Dungeon Crawler Carl covered the exploits of Carl and Donut as they barely managed to survive the first two levels of the world dungeon that now inhabits Earth. It also revealed the rules by which the dungeon operates and how the crawlers themselves progress and grow within it. It was established that the dungeon crawlers would get to pick their race and class when they reached the third level of the dungeon and that is exactly where this book starts. Yes, that's right, the crawlers will get to pick a race, which means most crawlers will no longer be human after their choice. The choices available to each crawler will differ based on the stats and skills they progressed on levels 1 and 2, which means a lot of specialization will be occurring. Both Carl and Donut have a myriad of choices available to them, but Donut absolutely plans to remain a cat, so her race choice is a foregone conclusion. Because why would a cat ever want to be anything else?

The rest of the book focuses on level three of the dungeon, which is a very different type of level. This level is called the Over City, a sprawling metropolis full of NPCs that allow the quest system to come into play. Of course, Carl and Donut wind up getting entangled in their first quest, strictly against the advice of their new manager, Mordecai. Mordecai is a former crawler from another planet who managed to reach a deep enough level where he became an indentured servant of the corporation that is running the dungeon. Mordecai has a vast wealth of knowledge about surviving in the dungeon and his advice is a real advantage for Carl and Donut, if only they would listen to him.

It is unclear exactly where this series is going, but the framework here allows Matt Dinniman to do just about anything he wants on each level of the dungeon. While I hope he keeps it more in the fantasy realm of traditional dungeon crawls, there is ample evidence that he prefers to lean into comedic representations of human stereotypes, and most mobs and classes are a combination of the two. The book was still entertaining enough for me to keep going in the series, which looks like it will proceed forward at the pace of one book per dungeon level.

The audiobook production is excellent and it exudes the right level of ridiculous to match the story perfectly. Definitely different, but worth experiencing.