A Parade Of Horribles – Taking The Power Out Of Power Fantasies

Admitting that I have been experimenting with Litrpg feels like a controversial statement to me. It isn’t that all Litrpg is bad. Today’s review is actually explicitly about how that isn’t the case, as A Parade Of Horribles, by Matt Dinniman, is fantastic. However, I do feel that as a genre, Litrpg has some serious hurdles to overcome to be taken seriously as a collective. The fact that power fantasies are almost inseparably intertwined with the core of what the genre is means that there is an extremely limited range for thematic exploration. The very nature of a power fantasy stifles character depth, as it lessens conflict and makes commentary on authority more difficult – but not impossible. Thus, Litrpg seems (in my so far limited experience) to be flooded with numerous self-congratulatory piles of gross wish fulfillment and the occasional shining star of interesting genre dissection. Now hitting its eighth fantastic entry, Dungeon Crawler Carl continues to reaffirm why it has been a genre-crossing all-star. A Parade Of Horribles is one of my favorite books in the series and one of the best books of the year so far.

A Parade Of Horribles is a masterclass in the mixing of atmosphere and narrative. I’m going to assume everyone reading this is familiar with the series (if not, look here). We are now on the 10th floor of this eighteen-floor nightmare, and Dinniman has continued to find ways to raise the stakes while narrowing the lens. At this point in the story, there is so much plot baggage. Each floor of this labyrinth has generated side quests, bonus secondary lore, interesting supporting characters, and sneaky foreshadowing that makes the entire series feel stuffed with information that you need to keep track of. Luckily, the very nature of Carl’s character and the setup of the Litrpg framing have provided numerous vehicles (he he, I’ll come back to this pun) to keep track of everything and keep the dungeon from feeling completely overwhelming to the reader. That is, until the rug pull that is book eight.

We are approaching the endgame now. It has become increasingly obvious that Dinniman is going to take us all the way to the mythological 18th floor of this maze, and I can’t wait. But, there is a reckoning that both the characters and the readers must pass through first on the way there: floor twelve. Floor twelve has been consistently foreshadowed as the de facto end of all previous crawls in the dungeon. While we are definitely going to go past it, it is being set up as a great filter that will likely fundamentally change how the story is both presented and told in the very near future. In order to prepare for that, the anxiety and tension in the narrative must be ramped up to build into the payoff (because Dinniman loves a good payoff). Enter floor ten/eleven, the Parade of Horribles, a literal vehicular death race that is both a story about the crawlers being all gas and no breaks, and gave me the intense feeling of being in a car that is rolling out of control from start to finish. See, now the vehicle pun makes sense.

A Parade Of Horribles achieves this in a few ways. One, characters we care about have been steadily accruing objectives they must complete before floor twelve for a long time. With the advent of the floor on the horizon, mixed with a floor that leaves no room to breathe or think, the atmosphere becomes one of induced panic that matches the vibes of a death race perfectly. The narrowing of the focus of the story (reducing the character count, tying off loose plotlines, introducing less new lore, and focusing more on expanding things we already know about) leaves a lasting feeling of driving down a hill to a checkered flag with no idea of what is on the other side of it. Despite feeling so chaotic and fast, A Parade Of Horribles feels like a much more decisive book than most of the rest in the series. Many of the Dungeon Crawler Carl books can feel like they weren’t planned out enough and that Dinniman was (skillfully) making it up as he went along–but Parade feels extremely intentional, and its pacing can make catching everything extremely rewarding and difficult. The eighth book has for sure been the one that I would most like to reread out of the full set.

The result is a brilliant novel that blends its themes, atmosphere, and plot to meaningfully explore how we move through life as individuals. There is interesting commentary on found family, how power behaves when moving both up and down a food chain, the general overwhelming nature of life, and how it is easy to lose track of what is important. Dungeon Crawler Carl, for me, started as a silly, entertaining book about a guy and his cat trying to survive a crass video game world. Looking back from A Parade Of Horribles, it is fascinating to see how far the story and its characters have come and how excited I am to see where it goes next.

Rating: A Parade Of Horribles – 9.5/10
-Andrew

An ARC of this book was provided to me by the publisher in exchange for an honest review. The thoughts on this book are my own.