Book 37 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.
This book blog post comes soon after the previous one because I had already read the next Dungeon Crawler Carl book but opted to read something else so that my blog isn’t just 100% Dungeon Crawler Carl! This post is about the 7th book in the series, This Inevitable Ruin (2025), which keeps up the insane compelling momentum of the series.
A quick refresher: Earth has been conquered and most of the population slain by alien invaders. Millions of people were then coerced into entering an 18 level dungeon game run by a near omnipotent AI for the entertainment of the galaxy and the profit of corporate overlords. This dungeon operates much like a videogame: all the players have stats and skills that can be leveled up through use and through magical items and reward boxes, there are monsters to be slain, deadly traps and puzzles to be survived, and dangerous quests inflicted on the players. Any crawlers who make it to level 10 or lower can buy their way out of the crawl into an indentured servitude, with the deals getting better the deeper they go. If a crawler survives to level 18, they can earn the complete freedom of their world — but no crawler in the history of the game on countless planets has ever made it past level 15.
Carl entered the dungeon because he had no choice — he had gone outside in the winter to fetch his ex-girlfriend’s cat Donut from a tree when all buildings in the world collapsed. Wearing only boxer shorts, he had to enter the dungeon to avoid freezing to death, and Donut came with him. Donut quickly became intelligent and a fellow crawler (don’t ask how, it’s a whole other story) and the two of them have fought their way down in the levels and to the top of the crawler leaderboard.
Through it all, though, Carl has remained focused on two things: keeping his fellow crawlers alive and exacting revenge upon those who run and profit from the crawl. Though in the first few levels, Carl and Donut were barely surviving, on the 6th “The Most Dangerous Game” level they inflicted bloody havoc on the extraterrestrials who paid to hunt crawlers. Thanks to some incredible manipulation of the game rules on level 8, more crawlers have survived then ever before, making them a veritable army as they enter level 9.
And an army is what is needed. Level 9 features the Faction Wars, in which paid sponsors get to act out wargame fantasies and battle each other and kill crawlers for fun. Through more shenanigans, Carl has managed not only the make the crawlers an official team for the first time in the Faction Wars, but has turned off the safety mechanisms for the sponsors. Now, everyone can die, and Carl intends to make sure that everyone on the sponsor teams in fact do.
This Inevitable Ruin turns up the stakes of the dungeon crawl to a new level of intensity. Now there is outright warfare involving armies of tens of thousands of soldiers, and all the sponsor teams immediately join up to destroy the crawlers. But Carl and Princess Donut are not without allies themselves — a large group of NPCs (non-player characters) have gained sentience and have formed their own team that works with the crawlers. And, in a truly inspiring turn of events, outside groups enter the crawl to fight with Carl and Donut. But there are other powerful forces outside that will do anything possible to destroy the crawlers, even destroying the solar system itself, and the AI running the crawl has gone rogue and may end up doing anything at any time…
This Inevitable Ruin is just another incredible book in this series. Again, I am in awe at how many moving pieces there are in the story: different factions, allies, and enemies that pop in and out of the story and have huge impacts and can change everything at a moment’s notice. There is one seemingly minor character introduced in the very first book that reappears in book 7 and may be the greatest threat to Carl and Donut and the crawlers yet… though the full impact of her presence remains to be seen.
This book continues the trend of the story stepping beyond the crawl and impacting the greater world, and not just Earth. With the AI running the crawl having gone “Primal” (or rogue), we now get ominous hints that its influence has extended beyond Earth’s solar system and into the greater galaxy. We see huge shakeups of galactic politics and hints that Carl may have to choose between destroying the galactic civilization and saving it.
Throughout, however, the story maintains a very human element. One of the most striking moments to me, and a very small one, is when Donut has to do something genuinely horrible to a large number of crawlers in order to keep them alive. When the crawlers are later freed, they claim they remember nothing of the experience. “Do you really remember nothing of it?” Carl asks one later privately. “As far as Donut is concerned, we don’t” was the answer. The crawlers have become a family, and are actively protecting Donut — and each other — from the emotional impact of the horrors of their actions. It is a small moment, but one that stuck with me. The humanity of the characters in the face of impossible situations and actions keeps the story grounded, even as the action ramps up to an insane level.
I thought book 4 went fully over the top when Carl has to survive an attack by a literal god in game, but each book ups the insanity to another level. It is worth taking a moment when reading some of the most chaotic scenes in the book and just try and imagine what it would look like if you were there. Dinniman has a talent for creating the most epic conflicts you can ever imagine… though it helps that the story features a nigh-omnipotent AI that can basically create anything!
At this point, the series has become quite cathartic. We spend the first few books of the series watching Carl and Princess Donut get kicked around and struggle to survive, and now we get to see them take control and push things forward on their own terms. It is important to note that they are still in great danger, however, and crawlers are still dying by the thousands, so the outcome of any situation is by no means certain.
So This Inevitable Ruin is another fantastic book in the Dungeon Crawler Carl series. I’ve got one more book to read and then I’ll be caught up on all the ones currently available. I believe there is supposed to be a couple of additional book after the next one, so hopefully I’ll be able to learn the ending before too long!
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