Caramel has already read and reviewed Dungeon Crawler Carl and Carl’s Doomsday Scenario, the first two books of Matt Dinniman’s Dungeon Crawler Carl series. Today he is talking about the third book in the series: The Dungeon Anarchist’s Handbook, originally self-published by the author in 2021 and then more traditionally published by a standard publisher in 2024. As usual Sprinkles is taking notes and asking questions.
Sprinkles: So Caramel, I think that today we have another Dungeon Crawler Carl book to discuss.
Caramel: Yup. This is titled The Dungeon Anarchist’s Cookbook and is the third book in the series.
S: Hmm, that is an interesting title. Tell me more.
C: It is not actually about an anarchist, but Carl actually gets a book called The Anarchist’s Cookbook, and this third book is about that, and what he does with it.
S: Okay, so let us go over the storyline a bit. I remember the main premise: Carl is living on Earth, which has been taken over by some aliens who have destroyed most life on the planet, and some remaining humans are forced to participate in a multi-level dungeon crawling game to entertain alien spectators.
C: Right. And in the first two books Carl and his companion Princess Donut have successfully finished the first three levels. This book is about their adventures in the fourth level.
S: Okay, so let us get back to the cookbook. It must be important somehow.
C: Yep, it is important. And it is not really a cookbook. Or rather it is a cookbook but Carl can detect that it is also kind of like a notebook from hundreds of previous crawlers who have obtained different variations of this book. It contains notes from those people, so it is basically a culmination of exploits and other rules the previous crawlers have found loopholes in.
S: Oh, that is neat! So he and Donut will have an easier way through the mazes of Level Four.
C: Yes. But of course it is never that easy. All sorts of other things happen and there are lots of troubles and lots of dangers and enemies… But I won’t go into too much more detail. It is more fun for people to read the book on their own.
S: Okay Caramel. You are right. Maybe this is enough of a teaser to give our readers, so maybe we can talk about other things about the book.
C: Sure.
S: For example, this is a really big book!
C: Yeah, it’s 530-ish pages or something like that.
S: That is a lot. The first two books were not small, either, but this is getting really thick. How long did it take you to read it?
C: Not sure. I read it at home and at school during reading time. Maybe a few days?
S: And I don’t think the other books will be much shorter.
C: I guess. But the books are not really hard to read for me. The story is interesting enough so I want to read ahead. Also the story is told through Carl’s voice and Carl is a really neat character. He is funny!
S: I understand. I mean I don’t think you would want to read such a big book for fun if the book were not engaging.
C: Yup. That’s exactly right.
S: Sounds good. On another note, a friend of the blog told us that this volume is where things get a bit more sensitive, or in some ways emotionally difficult. They thought that this volume especially might be rough on a young reader. Was that your experience too?
C: Not really. Maybe I am a little desensitized from watching The Lord of the Rings trilogy so many times. And the world of the books is quite cruel to start with, so I kind of expect terrible things to keep happening. But yeah, some more deaths happen in this book and may involve characters we might have started liking. So in that sense this third book is a bit harder on the reader’s emotions.
S: I see. But you had already told me when we were talking about the first book that you did not think this series was very appropriate for very young bunnies. I suppose that kind of covers this too.
C: Yep. But if a bunny enjoys reading about Dungeons and Dragons or other types of role-playing game worlds, and they have already read some books where bad things keep happening and the main characters have to go through really tough things to survive, then I think they would enjoy this book, and not with much discomfort.
S: Thanks Caramel, that makes sense to me. So maybe we should wrap up this book. Are you ready to dive into Book Four?
C: Yes, I need to read it soon!
S: Alright, we will make it so. What do you want to tell our readers as we wrap things up?
C: Stay tuned for more book bunny reviews!
