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r/DungeonCrawlerCarl

▲ 284 r/DungeonCrawlerCarl

HERE'S WHAT TO READ NEXT (2026 Edition Megathread)

NEEEEEEEW ACHIEVEMENT!

Speed Reader

Well, you did it. You read eight whole books about an angry pantless man and his spoiled little pussy cat. Are you proud? Ashamed? Gagging for more?

REWAAAARD?

Hundreds of people telling you to do it again. Welcome to the party, pals.

Interested in more Dungeon Crawler Carl? It's available in these formats:

The Book! written by Matt Dinniman

The Audiobook! narrated by Jeff Hays

The Webtoon! adapted by Tevagah and illustrated by Laurel Pursuit

The Audio Immersion Tunnel! narrated by Jeff Hays et al.

The Comic! which is just the Webtoon again, but more susceptible to water damage!

Prefer something new? Recs blow!

(NOTE: many of the books recommended below may fit into more than one category. I stand by my labeling, but YMMV. Asterisk key at the bottom.)

Okay, so you don't want to read about Carl. Would you instead like to read about a sad, angry white guy with girl problems who is put into an increasingly traumatic situation that he navigates with his powers of rage, compassion, and mild psychosis? Try these other fine books:

Operation Bounce House, by Matt Dinniman

(CW: systemic violence, genocide)

The Grinding, by Matt Dinniman

(CW: gross)

(*) Kaiju: Battlefield Surgeon, by Matt Dinniman

(CW: veeerrrry gross, excessive violence, torture porn)

Are you just here for the pussy? Do you want to read about Awesome Cats doing Awesome Things? Try:

(*) Kitty Cat Kill Sat, by Argus

(A “regular” house cat is our last, best defense against an alien apocalypse.)

Starter Villain, by John Scalzi

(The cat is named Hera, my cat is named Hera. She's shown no signs of being a brilliant spy/real estate investor, but I'm keeping my eye on her.)

Varjak Paw, by S F Said

(It's a kid's book, but an absolute banger.)

Are you SAD? No? Do you want to be? Did you cry over a woman with DOG BREASTS? Do you want to engage in entertainment that makes you feel BAD? Try:

(*) The Darkness Outside Us, by Elliot Schrefer

(Book One of The Darkness Outside Us)

(Astronaut wakes up during his solo mission to discover he's not alone. Gay suffering ensues.)

Planetfall, by Emma Newman

(Book One of Planetfall)

(The survivors of an expedition to find God make a home on a strange alien planet. Cw: severe mental illness.)

How High We Go In The Dark, by Sequoia Nagamatsu

(Vignettes in a painful and hopeful future. CW: human (child) euthanasia.)

(**) World War Z, by Max Brooks

(This one hits very differently after the pandemic, ngl.)

They Both Die At The End, by Adam Silvera

(CW: OP didn't finish because they were too sad.)

Unwind, by Neal Shusterman

(Book One of Unwind)

(In a post-Roe future, parents can “retroactively abort” their teenagers to be used for organ harvesting. Yep.)

Are you HOT for STATS? Does leveling up give you a tingly feeling in your TUMMY? Here's some Non-traditional LitRPG series for you, nerd:

Heretical Fishing, by Haylock Jobson

(Book One of Heretical Fishing)

(Genre-aware guy is reborn into a fantasy world, skips adventuring to go fish and befriend crabs.)

Jake's Magical Market, by J R Matthews

(Book One of Jake's Magical Market)

(Regular sad guy wakes up from the apocalypse to find a magical card in his chest, kills God.)

(*) Grilled Armageddon, by Dakota Krout

(Book One of Cooking With Disaster)

(Listen. Listen. Dakota Krout is not a good writer. His work reads like he went to fanfiction university in the late aughts and never grew past it. This is the only series I can recommend, because it's the only one funny enough to make me read past book 1.)

The Daily Grind, by Argus

(Book One of The Daily Grind)

(Genre-aware depressed tech-support guy stumbles into an endless maze of cubicles populated by sentient office supplies. Polyamory ensues.)

Buymort: Grand Opening, by Damien Hanson and Joseph Phelps

(Book One of Buymort)

(The series gets a little tedious, but the payoff is totally worth it. Plus, snake-tiddies.)

Are you HOT for the AI? Do you unironically call it DADDY? Do you want to read about the existential horrors of being an artificial intelligence, construct, or robot? Try:

(**) Automatic Noodle, by Annalee Newitz

(Cozy, but everyone's traumatized.)

(*) (**) All Systems Red, by Martha Wells

(Book One of The Murderbot Diaries)

(Trauma, but everyone's cozy. Autism-coded MC.)

Service Model, by Adrian Tchaikovsky

(After killing its master, a robot goes purpose-searching.)

(**) A Closed and Common Orbit, by Becky Chambers

(Book Two of Wayfarers)

(A tale of two AIs and the woman who loves them.)

Ancillary Justice, by Anne Leckie

(Book One of Imperial Radch)

(A ship's AI is on a quest to get revenge for being destroyed.)

Do you want to LAUGH, while other people are SCREAMING? Do you need your horror tempered by a hefty dose of absurdism like a teenage hipster who can't drink a cup of coffee without fifteen pumps of CARAMEL? Try:

(*) Lucky Day, by Chuck Tingle

(Yes, that Chuck Tingle. No, really. Trust me.)

John Dies At The End, by David Wong

(Book One of John Dies At The End)

(A relentless stream of fucked-up paranormal shit as told by an unreliable shit-head narrator.)

Horrorstör, by Grady Hendrix

(The Ikea is haunted.)

Are you sad? Are you exhausted and/or traumatized? Yes? Oh. Oh, I'm so sorry. They won't cure you, but try these:

Psalm For The Wild Built, by Becky Chambers

(Book One of Monk and Robot)

New and Selected Poems, by Mary Oliver

Adult Children of Emotionally Immature Parents, by Lindsay Gibson

How To Keep House While Drowning, by KC Davis

(****) Are you a MAN? Do you like MAN THINGS? Do you like unexamined toxic traits? What about boring women? Well, have I got the MALE POWER FANTASY for you:

(***) Columbus Day, by Craig Alanson (Book One of Expeditionary Force)

(*) We Are Legion, We Are Bob, Dennis E Taylor (Book One of Bobiverse)

(***) Leviathan Wakes, James S A Corey (Book One of The Expanse)

Are you a NERD? Do you want to fuck a dragon? Read about tedious lines of succession? Go on fantastical adventures in fantastical worlds? Try:

The Teller of Small Fortunes, Julie Leong (Book One of The Teller of Small Fortunes)

(Found family.)

Elantris, Brandon Sanderson

(Book One of Elantris, Book ? Of The Cosmere)

(The magic failed, and it took the prince down with it.)

(*) The Goblin Emperor, Katherine Addison (Book One of The Chronicles of Osreth)

(If you need to hug Asher read this one. If you hated Leviathan Wakes, read the trilogy in the same series.)

The Fellowship of The Ring, JRR Tolkien

(Book One of The Lord of the Rings)

(You know what this one is about. I'm not going to write a blurb and you can't make me!)

City of Last Chances, by Adrian Tchaikovsky

(Book One of The Tyrant Philosophers)

(Fascinating gaslamp fantasy. A little dense.)

Prey of Gods, Nicky Drayden

(Ancient Gods start waking up in future South Africa.)

Are you EVEN NERDIER? Do you want your fantasy world splashed with a hearty veneer of (mostly pseudo)science? Do spaceships, time travel, evil empires and existential treats get you going? Try these fine SCIENCE FICTION offerings:

The Martian, by Andy Weir

(Stranded astronaut tries to survive alone on mars.)

The Kaiju Preservation Society, by John Scalzi

(Formulaic but a lot of fun!)

The Three Body Problem, by Cixin Liu

(Book One of The Three Body Problem)

(The end of everything begins during the Cultural Revolution, and one scientist finds himself tangled up in the consequences.)

God's Junk Drawer, by Peter Clines

(A man and his students fall through a hole in time.)

(*) To Be Taught, If Fortunate, by Becky Chambers

(A team of four struggles and triumphs while exploring a distant star system. Bittersweet ending.)

Contact, Carl Sagan

(Classic. Moderately different from the movie.)

(***) Red Rising, by Pierce Brown

(Hunger Game of Thrones, IIINNN SPAAACE.)

(**) The Space Between Worlds, by Micaiah Johnson

(Refreshingly new. About race, poverty, interdimensional travel, and lesbians.)

Jurassic Park, by Micheal Chrichton

(Classic, much darker than the movie.)

The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy, by Douglas Adams

(Yet a third Classic.)

(**) Project Hail Mary, by Andy Weir

(Solo astronaut on a quest to save the sun gets help from an unexpected source.)

ASTERISK KEY

(*) OPS favorite in category

(**) Audiobook is uncommonly good

(***) OP read but did not enjoy. Just because I don't like something doesn't mean it's bad. YMMV.

(****)Look, there's a lot of male power fantasies on this list. These are the most tedious. They're good, but my 21st queer-femme ass is very, very tired.

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u/No-Bread-1197 — 1 day ago
▲ 141 r/DungeonCrawlerCarl

I bought a thing.

omgomgomgomgomg!!

Now that Matt is in high demand, I hope he still does the occasional signing event. I would love to get his auto on my new precious :)

Is there any inside knowledge about how many of these were printed? I've seen that there was no official count, is that true? (Sorry if this is common knowledge.)

u/Gullible_Ad_844 — 1 day ago
▲ 173 r/DungeonCrawlerCarl

Book 7 - Chapter 34 - Volteeg, the Gargoyle - Appreciation

Read this on the subway this morning and teared up. I don't want to summarize the whole damn chapter, but I don't really have anyone to talk to about it, so I thought I'd post this here.

SPOILER: All the emotional depth for a brand new character. The back story, the race transformation, losing the ability to sing, failing to protect your partner, post-crawl depression, going back to the crawl, recognizing Carl as the obvious Cookbook holder, and fulling the promise to protect.

10/10 - Loved it, will think about it for a while.

#teamsamantha

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u/tylervsnyc — 1 day ago
▲ 80 r/DungeonCrawlerCarl

I’m loving the series so far but does anyone else have this unshakable feeling of dread?

I’m reading book 8 right before heats 6 and 7 where Carl is going over the plan with everyone and like I said I love the series But with everything currently happening in the series up to this point with the stakes, the characters and number of crawlers in general we lost already it’s finally begun to dawn on me that literally nobody is safe! Anyone can die at any time in any way and it makes me terrified for what’s going to happen in the next two books. I know it’s going to wreck me because I got teary eyed when Dong died! The stripper I never imagined would become anything more than a one off character ended up becoming one of my favorite side characters, how am I gonna survive if something happens to someone I actually love like Elle (which I’m still scared for because of “Linus’s” motivations so idk what the hell is gonna come of that) Imani or Louis?!

These books are tearing me apart emotionally and I never would have expected that from the first book

Edit: JUST got my answer to the Linus situation, but the fear still stands!

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u/Moist_Car_994 — 1 day ago
▲ 56 r/DungeonCrawlerCarl

On my 3rd listen, an man these 2 are just a category of hater all their own

Eva more than Quan, but its not a competition

u/Mrthedecoy — 22 hours ago
▲ 310 r/DungeonCrawlerCarl

Tofu is appaled by having another cat's face in a mug

No, not a bot or trying to sell anything, my wife got it for me, all that I know. But AMA about Tofu. Yes, his paw is...different.

u/Dismal_File_4073 — 1 day ago
▲ 565 r/DungeonCrawlerCarl

Something many of us missed on the Fourth Floor (Spoilers through Bedlam Bride) (Trigger warning - in-depth discussion of suicide and suicidal thoughts)

I've already put up a trigger warning, but I want to state again that the contents of this post are incredibly dark, and if in-depth discussions of suicide and self harm are disturbing or harmful for you, please stop reading.

If you or someone you know is experiencing suicidal thoughts, the 988 lifeline is available throughout the United States. You can reach them by dialing 988 or via their website at https://988lifeline.org/

So there's lots of discussion about how Carl is an unreliable narrator. For those not aware, an unreliable narrator is a narrator who's character is compromised, leading to them being dishonest or hide the ball from the reader. This can come in the form of limited knowledge held by the reader but not the narrator which would change the way they interpret or tell their story, or, more interestingly, in circumstances where the narrator omits part of the telling or tells the reader a straight-up lie.

For me, the biggest example of Carl's unreliability is his refusal to explicitly discuss his mother's first suicide attempt - the one in which he was almost murdered by his mother. I think a lot of readers have picked up on this, but more have not, so I thought I'd make a write-up of it and throw it online.

This is the story carl does tell the reader, in pieces, throughout the novels: When Carl was a small child, his mother took him away from his abusive father to her parents' place in Texas. This is the time period when she took him to the circus. Eventually, Carl's father found them and forced Carl's mother to return with him to Seattle. On the way, the family stopped at the Grand Canyon. While Carl's dad waited in the car, Carl's mom brought Carl to the rim of the canyon. She told him to remember the circus, and gripped his wrist hard enough to hurt him. When he tells her that she's hurting him, she says "I know honey. I'm sorry. I'm so sorry."

Then, she and Carl returned to the car, and the family continued on their trip. Around a decade later, Carl's mother poisoned his father in an attempted murder, and then hanged herself from a pipe in the basement, leaving a note which declared her actions a "birthday present" for Carl, who was the first to find her.

This is the story which Carl does not tell the reader: At the Grand Canyon, Carl's mom had been planning to jump, and to take him with her, rather than return to Seattle to live with their abuser.

There are a lot of breadcrumbs that can identify what almost happened there, and the fact that Carl is aware of it but finds the knowledge too disturbing to share with the reader.

The first big one happens when Carl first remembers the Grand Canyon, when he discovers the Abyss in the Iron Tangle. He has been separated from Donut and Katia, leaving him on his own for only the second time since entering the dungeon (the first time being his time with Signet). Carl sees the Abyss - which he immediately associates with the Grand Canyon.

Per the data available at https://wereintherockies.com/, there have been about 93 deaths by suicide at the grand canyon, including, famously, the ones at the end of the movie Thelma and Louise. If you've never been to the canyon, the primary visitor areas often abut steep cliffs with massive drops, and, with the Canyon being nearly 300 miles long and over a mile deep, there are unfortunately no shortage of places where it can be done.

The Abyss is, of course, the endpoint of the rail lines on the Iron Tangle, into which the trains are thrown and destroyed, much like the unfortunate individuals who have jumped into the canyon in the past. He immediately remembers the canyon incident, when his mother clenches his wrist and tells him to remember the circus. When he flashes back to reality, he is disturbed by the memory, but never expounds on why to the reader. Her reasoning for directing him to think about the circus, in case you missed it, was to put a happy memory in his mind before the end.

Later, at the finale of the novel, the Abyss features again, when Fire Brandy and Tisquick the dwarf drive the Nightmare Express into the Abyss, deciding they would rather die than return to the seasonal cycle of being NPCs on Dungeon Crawler World. When this occurs, not one paragraph later, Carl remembers his mother's second suicide attempt, in which she tried to murder his father before hanging herself. The dot connect is very clear - Carl sees Fire Brandy, a mother, drive herself and her babies into the abyss, which he already associates with the grand canyon, and then immediately remembers his own mother taking her own life, sharing this information with the reader for the very first time.

Other evidence exists in the circumstances in which Carl experiences suicidal thoughts. One example, on the Eighth Floor, when Carl almost triggers the crawl's failsafe, a clear near-miss with suicide, his mind flashes back to what his mother asked him at the rim of the canyon - "Do you remember the circus?" I'm on a reread right now, but I fully expect to see more examples of this throughout the books - particularly on the sixth floor, where Carl's feelings of loss with regards to his mother are so prominent, as well as the emergence of the concept of "the river."

As the series reaches its finale, I predict that Carl will come to a place where he can share this information directly with the reader as he finds ways to contextualize what almost happened, and finds ways to manage his own thoughts of self-harm, possibly in connection with whatever is happening with "The River."

If you or someone you know is experiencing suicidal thoughts, the 988 lifeline is available throughout the united states. You can reach them by dialing 988 or via their website at https://988lifeline.org/

u/mcase19 — 2 days ago
▲ 509 r/DungeonCrawlerCarl

I just got the Puddle Jump joke

"Misty Step" is a DnD spell that lets you teleport a short distance - 30 ft.

Puddle Jump is a more powerful version of Misty Step

A Puddle is denser Mist

A Jump is a bigger Step

Misty Step - Puddle Jump

Har Har 🤡

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u/Vitamin_B17 — 2 days ago
▲ 143 r/DungeonCrawlerCarl

A Parade of Horribles: My thoughts.

I've gotta say, I don't want to give out any spoilers. It's that good.

The mood in this book is heavy. Carl and Donut are really starting to struggle under the pressure.

I did not see any of the things coming that happened. That's part of what I love about these books.

I also love that nothing.... NOTHING ever goes to plan.

Also... Boop!

That part was fucking amazing. So good. There are few damn books I'd consider shelling out 40 bones for, and this one was a zero regret purchase. I cannot wait for book 9. The only bad thing about this series is that it seems to be coming to a conclusion. I will miss this when it is done.

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u/Spugnacious — 1 day ago
▲ 17 r/DungeonCrawlerCarl

Was it really nothing? Its driving me nuts

SPOILERSSSS

I'm on book 6 and just got past the point where they are talking about the residuals and Carl gets pulled from that speech. Was it really nothing? The speech truly wasn't important and those people are just fugitives now? I saw a spoiler for floor 9 >!that other crawlers come into plays so I could definitely see them all just lying and that group being important !<and I dont want any further spoilers. I just need to know: was it all nothing or will this come back and be expanded upon? Imma keep focusing on it till I know but I dont want to know how it comes back if it does, just the if. Maybe just the speech was unimportant but the group isnt. Idk. Its driving me nuts. I hate a big build up for nothing. Make me feel like a crack addict itching for a hit

Edit: These reactions are just fueling the crack addict. I know somethings coming and I am JONESING. I have to go to bed cuz its 3am 🥲 but I cannot wait to keep going. It's gonna keep me up

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u/No_Calligrapher4196 — 1 day ago