About the Book
-
Author:
- Matt Dinniman
- Genres:
- Action-Adventure
- Science Fiction
- Voices:
- Cis Boy
- Straight
- White (Non-Specified)
Cover Story: BOOM
Drinking Buddy: Desperado Club
MPAA Rating: R (violence, alcohol, goddammit, Donut!)
Talky Talk: Rules Lawyer
Bonus Factors: Bombs, Circus
Bromance Status: On to Level Four
Cover Story: BOOM
Nothing like a cover with a mushroom cloud and a pet. Very A Boy and His Dog.
The Deal:
Carl and Donut have survived the first two floors of the dungeon. No longer bumbling around, they’ve proven themselves hard core, brave, and above all, likable. The fans are noticing. The corporate overlords are noticing. The other crawlers are noticing. And that’s not necessarily a good thing.
Now that they’ve descended to the third floor, Carl and Donut get to choose a race and a class. And not just the D&D half-dozen choices. No, we got things that fly, things that creep, enormous monsters, animals, all kinds of crazy stuff. The options are unlimited. So Carl and Donut choose…human and feline.
Drinking Buddy: Desperado Club
The Dungeon is not a place for the weak. You have to be ready to strike hard and strike fast. No pity for the NPCs (even though they’re sentient and have feelings). Carl isn’t going to be affected by that silly side quest about someone murdering prostitutes…except he is. And Donut and their mentor Mordecai have to put up with his soft heart.
Meanwhile, Donut the cat has gone from silly child to mature young adult. She lets Carl know she’s more aware of the true state of things than she let on. She also lets him know his ex (Donut’s owner) was cheating on Carl with two guys. And a woman.
MPAA Rating: R (violence, alcohol, goddammit, Donut!)
These are some of the most violent books I’ve read. When the novel starts, there are only a few million humans alive in the dungeon and the numbers keep dwindling. Dismembered hookers fall from the sky. Aliens plot political assassinations. Crawlers live and die by their ratings. Literally.
Talky Talk: Rules Lawyer
The first book was a lot of fighting and gore. So is this book. But now Dinniman is trying to lay out the rules and laws of his universe. It got a little slow in parts, what with the rules and politics and trying to remember which faction was allied with who. But then someone would go splat and we’d be right back to the action.
Bonus Factor: Bombs
Carl is a professional sailor and an experienced mechanic. But a lot of his dungeon stunts involved blowing things up, so when it’s time to choose a class, he picks ‘compensated anarchist.’ Now he’s got all kinds of options and buffs involving explosives. Of course, now he has a reputation as a bomb throwing lunatic, which in the dungeon can be a bonus.
Bonus Factor: Evil Circus
So the new level consists of a blighted town with an evil circus in the center. Zombie bears. Undead acrobats. Evil clowns. Freaks!
And this is just level three of 18.
Bromance Status: On to Level Four
Seriously, you think I don’t have anything better to do than read ten lengthy books? My TBR pile is two feet deep…yeah, okay.
Literary Matchmaking
There’s the first book in the series, of course.
A fight to the death among the desperately poor to entertain the ultra-rich? Where have I seen that before?
Jane George’s The Mumbo Jumbo Circus also deals with the weird world under the big top.
FTC Full Disclosure: I received no money or loot boxes for writing this review.
