Rating: 8/10 Stars
It’s off to the races in the explosive eighth book in the Dungeon Crawler Carl series.
As chaos and mass panic spread outside the dungeon in the wake of Faction Wars, Carl and Donut find themselves on the tenth floor, where they’re forced to compete in a surprisingly normal set of tasks. Well, normal for the dungeon.
Races. Get from point A to point B, and don’t come in last. After each race, they pick an upgrade for their vehicle and the track gets more challenging. It all seems a little too normal, a little too simple.
Ignore those strange glitches that are occurring with increasing frequency. Don’t listen to those whispers about what’s happening on the mysterious eleventh floor, something the system AI calls A Parade of Horribles. Nobody, not even the showrunners, knows what that means. Just that the AI has ominously dubbed it “a coming-out party for the ages.”
Everything is fine, Crawler. I repeat, everything is fine.
Carl hates that it’s business as usual. The rules of this floor have taken away his agency. That just will not do.
So Carl is planning a party of his own. It’s a plan so dangerous, so insane, he can’t even consult his friends lest the AI put a stop to it. Because if it goes wrong, it’s not just the end of Carl and Donut. No. The stakes are higher than they’ve ever been.
A Parade of Horribles is the eighth book in the planned ten book Dungeon Crawler Carl series. In a series this long, you might come to expect some drop in quality as the narrative spreads into the later books. That is definitely not the case here though. Not only is the author keeping the action revved up to 11, but it is quite clear he has an endgame planned for the end of the series. What that endgame is, with some of the new additions to both the allies and enemies list, is still a mystery.
The world building is high quality yet again, carrying on a tradition of creating interesting levels in this world dungeon. We've seen everything from dungeon hallways, enclosed environments, murder hobo subways, open levels with crawlers being hunted and city defense levels. it's basically everything you've ever seen in a video game ramped up and given murderous intent. In this book, we have something new, a seven-heat race between teams of Crawlers and NPC's across some of the most insane race-courses imaginable. The wildest part is that the crawlers get a choice between mechanical or biological rides, meaning you could see everything from a burger truck to a giant rumbling tumbleweed and everything in between. And while the Crawlers are also racing NPC's, this doesn't mean the Crawlers won't have to face each other in races to the death. Let's just say the tension is ratcheted up so much with that one little caveat that it keeps the reader on the edge of their seat. In addition to all this, it turns out the War mages have plans of their own, and Carl and company may have come up with a way for a large number of Crawlers to escape and remain potentially safe. It's this environment that we find for most of the book, although we have a floor change at the end that Involves the Parade of Horribles, which I can't really describe without spoiling the ending, but suffice it to say this level involves the biggest boss to date, and how it plays out is totally unexpected, with results that will reverberate throughout the rest of the series.
The characters are excellent as always. Carl's growth as a character, from slacker couch surfer walked all over by his cheating girlfriend to the crazy leader who will not let the system break him has been great. We have seen so much as his history has been revealed, and it has really put this growth into perspective. Carl has gone from thinking about nothing more than gaming, a smoke and relaxing after work to basically being the face of humanity as it faces it's off against an insane AI and the other races involved in the Crawl. Carl is also the butt of so many AI jokes, but its always funny, if a little disturbing. He seems to be getting stretched thin though, so it will be interesting to see how things go.
Princess Donut is also showing surprising growth.I know that she can be a divisive character, being arrogant, condescending and a bit clueless at times, but what do you expect, shes a cat. That being said, she has been showing more maturity each book, and is now showing some real cunning and long term planning skills, as well as a hard edge when it comes o enemies that I would not expect. She has definitely grown into a force in her own right.
The secondary characters such as Prepetente, Mordicai, Louis, Imani and Elli all get their chances to shine as well, and we even get a peak more into their back stories, which was a welcome surprise.Some new characters have been added, my favorite of which is Hedy, the gremlin mechanic who keeps Carl and Princess Donut's food truck running and upgraded as each race takes its toll. She is a fun character, with a lot of snark, but also some really solid advice for Carl and Donut on upgrades and even strategy. She is just one of many new side characters that add so much fun to story that can get grim at times.
The antagonists have been added to as well. Aside from the AI, which has slowly been going insane and vindictive, The war mages are also still floating about, The system government/corporation are still trying to find a way to stop the Crawlers and AI, and a new threat, shadow mimics, have been exposed, causing trouble of their own, and it's not really known what they are up to. It will be interesting to see how these plot lines all resolve themselves.
Final Thoughts
Like I said in the intro, this series has had a very consistent quality level. I think A Parade of Horribles continues this, adding some needed backstory to some of the side characters, expanding on some of their more interesting personality traits. I really liked it overall, although it did seem a bit rushed toward the end, as if the author had more characters and plot lines than he wanted to deal with, so he just closed them out as quickly as possible. That being said, it was still a satisfactory close to this part of the story, and I don't think anyone will be disappointed. I am still excited to see where the story is going to go from here, and I do recommend this one.
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