplish the latest challenge presented by the dungeon. In a much more quest-centered floor, all the surviving crawlers have been divided into "teams" of about 150 crawlers, each placed in its own "bubble". These "bubbles" are all connected throughout the floor like a giant sheet of bubble-wrap. Each team is further divided, placed into one of the four different zones inside their "bubble": sea, sky, land, and subterranean.

The goal: capture the castle located in each zone to gain access to the stairwell to the sixth floor. and the ability to move between zones in your team's bubble.

The catch: the stairwell to the sixth floor only opens if ALL four castles are captured (and which also "pops" the bubble permitting movement between different popped bubbles).

Saddled with needing to rely on other teams of crawlers to survive the floor, Carl and crew have to change their methods up a little bit. The much more narrative-driven, puzzle-styled adventure offers a change of pace from the the pure level grinding of floors one through three (albeit with a quest or two on top) and the introductory puzzle element of the fourth floor. Traps, mysteries, and non-combat skills come to the forefront in this raucous romp where Carl takes his first steps into striking back at the intergalactic invaders, using their own methods (and what he secretly gleans from the Anarchist's Cookbook).

If you have come this far in the series, you know how much fun is to be had, and this is more of the same. But as the stakes have climbed, the serious nature of Carl's goals have expanded. "You will not break me", is no longer enough...now it is time for "I will break you."

Book to be published 3/11/25 and written by Matt Dinniman

My husband wears the same shirt every day, basically until it gets holes in it and then falls off his body. He really, really hates to buy clothes and so he just gets a shirt or two and goes with it. I mention this because he now has two Princess Donut t-shirts. So, that is saying something. He has been listening on audible for months, but when I saw him purchase the merch, I knew it was special. My bookstagram family has been showcasing the first title also, so I bought the available hardbacks and just now was lucky enough to get a digital version of the 4th book in the series with the added bonus chapter at the end. This is my review, and this has been my favorite book of the series thus far. This review will not spoil the content of any of the books, so feel free to read if you haven’t read the series, which is a fantasy series about an intergalactic reality show starring a guy from Seattle and a persian show cat who can talk. So, you know, it’s pretty weird.

Carl, Donut, Mongo and Katia have advanced to the fifth level, where crawlers have to seize a castle or something, they are inside bubbles and have to overtake a throne room, maybe? There are zombies and maybe ghosts in this one, and we get to meet some of the other top 10. Carl also comes into his own as a hero, albeit a reluctant hero. If you have made it this far in the series, you are likely reading for the development and the – let’s face it- absolutely DELIGHTFUL dialogue that comes from Princess Donut. I think one could skim the book and read exclusively Donut’s dialogue and be just about thrilled.

Since Mike listened to the audio, when we talk about parts we enjoy, he gives them the accents that the narrator does, which is very very funny, as I never would have given a Persian cat from Seattle a british accent, but I do love it.

According to my kindle, I read this in about 10 hours, perhaps I am reading at a different pace than I did the hardbacks or maybe I am just getting used to the world and rules of the game. When my husband sees me reading he always asks me what is happening at the moment, and I always say something like- “I don’t know, Carl and Donut are fighting and trying to survive and getting boxes.” When I read the first one, I took great care to read slowly to try and understand the game, the points, who exactly was the antagonist in each scene, etc. I have stopped doing that, and just taking the content at face value. It is too hard to determine which details are important and which aren’t. I am enjoying it more this way, although I truly have only 20% of the plot down.

Personally I have a hard time understanding most fantasy books so I tend to stay away from the genre unless it is called “cozy fantasy”- Harry Potter is my favorite and I love TJ Klune’s Cerulean Chronicles, but I can’t even come close to understanding LotR or most really detailed fantasy. Even YA fantasy like Sabaa Tahir- I couldn’t be more lost. I remember going to see Ready Player One and finally understanding what the world actually looked like.

Do I understand what is happening? No, not entirely. But am I enjoying reading this? Absolutely.

Thank you to @netgalley and @berkleypub for the ARC. This made over cover with the bonus material to be published March 11, 2025. Naturally I will buy all of this version as I am a completist and having an incomplete set on my shelf would give me hives.

Carl and Donut have made it to fifth floor.

The floor itself? Picture bubble wrap, but each bubble is a dome, isolating the crawlers within it from all the others. Each dome is its own little world, with four quadrants, each with its own castle. The crawlers in each done must conquer all four to open the dome and unlock the stairwell to the next floor. Sounds simple, right?

Except nothing is ever simple with Carl and Donut. Especially when they’re forced to rely on other crawlers. Crawlers that are so low level it feels like a joke. Or a set up.

Welcome to the fifth floor crawlers.

𝘞𝘩𝘦𝘯 𝘺𝘰𝘶’𝘳𝘦 𝘪𝘯 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘊𝘢𝘳𝘭 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘋𝘰𝘯𝘶𝘵 𝘱𝘢𝘳𝘵𝘺, 𝘺𝘰𝘶 𝘳𝘪𝘥𝘦 𝘰𝘯 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘊𝘢𝘳𝘭 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘋𝘰𝘯𝘶𝘵 𝘳𝘰𝘭𝘭𝘦𝘳𝘤𝘰𝘢𝘴𝘵𝘦𝘳, 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘰𝘯𝘤𝘦 𝘪𝘵 𝘨𝘦𝘵𝘴 𝘨𝘰𝘪𝘯𝘨, 𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘳𝘦’𝘴 𝘯𝘰 𝘨𝘦𝘵𝘵𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘰𝘧𝘧.

This is probably my second favorite book of the series. It had all the humor and Carl thinking outside the box of the first and second book, with none of the super confusing plot that had me struggling through the third.

The best part? Carl is finally getting opportunities to strike back at the system that took over his planet and enslaved him and his fellow crawlers. There were some toe curling-ly good revenge moments that had me grinning from ear to ear. I loved every second of it.

And the ending… It was so good! It totally sets up the next book for more greatness. I cannot wait to continue the series. If I haven’t convinced you to try it yet please do! Overall:⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️.75

Thank you NetGalley and Berkley Publishing for my e-reader copy in exchange for a honest review.