Book 31 for my 2026 goal of 36 books for the year! Dungeon Crawler Carl books are really helping me make my goal. 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.

The Dungeon Crawler Carl series continues to be literary cocaine for me: incredibly addictive and nearly impossible to quit! Most recently, I finished book 4 of the series, The Gate of the Feral Gods, by Matt Dinniman (2025).

A quick recap of the series again, to be thorough: Earth has been conquered by an intergalactic alien conglomerate that has killed (or recycled) most of the population of the planet, and coerced a large number of those remaining into participating in a for profit game show/bloodsport: Dungeon Crawler World. Carl, a Coast Guard vet, and his ex-girlfriend’s cat Princess Donut (who is now sentient and powerful and feisty for reasons I will not get into) have worked their way up the ranks into being some of the top crawlers in the game, even as the number of surviving crawlers has dwindled from millions to hundreds of thousands. If they survive to level 11, they can buy out their freedom — at an unspecified cost. If they survive level 18, they can free the entire Earth, but no crawler in the history of the games has ever made it past level 15.

The games are moderated by a super-intelligent AI that runs everything like a computer roleplaying game. The crawlers have extradimensional inventory spaces, stats and skills that can grow with experience or be buffed by magic items, and classes that provide extra skills and powers. They have to “grind” for more experience by killing monsters and completing quests to gain enough power to survive the deeper levels. And they’re on the clock: they have to find a stairwell to the next level and escape before a timer runs out and collapses the floor they’re on, killing anyone remaining.

As Carl and Princess Donut enter level 5, they find this will be a particularly difficult challenge. On level 4, they were able to work together with a large number of crawlers as a team to accomplish their goals, but on this level the crawlers are isolated in groups of 20 in sealed domes. Carl’s dome is divided into air, water, land, and catacomb regions, and the crawlers in each region cannot access others until they kill the “boss” of their region. And all four bosses must be defeated before the staircase opens up. Carl and Princess Donut are stuck trying to work with a small number of low level crawlers who have largely checked out of the game entirely. And, being in the air region, their target is a fortress of warrior gnomes that is floating thousands of feet above their heads — and is incredibly well defended. With only fifteen days, can Carl and Princess Donut survive?

Once again, I am astounded by the absurd creativity that goes into Matt Dinniman’s world building. In one sense, he has it a little easy because the “world” of the dungeon crawl is being generated by a mad super-AI and the plotlines of the dungeon levels don’t have to make a lot of sense or be fully consistent, which is kinda the point! However, in this book we really start to peek more and more behind the curtain at the broader universe and all the competing factions that are at odds with each other and using the games as a means to an end. It is genuinely fascinating to see new wrinkles to the story pop up constantly, some beneficial to Carl and others a significant threat!

Book 4 marks a very significant turning point in the series. A friend summarized it to me as follows: “In books 1-3, the dungeon works over Carl, and in book 4, Carl starts working over the dungeon.” This is very much true! The first three books are largely about survival, but Carl has a serious and justified grudge against the beings killing millions of humans for entertainment, and book 4 is where he starts to figure out what to do about it. There is one pivotal moment, arguably a small event in the grand scheme of things, where Carl makes a decision that changes the entire trajectory of the story. It is incredibly compelling — and incredibly satisfying.

Another aspect of the book series, and this book in particular, is seeing how no character or event is wasted. Things that happened in book 1 and have largely vanished for a while come back to bite Carl and Princess Donut in book 4 and again change the plot significantly. The entire series is arguably a whole pile of Chekhov’s guns, and to Dinniman’s credit all of those guns seem like they’ll go off at some point!

In this book Carl picks up even more allies and potential party members. Katia, the shapeshifting Crawler from the previous book, plays a major role. We are introduced to a number of other Crawlers as well who at first look like they’ll just have bit parts but end up being pivotal to the story. Even non-player characters (NPCs) start to become allies to Carl and Princess Donut, as many of them are actually sentient beings who have been forced into this game just like the Crawlers. It is bittersweet having so many new characters to become attached to, especially since it seems likely that many of them will not survive as the series progresses.

The book ends with another insanely climactic set piece, of which I will say nothing other than it is tied to the artifact that the book is named after, The Gate of the Feral Gods. To survive that final conflict, Carl is forced to make another major choice that will definitely have huge repercussions down the line!

So, in summary: another incredibly fun and creative book in the series! Onward to the next one…