Dungeon Crawler Carl

Carl, a United States Coast Guard veteran, and Princess Donut, his ex-girlfriend's cat, are part of a few million beings that escape the elimination of the human species and mining of Earth's resources by the alien Borant Corporation. To survive, they are forced to enter the World Dungeon, an eighteen-level dungeon crawl borrowing ideas from tabletop role-playing and video games, reconstructed from Earth's resources. The effort for Carl and other survivors, all known as crawlers, to survive are live-streamed across the civilized universe as a game show, Dungeon Crawler World, a process that has been used for several seasons by Borant and other corporations to fund the mining operations of other planets.^[2] Among the gear Carl earns for entering the dungeon is an enchanted pet biscuit, and after Donut eats it, she becomes sapient, able to talk and use magic. Her high intelligence and charm make her the leader of their group, the Royal Court of Princess Donut.

Carl and Donut meet several other crawlers, non-player characters, and alien beings, some who become their allies. On their journey, the crawlers must select their character race and class and fight mobs and bosses, gaining new gear, earning experience, and improving their attributes to become stronger for surviving deeper levels of the dungeon. The dungeon itself is run by an increasingly-erratic "System AI" that provides crawlers with information and sets difficulties and distributes loot. On each level, all the surviving crawlers have a limited amount of time to make it to the stairs to the next dungeon level or are killed when the current level collapses. As part of the "Dungeon Crawler World", they also must seek popularity with the viewing audience to gain sponsors and get better gear, critical for survival. Carl also learns from his interactions with alien allies that Borant is under pressure to complete "Dungeon Crawler World" as quickly as possible to stay solvent and avoid a hostile takeover from other entities that make up a galaxy-spanning Syndicate, leading to less time and more dangerous situations that Carl and Donut must face. Carl becomes resolved to fight back against Borant and the Syndicate despite the challenges the dungeon puts forth, assuring himself that they will not break him.

In addition to Carl and Donut, major characters include:

• Mordecai, a former crawler nearing the end of his tenure, serving as Carl and Donut's tutorial guide, and later as Donut's manager.
• Members of Team Meadowlark, surviving employees and residents of a nursing home who Carl befriends. This includes nurses Imani and Yolanda, handymen and brothers Brandon and Chris, and elderly resident Elle.
• Katia, a professor from Iceland that joins Carl and Donut's party
• Mongo, a velociraptor that Donut gains as a pet.
• Samantha, a demi-goddess trapped in the head of a sex doll that becomes one of Donut's hired minions.
• Miriam Dom, an Italian goat shepherd, and Prepotente, one of her goats from her flock that was transformed into a humanoid, sapient goat via a pet biscuit at the start of the dungeon.
• Zev, a fish-like Kua-Tin that works for Borant as a dungeon admin and serves as Carl and Donut's public relations manager
• Odette, a former crawler and host of one of the more popular talk shows associated with the dungeon that discretely appears to be helping Carl.
• Florin, a gruff crocodillian former soldier who claims to be French, but speaks in an Australian accent and enters the dungeon in North Africa.
• Daniel Bautista, a South American crawler who chooses a tiger-like race known for his use of magical beanie baby like creatures, and who falls in love with Katia.
• Lucia Mar, a young teenage girl of around 13 who always travels with 2 Rottweilers and appears to have mysteriously made it into the dungeon despite rules against child crawlers.
• Louis and Firas, crawlers from Florida who initially seem to have given up on surviving and instead decide to get drunk, before Carl and Donut help them gain confidence.
• Li Jun, Li Na and Zheng, a trio of Chinese crawlers. Li Jun and Li Na are brother and sister. Zheng is Li Jun’s best friend and secretly in love with his sister Li Na.
• Quasar, a Grey-like alien that serves as Carl's lawyer as his actions start to have larger consequences outside the dungeon.

Prior to writing the series, Matt Dinniman had made his living going to cat shows and drawing illustrations of cats for their owners. During his breaks, he began writing short segments of the story via the digital platform Royal Road in 2019, where it quickly gained popularity. When the COVID-19 pandemic hit in 2020, most of the cat shows were cancelled, and Dinniman switched to writing the series full-time, as well as using Amazon for self-publishing. ^[3]

While writing the series, Dinniman drew upon his experience playing MMOs such as RuneScape, as well as the concept of in-game chatting, which he noted "adds another element because there's all these different dynamics happening at once."^[4] Prior to writing the series, Dinniman developed a desire to write a novel with a death-game setting; he also wanted to include a tortoiseshell-colored Persian cat after seeing one at a cat show where he was working as an artist. Dinniman has said he did not initially plan for the cat to be sapient, and that this developed as he continued writing the series, as he tends to create and embellish the story as he goes. This eventually led to the creation of Princess Donut as she is presented in the series, a character that Dinniman has stated is vital to the series. Dinniman is known for his interaction with his fanbase and allows his Patreon subscribers to impact some limited elements of the story by voting on the outcome of external factors, such as loot box content.^[5]

The series includes some dark and comedic elements. In an interview with Grimdark Magazine, Dinniman stated that it was difficult to maintain the balance between these two elements and that rather than automatically write a comedic scene after each dark one, he instead relies "on the characters themselves to get from point A to B, and humor is oftentimes a major coping mechanism."^[6] Dinniman initially kept track of the series' characters and storylines via a spreadsheet that grew up to 198 pages, requiring the use of a second spreadsheet to track the content on the first. The size of the spreadsheet eventually crashed Dinniman's computer, causing the author to hire someone to create a Notion database for better ease of use.^[5] While working on the manuscript for A Parade of Horribles Dinniman reported that he wrote for about eight to twelve hours a day, which he spent in his home as well as at bars and coffee shops.^[7]

In 2024, Dinniman stated that he planned for the series to span ten books, but that "nothing is set in stone".^[8] Dinniman confirmed his plans to end the series with the ninth book, split across two works, in a February 2026 interview.^[9]

In a review of the first book for Locus, Gabino Iglesias criticized some jokes and said he found the book repetitive, but wrote that "the important thing here is that the novel never becomes boring" and that the "shortcomings are easy to overlook".^[2] Tonya Cherry of CKRM favorably reviewed the series, praising the audiobook narration and calling the series "a wild ride that blends humor, action, and a touch of heart, making for an unforgettable journey."^[30]

As of December 2024^[update], the first four books published by Ace had sold almost 55,000 copies.^[31] In March 2025 the seventh book in the series, This Inevitable Ruin, ranked #2 on The New York Times' Best Seller List for Audio Fiction,^[32] while the fourth book, The Gate of the Feral Gods, ranked #9 on the Best Seller List for Hardcover Fiction.^[33] In 2025 the bookstore chain Books-A-Million named the first entry in the series as its inaugural Book of the Year, which is to recognize a title that "best embodies the joy of reading and the enthusiasm of BAM's team".^[34] By December 2025, the first seven books had sold a combined six million copies.^[7]

The Colorado Avalanche held a Dungeon Crawler Carl night on April 11, 2026, prompted by the Avalanche's Scott Wedgewood, who had become a fan of the series during COVID. Dinniman was in attendance, and the event was used to support a local animal rescue in honor of the Princess Donut character.^[35]

In a 2026 review, Laura Miller of Slate praised the Dungeon Crawler Carl series as a leading example in the LitRPG genre, noting the surprising emotional and political depth the gaming format was capable of when utilized as a metaphor. She wrote, "the crawlers' exploitation at the hands of a heartless entertainment industry, and the corporate skullduggery behind the scenes, become an increasingly rich and pointed analogy to the power imbalances of our own world."^[36]

• Operation Bounce House, a 2026 science fiction novel by Dinniman