Skulls in the Stars

Book 38 for my 2026 goal of 36 books for the year – carrying on through the rest of the year! My link to the book is through my bookshop.org affiliate account, which means I may earn a small commission if you buy from there.

Okay, let’s just get this one out of the way! I had one more Dungeon Crawler Carl book to read to be caught up on the series, and decided to go ahead and do it. The last book to date is book 8: A Parade of Horribles (2026), by Matt Dinniman.

Having survived the Faction Wars of level 9, Carl and Princess Donut (a talking cat, if you haven’t been keeping up) have become leaders of sorts for the entire group of remaining Crawlers, with the number remaining in the dungeon now numbering in the thousands. At this point, they are stunningly powerful, and Princess Donut is possibly the most powerful Crawler in the entire history of the event.

But the AI that controls the Crawl still has some nasty tricks up its sleeve, and challenges that no amount of fighting power can alleviate. Level 10 is a seven-heat road race where Crawlers are racing against NPCs (non-player characters) and, inevitably, against other Crawlers. The races themselves are insane death traps that put Mario Kart levels to shame, and the last place finisher in each heat is eliminated, i.e. killed, no matter what. Though the Crawlers are powerful, the vehicles they are given are not, and survival is contingent on keep those vehicles up and running.

As the races continue, far too many NPC teams are getting killed during the races, and this is leading to the inevitable situation where Crawler teams will have to compete against each other for survival. Can Carl, Donut, and the rest of the Crawlers find a way to save as many Crawlers as possible? And what awaits them on Level 11, “A Parade of Horribles,” which begins immediately after the races conclude, without a rest?

Book 35 for my 2026 goal of 36 books for the year – almost done!  My link to the book is through my bookshop.org affiliate account, which means I may earn a small commission if you buy from there.

Dungeon Crawler Carl continues to captivate me. I recently finished the 6th book in the Matt Dinniman series, The Eye of the Bedlam Bride (2025).

The book continues the tale of Carl and Princess Donut’s descent into the deeper levels of the dungeon, playing in an intergalactic game show for the entertainment of the masses and the profit of the ruling classes. Carl has vowed to end the cruel practice and get revenge for the people of Earth by any means possible, and circumstances have rapidly been evolving to where he might just get that chance.

After slaying all the alien hunters on level 6, a quirk of the rules applied by another crawler propels everyone to level 8. Here, in simulation designed to replicate Earth in the weeks before the aliens essentially destroyed it, the crawlers are tasked with a new deckbuilding game. They must defeat and collect six monsters that will be converted into playing cards, and combat with other crawler groups or major enemies will play out both in the cards and in real time battles. Each crawler team must fight their way to a key that allows them to leave the level before it is destroyed, but not every group will be successful in getting a key. Then, the only way to survive is to take a key from another crawler team, condemning them to death. The system is clearly set up to bring out the worst survival instincts of the crawlers and cause a bloody massacre among them. Carl, however, has vowed that the alien hosts will not break him, and he has been rapidly learning how to weaponize the game rules in his favor…

Book 33 for my 2026 goal of 36 books for the year!  My link to the book is through my bookshop.org affiliate account, which means I may earn a small commission if you buy from there.

I have continued my read through of all the currently published books in the Dungeon Crawler Carl series by Matt Dinniman and have recently finished the 5th book in the series, The Butcher’s Masquerade (2025)!

The book continues Carl and his sassy talking cat Princess Donut as they continue to fight their way down through levels of a deadly dungeon as part of a game show for an intergalactic alien civilization. Earth was essentially leveled by this civilization in order to make the show, and if Carl and Donut can survive to level 11, they can buy their freedom. If they can “win” the deepest level, level 18, they can win the freedom of the entire Earth… but no crawler in the history of the games has made it past level 15.