Dungeon Crawler Carl

I'm at a loss for words. I feel as though I do not understand the language that DCC is speaking. Perhaps the massive fandom for this series are more multilingual than they realize.

Nearly every piece of this puzzle is distasteful to me. The ham-fisted attempts at making Carl relatable and sympathetic, the unending pop culture references, the prevalence of juvenile gore, the lack of any satisfactory conclusion, and especially the terminally online dialogue, or should I say quips, that spare not a single character.

At a certain point, perhaps around the 100th loot box opening or unlocked achievement, I stopped being mad at the contents of the book because I realized that DCC is not trying to be a novel at all. It's fan fiction. Lit RPG. It has no relation to the standards of literature, and much more to do with an overlong reddit thread.

I found it genuinely appalling, but I'm also certainly not the target audience. I despise the proliferation of heavily produced and professionally voice acted dungeon and dragon campaigns that are monetized in podcast format, of which it seems to me that DCC has many similarities. Though I lament that it's receiving such praise, I can't say I'm surprised that so many people like it given the current climate of popular nerd culture.

Perhaps a fan of the series might say that it gets better over time but, as evidenced by my rating and general venom for it, I have no interest in continuing. Out of all the hills to be pretentious and die on, this one feels justified.