Back in early summer, my boss asked me if I’d read the Dungeon Crawler Carl series, and I had no idea what he was talking about. I guess the books had really taken off by this point, because he’s not someone I’d generally describe as being in touch with the online book community. He described them to me as a guy getting trapped in a video game, and I was vaguely intrigued. I haven’t been reading much lately, and my favorite podcast (Knowledge Fight) had ended and I was left adrift at work, bereft of things to occupy my mind.
Conveniently, these books were all on sale on Audible. I think I got the first one for, like, $5.
At it’s core, these books are about a guy who gets trapped in a video game. It’s much more than that, having a satirical framework targeting corporate dehumanization, reality TV, exploitative systems of entertainment, and the very nature of spectacle. It’s also hilarious in a very….. 2010s Millennial way. Though, Matt Dinniman is Gen X. But, then again, so is Andy Weir. As are John Scalzi and Jason Pargin. These books are kind of an amped up version of those writers.
But the book unapologetically has a lot of heart, as well. The characters are in a terrible situation, and for all the humor, they never lose sight of that. They are dealing with trauma, and it breaks them down in subtle (and not so subtle) ways over the course of the books. Something happening in the first book (like, for instance, the destruction of most of the planet) isn’t brushed off. It’s still there. Under the surface as the characters are trying to live from one day to the next. And they rely on one another, and show real affection for each other.
In a way, I was reminded of the affection that used to be commonplace. Like in Lord of the Rings, when characters express love for one another. It wasn’t done with an embarrassment that a lot of modern media would. I’m watching the Masters of the Universe movie as I write this, and a character is getting emotional while watching (I think) The Notebook. It’s played for laughs and he immediately covers his emotions when he’s seen by He-man. That isn’t how these books handle human emotion, and I found that refreshing.
I loved these books. I devoured them.
But….a few months removed from them, they feel different. They feel of a time and place that doesn’t exist any more.
Matt Dinniman began writing these books in the 2010s while selling art at pet shows, which is about as fitting an origin story as you could have for these books. And I feel like these books are very much a product of this time. Dinniman was probably reading a lot of the same books I was reading. Watching the same movies. Playing the same video games. Or, at least, he was watching the movies I intended to watch, and reading the books I intended to read, and playing the video games I intended to read. My interests have always been broader than my experiences.
And if I read these books in 2015 – these might have been the most enjoyable things I ever read. I loved the humor. I loved the silliness of it (one of the main characters is a sentient cat named Princess Donut the Queen Anne Chonk. Another is a demi-god in the form of a sex doll head. You get the idea). I loved the earnestness of it. And I loved so many of the characters. Dinniman really excels at creating memorable characters.
But I don’t know. Maybe it’s the empty paint-by-numbers nostalgia of the movie I’m currently watching, but there’s something about these books that feels a little lost to time. These books are a natural progression from Scalzi, Pargin, and Weir…but there’s also a bit of Ready Player One in it, as well. That was a book I loved when I first read it – and it was insanely popular in the early and mid-2010s. But something really seemed to sour in the zeitgeist, to the point that no one seemed to like its sequel, Ready Player Two.
I can’t escape from the idea that the world is different. That I’m different. This doesn’t do it for me like it used to.
I was 13 years old when I realized toys didn’t do anything for me any more. I remember it vividly. I was sitting on the floor in my bedroom playing with Spawn action figures, and I just…didn’t care anymore. It was boring. I felt silly. I explicitly thought I was too old to be doing this.
What I’m feeling now isn’t as visceral as that memory, but there’s something similar. Now, at 44 in 2026, these books don’t hold as much power over me as they probably would have several years ago.
That’s sad, I suppose. But it’s also more of a me problem than a Dungeon Crawler Carl problem.
The last thing I want to say is the audiobooks are a must-listen. Jeff Hays, the voice behind the books, does an absolutely spectacular job. He may be the best audiobook narrator I’ve ever listened to, and is probably a big part of why these books have been so phenomenally successful.
