Dungeon Crawler Carl by Matt Dinniman

This one was a friend recommendation, and is another Audible listen. It’s also my first real dip into the realm of LitRPG, so I wasn’t entirely sure what to expect but what I got was an easy and fun listen.

It’s also really hard for me to describe because it’s kinda out there, so I’m gonna cheat a little and steal the blurb:

You know what’s worse than breaking up with your girlfriend? Being stuck with her prize-winning show cat. And you know what’s worse than that? An alien invasion, the destruction of all man-made structures on Earth, and the systematic exploitation of all the survivors for a sadistic, intergalactic game show. That’s what.

Join Coast Guard vet Carl and his ex-girlfriend’s cat, Princess Donut, as they try to survive the end of the world—or just get to the next level—in a video game-like, trap-filled fantasy dungeon. A dungeon that’s actually the set of a reality television show with countless viewers across the galaxy. Exploding goblins. Magical potions. Deadly, drug-dealing llamas. This ain’t your ordinary game show.

See what I mean?

A bit like with Isaacson’s Leonardo Da Vinci, I do think this benefitted greatly from me listening to it vs how it would have been to read. Jeff Hays did an outstanding job on the voice acting, really nailing the voices for Carl and Donut, and really elevating the story from ‘meh, ok?’ to ‘solid and steady’. Dungeons and Dragons but for realisies and for the entertainment of aliens like it’s the Hunger Games isn’t particularly complicated, and unless you’re super into RPGs could be a bit of a slog.

The voice acting also lifted the more gamey aspects, like the achievement notification voice overs Carl would get after killing a boss for the first time, or when he’s being trolled by the AI running the dungeon for heading into it without any weapons or suppliers (or trousers). Plus, with the book being in first person, there was that extra dimension to it; being told it by the ‘character’, getting a voice to the story.

If it had been paperback, I could see myself getting a little too eye roley at the memes. There’s the AI’s foot fetish, for example, or the neighbourhood boss, the KraKaren: part Kraken, part Karen. The llama like creatures being meth addicts, is another. I just don’t think it’d play as well without the VA also playing the exasperated human to it.

That said, there’s still a lot to like. I got sucked in pretty hard to the journey, to Carl and Donut’s relationship growing (thanks to a transformation biscuit giving Donut the ability to talk very early on) and to the minor twist at the end. I won’t be rushing into book 2 any time soon (I’ve already started book 3 of the Ciaphas Cain series) but I’ll definitely be returning next year, or whenever I next get a discount to sign up for Audible again.

Or who knows? Maybe I’ll give the paper book a go, especially now I have a voice for the characters in my head.

7/10

2025-11-30

November Review

Month 3! Let’s check how I’ve been doing.

Quick refresher: the aim of the blog is to make me publicly accountable for actually progressing in my hobbies, alongside using Beeminder to fine me if I miss the goal. The three I’m currently tracking and their monthly targets are:

  • Reading: Finish one book per month
  • Writing: Write four posts here per month covering one of the activities (500 word minimum)
  • Pool/snooker - play/practice five times a month

✅ Reading

Another two books finished - The Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro, and Dungeon Crawler Carl by Matt Dinniman. Reviews listed below.
I now have two books currently on the go:

  • Four Hour Work Week by Tim Ferriss on Kindle
  • Kafka on the Shore by Haruki Murakami
  • The Traitor’s Hand by Sandy Mitchell on Audible
    The Kindle has not seen a lot of love this month. I’ve had a lot on personally, and I think I’m just struggling a bit with taking the subject matter seriously. That said, I want it finished by end of year, so I’ll need to crack on.

This is my second attempt on Kafka on the Shore. First time I just found it too weird, especially when it starts raining fish…Again, I want this done by end of year. Do not like having books on my did not finish list.

The Traitor’s Hand I’ve been looking forward to for a while. The Ciaphas Cain series has been a god send this year. I’m already best part of 2 hours deep on it.

✅ Writing

4 posts for the month, 1 a week:

✅ Pool/Snooker

Managed five sessions despite being sick for a couple of weeks. Included play pool against one friend (and winning) and snooker against another (and losing).

Beeminder

Quarterly Check In

This completes the first quarter of the project, and I’m left in 2 minds.

Part of me is disappointed. It feels like to a certain extent I’m coasting, especially on my writing, where it just feels hollow, like I’m pushing out words to hit a target. My pool and snooker playing could also be more efficient towards improving, as opposed to just playing.

On the other hand, I’m undeniably hitting my targets and making progress. I’m especially happy with my reading progress. I’ve achieved a consistent rate I’ve not had in years, almost entirely because I’ve had this blog to write for and Beeminder on my mind. If I keep this up, I’ll have read more books in 2025 than I have any other year, and next year it’ll be well into the 20s.

There’s also the reality of what I’m doing, which is an angle I’ve always struggled with: the work is the point. It’s ok if it’s hollow, it’s ok if it’s not ‘efficient’. The work is the point. The showing up is the point. Eventually work becomes good work, and occasionally great work.

So I’m going to stay the course target wise. I do want to put in a practice routine for both pool and snooker, to help direct my skills a little, but otherwise I’m going to stay the course another three months. If I keep my reading levels up though, I’ll be increasing it next quarter.

2025-12-02

Evolving a poem

I wasn’t going to share this for two reasons. First, I don’t feel like it’s anywhere close to done. It’s not even a v1.0 in my mind, it needs a fair amount of work. Including on a title.

But more importantly, I’m not overly convinced I hit what I was trying to say. More on that later though, because both are irrelevant. I have a post quota to hit, and I need to get in the habit of sharing and not hiding, so here we are.

More and more I find I
Spend my days
Inventing ways
To go back to when I had
More to say.
Before my days were copy/paste,
Blankly staring into space
On a screen, avoiding my dreams.
Where I had passion running through my veins
Before I voluntarily put on the chains of Responsibility.
Spending my days
Arguing over addresses and names,
Filling out forms to fill out more.
Select/copy/paste.
Select/copy/paste.
Click.
Click.
Click.
Click.
Click.
Nine to five, Mon to Fri,
So I can live without feeling alive.
It wasn’t always so,
But that was a lifetime ago
And yet.
And yet.
A man can dream.

It started as a lot of my work does in the past. I feel a feeling, I get a snippet, and that snippet sits and waits for me to be ready to expand on it. In this case, it was lines 1-5:
More and more I find I
Spend my days
Inventing ways
To go back to when I had
More to say.

Yes, I’m pretty sure this was a Monday morning. Job satisfaction is pretty low at the minute/month/year, and I’m pretty prone to the old Remember When: when you were younger and freer, didn’t feel so trapped in work, were more active in various areas etc.

Lines 6 and 7 followed on quite quickly before I put the notecard down:
Before my days were copy/paste,
Blankly staring into space

I liked the idea that copy/paste meant two things to me; that my days are often repetitive unless I put the effort in to adjust, and that my days are literally copy/pasting information from one place to another, and then another, and then another…

I’m less convinced by lines 8-13:
On a screen, avoiding my dreams.
Where I had passion running through my veins
Before I voluntarily put on the chains of Responsibility.
Spending my days
Arguing over addresses and names,
Filling out forms to fill out more.

I often find that the way forward creatively is to take a feeling, twist, and exaggerate to get more interesting language, but in this case it feels too far if only because it feels resentful of my role in life. The chains of Responsibility are real; a husband, dog owner, mortgage payer, future family man, all of which need paying for so I sit at my job that bores the skin off me because taking a risk elsewhere jeopardises all of the above. But I’m not resentful of that, because the rewards are obvious and plenty. I have a wonderful wife, a great dog (but needs more training), a house and a salary. I resent the boredom, and not the responsibility, and so it just feels hollow and fake. Not what I’m trying to convey at all.

I have a similar problem with the last 5 lines:
It wasn’t always so,
But that was a lifetime ago
And yet.
And yet.
A man can dream.

It’s weak sauce. How my head feels like a poem should end, rather than words I believe in.

The repetitive section though and the two lines after hits something for me, so an initial rewrite would start at least at:
More and more I find I
Spend my days
Inventing ways
To go back to when I had
More to say.
Before my days were select/copy/paste,
Select/copy/paste.
Click.
Click.
Click.
Click.
Click.
Nine to five, Mon to Fri,
So I can live without feeling alive.

Not sure that’s totally complete, but it’s already miles better.

Just needs a name.

Desk job?

2025-12-07