So, if you don’t know yet…

One night the Earth is completely flattened by aliens.  Every single structure that had a top: buildings, vehicles, outhouses, lean-to’s, cardboard boxes…all completely squashed.  The only people who survived were those outside at the moment.  And in a nod to Douglas Adams, the aliens reminded all the survivors that they had been given plenty of time to log a proper appeal to the seizure of the planet’s mineral rights.  We had a whole fifty years to complain after the initial Act was filed…fifteen hundred years ago.  But mineral rights aren’t where the real money is …

The real money is in the Game.  The Dungeon is built to provide entertainment to trillions of sentient beings all across the galaxy.  Earth is just the latest planet to be demolished; in the name of money. The promise to the Crawlers (game players) is that once they reach the 18^th level, they get their planet back.  Of course, no crawler has ever gotten past the 13^th floor.  But then they’ve not had a smart, charisma-loaded cat as a Crawler before.  Carl still doesn’t know why the AI system that runs the Game decided Princess Donut warranted being a Crawler rather than just a Pet.

For Carl and Donut, their whole existence is to become stronger and better equipped on each floor they are on.  They are on the third floor in this book.  They have also become big favorites to the viewers although there are just a few other crawlers with a bit more experience.  Carl still doesn’t have pants and now it looks like he’ll never be allowed them.  In fact, he even loses his shorts for a while in this story; a big hit for the viewers, apparently.  The other crawlers have not become main characters…yet.  But this book did add their Dungeon Guide as a permanent character.  He is Mordecai, once a crawler himself.  At some point, crawlers are given a choice to continue, or stop and become employed by the corporation that owns the Dungeon.  One of the prize choices given to Donut was the ability to have a permanent Manager at their beck and call; a highly prized ability – and that is Mordecai. For reasons that Carl and Donut don’t yet understand, Mordecai is pissed about the situation but not at them.  Carl and Donut have a friend in the media who gives them advice on the sly.  One of which is the caveat that they must never, ever say anything negative about Borant, the corporation that now owns Earth and this iteration of the Dungeon.  But there have been clues that Borant is having some issues; impossible to tell yet how that might affect Earth and its crawlers.

There are the usual assortment of mobs and monsters to work their way through.  They are also introduced to quests. According to Mordecai there aren’t a lot of advantages to be won completing a quest but Carl can’t seem to help himself.  The mobs and monsters that populate the floor are sentient beings who actually live there.  And they often have problems.  Carl has an overdeveloped sense of justice and keeps getting involved; very entertaining.

The plot of this story is trying to get to the bottom of a quest.  Carl and Donut are trying to find the person responsible for serial killings of females and stop him or her without blowing themselves to kingdom come and back.

I continue to devour these books; they aren’t laugh-out-loud funny nor are there any puns.  It’s more along the lines of amusing, suspenseful and heartfelt.  I read for the tiny moments of real emotion from Carl or Donut.  And I’m invested in learning more about Mordecai.  The writing is smooth and professional; the dialogue is fun and sharp.  Admittedly, there isn’t much more to the plot than for them to survive to the end and regain control of what’s left of the Earth.  Each book will have a smaller plot that gets them a bit further along to that goal.  Neither of them has ever spoken of or even internalized that goal.  I’m sure the thought would be terrifying.  And none of the other crawlers have been any more than a mention.  One might think the thing to do is to band together to defeat the Dungeon but that’s been thought of already.  Each of the top ten crawlers has a bounty on their heads which, for some, is a prize to be won.  And Carl and Donut, of course, are on that list.  Amusingly, in tenth place is a wheel-chair bound, delusional old lady who was outside her care facility that night.  Carl cannot imagine how she has survived so far; much less advanced so far.  Her story should be great; I hope we see it.

And the author gives us one more bit of fun at the end.  There is a serialized story-within-a-story that introduces us to “backstage” which, apparently, is where mobs and monsters can be safely stored until they reenter the game. In this installment, we meet the chosen monsters who are responsible for building the 17^th floor.  Since no one has ever gotten that far, it seems pointless to engage in the effort but the AI says it will be done.  I’m wondering where the reader will be led in this story once we become invested in those characters; after all, the crawlers have to kill them all to get to the 18^th floor.

This is easy-to-read stuff, fun, and interesting as the reader becomes invested in their efforts; wondering what they’ll have to do next to survive.  Carl is a well-drawn character; Donut is also interesting and although we don’t get inside her head, we still get a strong sense of her character development – from a diva to a bad-ass.  The author has promised that it will get darker…very, very dark.  ~~  Catherine Book

P.S. I found a website that sells Dungeon Crawler merchandise: pagewings.com

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