13 upvotes, 4 direct replies (showing 4)
View submission: Do NOT Sleep on Dungeon Crawler Carl
Nope. I wanted to try LitRPG to see what all the fuss was about and was almost universally recommended DCC, and that seemed great because I'm *also* always craving good dungeon fantasy fiction.
It's genuinely one of the worst things I've ever read and I fully don't understand why people like it. I'm happy for them that they *do* like it, and I'm not about to tell them they're wrong for enjoying it, but I thought it was complete trash. And I don't mean trash in a good way like Dan Brown or John Grisham, I just mean trash.
Comment by SDRPGLVR at 24/02/2025 at 19:58 UTC
3 upvotes, 1 direct replies
I agree with your take on it. I started reading it as part of a podcast's book club, and I almost checked out around 40 pages in.
It definitely improves after the first book. Not to high literature standards by any means, but a lot of the fundamental issues with the first book are exclusive to the first book. In particular, the characters are much better-defined and the book actually has its own standalone sort of status, where the first book just kind of ends once he's around 500 pages in. Like, "Meh, this book is thick enough. Cut it here."
The series is definitely about fun. Not the kind of fun as with other light books like Hitchhiker's or Discworld, where you can reread passages and think more deeply about them because - you know - they're well-written and have subtext worth diving into. It's pulp where 500 pages just fly past you in less than a day, where I'd argue it's worth spending a week reading something like *Guards! Guards!* despite being half the length.
I'm probably going to wind up donating my collection to my library once the last one comes out because I don't think they'll be worth revisiting, but I'd be lying if I said I'd had as much fun reading anything in years.
Comment by arstin at 24/02/2025 at 19:55 UTC
0 upvotes, 0 direct replies
It quite possibly is the worst book I've read in my life. Which makes it all the more boggling to see people talk about how much better it is than the rest of the genre. Yowie!
Comment by NekoCatSidhe at 24/02/2025 at 17:44 UTC
0 upvotes, 1 direct replies
It is one of those series that is very popular on Reddit and has a rabid fanbase, but I bounced very hard off it, and not because it is litRPG. I have read some litRPG series before that I liked (mostly Japanese ones like Bofuri and Shangri-La Frontier), but while some litRPG series are good in a fun entertaining popcorn book kind of way, a lot of it is trash, and I have seen nothing to make me think that DCC is not in the second category or particularly different from the rest.
Comment by roffman at 24/02/2025 at 13:09 UTC
-5 upvotes, 1 direct replies
It's because it's a meta deconstruction of the genre. There are a lot of really good straight LitRPG's, however, they all kinda gloss over the real problematic aspects of the formula and how messed up any society that exists in them would be.
DCC leans hard into how messed up the world is, and how being a murderhobo who kills to level up would result in extreme depersonalization and slowly going insane. It's an excellent entry into the genre, but you have to like and know the genre to get the most out of it.