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?

You know, back when I first started this series of books, I wasn’t sure I would stick with them, but I am fully invested in the story and the fate of all the characters. Dinniman has done a really wonderful job bringing an absurd assortment of figures to life and making me care about them.

Reading this book in particular, it really struck me how the whole Dungeon Crawler Carl series can be viewed as a tale of found family and how people can find community among a lovable bunch of weirdos. By this point in the story, Carl and Princess Donut have assembled a team that not only includes Crawlers from all around the world but an emotional shark, belligerent slugs, exotic dancers who worked in the dungeon, and a disembodied talking head of a presumed goddess. Considering how both Carl and Princess Donut come from not great families, I can really see how them finding family in the dungeon is an important theme of the books, and it is delightful, even though we know that many of them will probably not survive in the end.

This book ups the science fiction aspects of the story to 11, so to speak, as the AI running the Crawl is now fully rogue and posing a threat to the entire universe. The only thing is still feels obligated to do is run the Crawl to its conclusion, so the Crawlers continue to fight on. What happens in the Dungeon, however, now has the potential to affect every sentient being everywhere, and the stakes are nothing short of apocalyptic.

The AI is much more chatty in this book as well and as it becomes aware of its own origins, we finally learn how the fantasy history and legends of the dungeon are half-remembered echoes of real events that happened throughout the universe in times long past. The backstory is incredibly fascinating and compelling and adds so much to the stakes of the narrative.

One other thing that really is clear by this point in the series is that Dinniman is a master of describing action scenes in prose. The races are all absolutely insane and utterly chaotic but the reader always knows what’s going on and what the stakes are. But the outcome of every race, or level, is nearly impossible to predict. As one character who would really know says later in the book, “Carl is chaos,” and that’s not an exaggeration.

The climactic battle of this book is absolutely magnificent. There are points in the book series where some of the things that happen have a “deus ex machina” feel to them, i.e. “I am getting attacked by a shark but fortunately I picked up some shark repellent spray earlier,” but the final battle pulls together events and threads and objects that have been unresolved for multiple books and weaves them into an absolutely mind-bogglingly twisty conclusion. As I was reading it, everything made perfect sense and it was stunningly satisfying. There are so many characters and plot points and objects that appear throughout the book series that you think to yourself that Dinniman can’t possibly be keeping track of them all, but apparently he is!

Without saying too much, let me note that the book ends on one of the best twists/cliffhangers I’ve ever read! Again, it is set up perfectly earlier in the series, so it doesn’t come out of nowhere but it is absolutely not something anyone would predict.

The first of the presumed final two books doesn’t come out until next year, so it looks like I’ll have some time to wait before learning more about the fate of Carl and Princess Donut and everyone else, and it’s going to be hard to wait!

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A Parade of Horribles at bookshop dot org