Quick-take: Entertaining start to a LitRPG series.

Dan's Review

The world collapses. A dungeon emerges, and Carl walks into it with his pet cat.

The dungeon turns out to be a real life adventure game based on classic RPG elements. There are multiple levels of increasing difficulty, and Carl earns stat points through killing monsters and collecting items. Anybody who has played a few RPGs will understand the terminology. Carl seems to be an expert despite him saying he has not played many.

I've read several books from the The Land series. I can't help but compare this book to that one. Both attempt humor. Both have HUD for the main character. Both have lots of RPG elements. There are 2 major differences. With The Land, it is the one human Chaos Seed lording over and building his personal empire. With Carl, there are many players, and they all have a well defined objective.

Also, at least with book 1, I would say Carl does them all better, particularly the humor. I have said several times that I do think that "random for the sake of random" is funny. I appreciate wit and situational humor, and Carl is crammed full of geniunione unexpected situational humor. I actually chuckled out loud in several sections.

Also, with all achievements, prompts, and leveling, Carl does that better. Once the novelty wore off, it got to feel very tedious in The Land. Carl will say, "Some more items and achievements, though nothing noteworthy except X". He will also say, "We went through that and gained 2 levels. We are now blah". I appreciate the summary.

The dungeon that Carl is working through has multiple levels. We have been promised there is something new on each level. I hope so. My interest started waning near the end. One major plus to this book is that the dungeon has a bottom floor, so that means the series does need to eventually end.

Score 5/5. I don't know if I will stay with the whole series. I am curious enough to pick up book 2.