Posted by I am enjoying myself so much with this series. At the time I’m writing this review I have finished book 6 and restarted the series! LOL, I’m on Book 2 again!!! I haven’t furiously consumed a new series like this since I hit Andrew Rowe’s and T. Kingfisher. That said, it’s hard for me to write reviews for later books in a series without spoiling the books that came before it — if you don’t want Book 1 spoilers then I’d click away!
WE ARE ON THE NEXT FLOOR!!!
Each floor in this dungeon has it’s own theme or storyline, and with each book the world expands. In this book, Carl learns the NPCs are actual organic sentient people who are born and bred for these dungeons…and sometimes they know what they are, pawns on a board, but sometimes they don’t. Telling an NPC that they’re an NPC when they don’t already know about that is just as much of a mindfuck as it would be for you if you were told that. So, sometimes these NPCs don’t take it well. Reactions may vary.
I love the expansion of what I’m calling the lurking overplot. There’s clearly some larger picture that neither Carl or the reader can figure out just yet. There are hints at a vast galaxy’s worth of aliens and cultures but we only get small tidbits here and there. It’s honestly perfect. It keeps my attention on the story but gets me wanting to know so much more about the bigger, broader world. The fact that there are factions of aliens who hate each other, work together, or have some kind of business interests that impact the MC gives such depth to what could be a flat plotline.
These will be characters I never forget. Donut’s personality is fantastic. She’s subtly growing into a more mature and less impulsive person…cat…sentient being — which is needed. In the first book she makes a lot of very rash decisions which is funny to the reader, but can be devastating to their situation. That tiara that fucks her over at level 9 is a good example of that. The fewer impulsive and stupid decisions she makes, (however funny they might be), the better off they are. She still values her own opinion more than others, but she’s willing to accept other’s perspectives and she’s also learning that without others, she’s fucked. She realizes that although Carl has a lot of disadvantages (at least in her eyes) Carl’s build counterbalances her own weaknesses making them dependent on one another. She’s still super independent and will still make decisions that cause Carl to use his signature catch phrase, “GOD DAMNIT DONUT!” I love them so much. People who follow my reviews know that I have an affinity for odd-couple pairings, and this book hits all those notes that I crave so much.
The main characters have depth, and so do the side characters. There are clearly things going on with Mordecai that they haven’t figured out yet and it will likely have a larger and larger impact on them as they delve deeper. Supposedly, Mordecai has made it almost as deep as anyone has ever gone. He made it to the 11th floor, and the deepest anyone has gone is the 12th. He’s been in the dungeon forever and he seems to know people who are high up in the chain.
The pacing here is great. Sometimes if there’s too much continuous action I feel like there’s no breathing room, and rather than making the pacing flow quickly, I’ll get bored and set it down. For me, this book has a perfect balance of large scale plot points mixed with a character driven story line and development. The writing is hilarious and continues to make me smile through the whole book. I almost never laugh out loud at books, but this series has given me several hearty chuckles. The humor is also balanced with horror and bloodshed and morally difficult decisions that Carl has to make which balances and highlights the humor. Not everyone makes it out of this floor, and again we have a lot of character deaths. I consider that sometimes that keeps the tension high, so I don’t mind it as long as it doesn’t feel ham-fisted. Not knowing if everyone will make it back out keeps me glued to the pages … or the audiobook equivalent of that.
The audio is superb, just like the last one. I literally can’t get over how amazing they are.