The next entry in the Dungeon Crawler Carl series. I thought I would take a little break from the series, but no—I didn’t have enough willpower for that.
This time, the crawlers are split into small pocket “worlds,” each containing four castles they must conquer. The crawlers in Carl’s world are mostly pretty mediocre—at least until they meet Carl and his team. Under his lead, they don’t stay mediocre for long… if they survive. The team must face feral gods, nearly unbeatable opponents, though through cunning, their encounters become at least survivable. Meanwhile, the AI running the dungeons seems increasingly unhinged. At times it appears to favor Carl; at others, it seems to want him dead—preferably in the most gruesome way possible.
Carl and his posse, of course, overcome their challenges and reach the staircase to the next level in time. Along the way, they manage to disrupt the game in a major way. Even before that, their new, exceptionally rude PR person (a sentient worm inhabiting someone else’s body) suffers an “unfortunate accident” resulting in her(?) death. No one can prove Carl had anything to do with it—it was just a string of very unfortunate events, naturally.
The backstage scheming is beginning to affect more and more people in the dungeon, especially high-profile figures like Carl. There seem to be powerful factions that want him dead, but he also has surprising and unknown supporters. His own goal, however, hasn’t changed: burn it all to the ground and avenge the destruction of the Earth.
This was a much better book than Part 3. The pace was even a bit too fast in the latter parts. The political maneuvering will likely grow more important as the series continues. I wonder what the AI (or the author) will throw at the team next. The epilogue hints at some very awkward encounters ahead. The writing may not be the best in the world, but it is undeniably entertaining.
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