Bingo Square: Joker (Carl is chaos personified)
Quote: “That’s the problem with hitting the elites financially. Every time you hurt one, all it does is make another richer. That won’t stop until the baskets overflow with their godsdamned heads.”
Throughout the series, the beginnings of the new novels and floors have tended to act as resets and completely shift the tone. Book 3 went from everyone working together at the end of the Iron Tangle to being separated for the Bubbles; Book 5 to Book 6 had the same shift from hunters to card games. After all the chaos (but group togetherness) of the previous floor and book, this one very much feels like a big shift, back to the individual (or small team) focus, where every crawler is focused on their own struggle, and as readers, we are along for the ride (both figuratively and literally since this floor’s theme is racing).
I think at first read through, a lot of readers have found this one to be a bit weaker initially, especially after the explosive conclusion of book 7 but the shift is very much part of the plot. Carl and Donut almost feel freed by going back to being responsible only for themselves before they realize the trap this mindset could be. It doesn’t take long for the dungeon to start grinding them down again, showing that their previous success was only temporary, and they are still at the whims of a merciless system.
The prologue for this novel is a perfect start since the readers finally get to see Donut’s meeting with her lawyer, hinted at during the end of the previous novel. Three quarters of the survivors from the last floor took deals but that still leaves 5,000 at risk and competing for their lives on this floor, and all of Carl’s friends and confidantes are part of the 5,000. The stakes have never been higher for him.
As always, there are things in here that are surprisingly heartfelt, surprisingly gross and also completely bizarre and off the wall, especially the whole side quest involving a half-manotaur and his love interest. While the first half of the novel may have taken the novel back a few gears, the last half especially goes all out and has some huge reveals about the series overall. Some other positives are that Pony is more integrated into the group, finally, after all this time but for as long as this novel is, we don’t get quite as much time with some of the other crawlers (it’s the same way book 6 had to explain the card games and provided less opportunity for interactions).
While this isn’t my favorite in the series, I am very much looking forward to what comes next since we have some interesting floors and concepts that have been hinted at for several books about to be part of the plot, and that doesn’t even touch on the outside the dungeon stuff and the chaos about to happen through the Syndicate.
