For those unfamiliar with Dungeon Crawler Carl, the high-level plot is that everyone on Earth got sucked into an 18-level deathmatch, with each book covering 1-2 levels of the game. Each level has its own theme and uniquely horrifying obstacles. The characters level up and gain skills, loot, and tools to tackle the floors. The series has been undergoing a fairly noticeable shift for the last few books as the focus of the story evolves. When we first got thrown into the dungeon, the narrative spent a lot of time establishing the world, stakes, and tone as a top priority, and the structure of what was happening felt very chaotic. However, as we have progressed further and further into this 18-floor hell, we are beginning to reap the fruit of some impressive setup.
Dinniman is a master of Chekov’s Gun, and a lot of the fun and excitement of these books comes in the form of watching Dinniman set a pile of trash on the ground in front of you and then watching him assemble it into a cannon over 700 pages. It is delightful, surprising, and captivating to watch every time, and it is the core element of the story that made me come back to these books. Now, looking at the series-wide macro-narrative, we are starting to see some of these multi-book setup plots come to fruition in very satisfying ways. This Inevitable Ruin focused on an event called the ‘Faction War’ that has been getting heavily set up since book two. In many ways, it seems to represent an inflection point in the style of the story. Previously, we had a huge sea of contenders in this game to draw from and send into the meat grinder floor after floor. Now, having passed through over nine rounds of culling, we are down to a select elite ensemble cast. The series is moving from a large-scale war story with mass casualties to a focused quest fantasy where every character eliminated represents the loss of huge portions of narrative investment. It will be interesting to see how this change affects the atmosphere of the story.
This Inevitable Ruin did a great job of pushing the envelope, moving the needle, and making the line go up. Since the beginning, Dungeon Crawler Carl has felt like watching Dinniman try to keep an inhuman number of plates spinning while his circus burns down around him. Previously, that chaos has served him extremely well to keep this surprising and fun, but as we move into a more focused and anchored section of the story, the narrative is starting to show some cracks from all the chaos. Some characters didn’t make the cut for phase two of the story, and a few feel like they got wrapped up way too quickly to do them justice. But, this series has never been a precise and well-oiled machine–it has always been a blender full of guts rolling down a hill while exploding into many-hued fires. Here’s hoping the next bang has more colors I have never dreamed of before.
Rating: This Inevitable Ruin – 8.5/10
-Andrew
