A guy in my John Ringo fan group on FB suggested that we read these books. I got to say it’s nice to have like minded friends to help you find books. I pulled the first book, “Dungeon Crawler Carl” up on audible and was hooked. I burned through the rest that are on audio in about a week. Then I hit, “The Butcher’s Masquerade,” which isn’t out on audiobook yet. I was in a bind because as good as Matt’s books are, they are enhanced when Jeff Hays does the narration, but I couldn’t wait. I was about to go on vacation and I thought hey. I’ll have time on the plane to read so I bought the Kindle version. I started reading the book at the airport, on the bus from the airport then after dinner I read before going to sleep. The problem is when the book is this good you can’t put it down. My vacation waso ludicrously overpriced. I read until 4AM when I finally passed out from exhaustion. I missed any chance to catch any of the busses going to the best destinations…. And I was excited because now I had a couple hours to finish the book before we had to listen to the time share presentation lol. It would have been cheaper to send Matt a couple hundred dollars for an autographed copy and stay home and read the book before I left instead of using half a day in an expensive resort to read it. I don’t regret it a bit though. Sometimes in life you pick up a book and have the magical experience of being transported to another life while you are reading it. The Hobbit, The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy, Enders Game, most things Sir Terry Pratchett wrote, Ready Player one. These Matt Dinniman books so far sit at that level of storytelling. It is dam near as good as HPMOR which is the best book ever written.

*** Beyond this point spoilers live. If you haven’t read the book, don’t read any farther till you have. ***

The setup with Carl going into the 6th floor is awesome. He has become the hero we all want to see. The one part of the book that bugged me though was the interaction with Miriam Dom and Prepotente. I get how Prepotente is weird, almost insane and under normal circumstances people would shy away from him, but in this world, I would think that you would start to gather the most powerful allies around yourself; and Miriam and Prepotente are definitely at the top of the power pyramid. The other reason I thought Carl would step up to befriend Prepotente is his firsthand knowledge of Donut being for all menaal purpose’s, a child. Prepotente is also a child. They were animals that have been given sentience, but still really only have a few weeks of life experience. I was honestly expecting Carl to find a soft spot in his heart for Prepotente and take the roll of the evil uncle that gives my… um er ‘his’ nieces and nephews pocket knives and matches till they get grounded from Carl’s presence, therefore guaranteeing the slot of most favorite uncle. This thinking might have confused me because the interaction between them felt off and I’m not sure if it really was or if it just didn’t go the way I was expecting it to so it’s just me. But here are the specifics that confused me:

1. Why would Carl object to Miriam telling her story? Miriam is stuck there literally dying and there don’t appear to be any enemies or need to rush off. I didn’t get whey Carl didn’t want to hear her story.

2. Why would they wait to use the scroll of “Community pool” on Fog? Why wouldn’t they immediately use it on say a hamster and make the hamster the head vampire then kill it the minute they got it? I infer there was some reason it was needed to win with Fog, but Fog was a Vampire hunter. Wouldn’t he have to stop hunting if she was no longer a vampire? I feel like I missed something there.

3. Why would he say hell no to Prepotente joining their group? Again, with I was expecting Carl to be more sympathetic to Prepotente.

4. Why would he break his promise to Miriam to give everything to Prepotente then steal from her? Horrible move. Trust can never be fully recovered once it’s lost.

5. Why didn’t Carl try and save her. Yea it was an impossible situation but the Carl I was used to would have said yet again, “Were saving them all,” and have built a structure around Miriam to protect her from the daylight and say we’ll figure it out. Or at least call Mordecai and everyone in the chat and ask if there was a way. We just learned there actually was a way to stop the vampirism so could another potion be made? Is there a way to stop the “left to fester” Prepotente curse? I feel like up to this point Carl has been the guy to overcome impossible situations and this time he gave up. I could also simple be biased and completely missing something, it certainly wouldn’t be the first time.

That was really the only thing that bugged me in the whole book. Everything else was as amazing as I have come to expect. The redneck Louis with his, “Convertible House,” reading how Carl had tried to talk everyone into leaving the level early and they refused then replying, Hey….. nobody asked me to go down early? OMG I about died laughing. Samantha is hilarious in the same bathroom stall notes when she jumps into the conversation that nobody thought she even knew about. Once again comic gold. The development of Lucia and the hints at what literal demons she is dealing with. Florin to be the one to really start to figure it out. Ferdinand and how he is used. Prepotente jumping everyone over the entire 7th floor. Cthulhu I really can’t go through all the good stuff because I would just start at page 1 and pretty much copy the book. All I can say is dam and thank you to Matt, and Jeff and everyone else who is helping make these books come alive. You guys are my heroes. Good books make life better and that is priceless.