I’ve been in a funk recently. If you’ve been reading my blog, you might know that not only my health isn’t great, also my father is dying in extremely slow motion. It’s… exhausting. I’ve not been in the mood to read. When I do read, I try to stick to books which I know will be excellent. So let’s start.
This isn’t the first LitRPG/Progression Fantasy I’ve read, but it is the best (so far). It balances the forward momentum of the genre, but at the same time includes skillful characterization and a great meta-narrative.
Earth has been destroyed by an alien reality TV show, and the surviving humans are forced to compete to survive in a Dungeons & Dragons style maze. Characters level up, gain magic, fight monsters like goblins and faeries. If you fight your way through the maze, the aliens let you live and make you rich.
The two main characters are Carl and Princess Donut. Carl is an everyman ex-military schlub, who serves as the reader insert character. Carl is a brawny character, but fights with his brains. He has a particular fondness for explosives. Princess Donut is Carl’s talking cat, who is inexplicably a stronger fighter than Carl himself… yet as a cat, Donut refuses to get her feet wet, so she lets Carl do all the hard fighting. Carl takes on the attitude of a peeved older sibling who is doing his best to keep their TikTok influencer younger sibling alive.
The story overall has a series of mini-bosses, which are defeated by the heroes to level up. However the main antagonist is the Dungeon AI. While not a character as such, they have dialogue every chapter. Every time the characters need something explained, the AI explains it for the characters in a contemptuous attitude. The Dungeon AI is hilarious.
The humor of the story is a great contrast to the story’s overall grim-ness. Like most D&D games, the narrative never loses sight of the humor. I can’t explain the humor, because describing a joke kills the joke, but suffice it to say the story is funny. And yet the narrative never loses sight of the fact that the human race has been obliterated. Carl frequently takes moments to grieve those he’s lost. When the story’s narrative isn’t humorous, it’s melancholic. This is a GREAT contrast.
Going into this, I expected it to be fun pulp. It is pulp, but it’s more than just pulp. This story has more heart and soul than a LOT of traditionally published stuff I read these days. I intend to read more in the future.
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