So, if you don’t know yet… you should probably read my summary in a previous review.

Carl, Donut, Mongo, Katia and Mordecai are now on the fifth floor and they’ll have to storm a castle, lots of them. There are less than 179,000 crawlers left alive. And Carl is even more determined to save as many as he can; dubbing him insane in most crawlers opinions.

Carl is relying more and more on the Cookbook (see last book) but has to figure out how to introduce something, like a potion, without anyone asking how he could possibly know it.  That generally means asking leading questions of Mordecai and letting Mordecai figure it out.  He hasn’t been able to tell anyone about it; keeping it a total secret is critical.  If Borant or the AI ever figure it out, they’ll take it away from him.  While there’s a lot of critical information, there’s also a lot of depressing observations from long-dead crawlers; well, almost all are dead.  But both the information and the observations are giving him a lot more knowledge of how this whole dungeon system works.  The AI in charge is showing a lot of attitude and possible insanity.  Carl can’t figure out if the AI hates Borant or not; or if it likes him or not.  Some of its actions are confusing.

This time the NPCs are camels and goblins and changelings.  Some of them are just ordinary folks with their families just trying to survive.  The kids, especially, tear at Carl’s heart.  He and his friends debate whether telling the NPCs just what they are is a mercy or torture; and that they are, at best, recyclable characters and, at least, cannon fodder.  Carl still thinks about Brandy, the fire demon, from the last book and her sacrifice when she finally understood.  But when push comes to shove, Carl will sacrifice NPCs for humans…except for the murdering ones…like Lucia Mar.

Besides Katia, their group now includes two more crawlers; two men who had mostly given up trying until Mordecai gave them a potion that made impossible to get drunk anymore so they ended up doing whatever Carl told them.  They were astonished at how quickly they leveled up once they had motivation and someone to lead them.  Carl finally found Chris, a crawler he met on the first floor.  Chris was a nurse at the nursing home but now he’s a lava creature and apparently possessed by the murderous crawler, Maggie My.  They still haven’t met Miriam Dom and the screaming Prepotente which I’m looking forward to.  They talk to Elle regularly but they aren’t in the same place for this story.  And we still have no clue just how Agatha remains alive or what she does; she just sort of appears when it’s time to go down a stairwell.

Carl is becoming pretty darn tricky thanks to the Cookbook giving him ideas.  He manages to kill their public relations person and there’s no way they can possibly pin it on Carl but he does sweat it for a while; but, since Carl is pretty valuable they manage to look the other way.  It appears to be part of a bigger plan he’s forming.  He also manages to completely fuck with the system which will give them a big advantage when they get to the lower floors; and, apparently, the AI can’t fix it.  I loved it.

And in addition to being sponsored by the Valtay corporation – interestingly, he’s the only crawler they sponsored – he’s also sponsored by the Open Intellect Pacifist Action Network.  Both seem very vested in keeping him and Donut alive.  Obviously, there is some politicking going on behind the scenes and it’s starting to look more and more like not everyone in the universe approves of this dungeon nonsense; what with planetary genocide and all.

This floor has a lot to do with gods; both Primary Gods and feral gods.  They are not something to mess with; there’s no way to kill one on this floor and they pretty much tear up everything and everyone.  But Carl is becoming adept at figuring out how to use the rules to his advantage which doesn’t mean shit doesn’t get real and completely torn up.

And the end of the book gave us a real zinger.  We finally get a glimpse of what happened to the humans who didn’t enter the dungeon and become crawlers.  There are hints that not everyone who was in a building died; and the ones who were outside but didn’t go into the dungeon are still alive…and of interest to the fucks who run the dungeon.  Carl and Donut are going to have a rude awakening in the next book, I’ll bet. 

Carl and Donut only interact with a handful of crawlers and have a nodding acquaintance with just another thousand or so.  And they all speak English.  This reader wants to know what the hell is going on with all the other crawlers from other countries and how they are surviving.

And, of course, we get another installment of “Backstage at the Pineapple Cabaret” and this one is downright weird. There are sentient hamsters; and they don’t like humans. It’s pretty hilarious. There is a strong implication that either the AI is insane and there’s no reason for some of its direction or…the AI has plans…

I almost feel I need to reread at least some parts of this book because I can’t keep it all straight.  As I mentioned before, these stories have a meteoric pace.  But I can’t, too many more books to read and they are all as big as doorstops.  But, my gawd, what a ride!  ~~  Catherine Book

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