Not exactly what I expected.

Dungeon Lord is a fantasy novel with a strong Isekai bend with a tertiary theme of dungeon construction. None of that is bad, but as a newbie to dungeon based stories, this felt more normal than I had first anticipated. The story has good pacing, strong characterization of its main characters, and a rather sensible progression. If anything I’d complain about the story so far is that the MC is weak-ish. He achieves his goals with interesting decisions and a lot of lucky breaks. He’s been facing more knowledgeable people/creatures and has been able to succeed with grit, spit, and luck.

None of that is bad, but his dungeon barely gets made. I’m comparing this book to a series I don’t expect to be finished Monster Core by Dante King.

In Monster Core, the MC has a very similar Isekai way into the world, but it’s much more dungeon until the 2nd book. I enjoyed that book in a different way, and expected something similar to that in Dungeon Lord. Yet, when I noticed it was much more of a fantasy book, I just kept going. I’ll figure out how I feel about it more by the end of book 2.

The performances were well done, and thoughts versus speaking moments were generally easily discernible. I was never lost in the dialogue.

I’m bias towards the dungeon first way of Monster Core, but I enjoyed this book overall. Worth the read.