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nivlacwise's review against another edition
adventurous
challenging
dark
funny
hopeful
tense
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
4.75
A story of how human world / earth is turns into an rpg game, with stats, loot boxes, rng(esus),
With viewer, favourites, and patrons
You get the idea.
With viewer, favourites, and patrons
You get the idea.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Child death, Chronic illness, Cursing, Deadnaming, Death, Fatphobia, Gun violence, Violence, Death of parent, War, and Injury/Injury detail
Minor: Child death
theleppy's review against another edition
adventurous
dark
funny
mysterious
tense
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
This book had me hooked immediately. There are so many moving parts and teases for what is to come later but all of the information and world building never got overwhelming. I crave more of these characters, this savage vicious dungeon world and it's place in a much wider world too. Even though this story's premise and content can be very grim and dark it tempers this with a lot of humor. I found myself feeling very sad but moments later I was cackling with delight. I couldn't wait to start book 2 immediately after I finished this one!
Content Warnings
Graphic: Animal cruelty, Animal death, Child death, Cursing, Death, Gore, Gun violence, Violence, Blood, Excrement, Dementia, Murder, Fire/Fire injury, and Injury/Injury detail
lehmane's review against another edition
adventurous
funny
lighthearted
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
5.0
It was a very entertaining read. The humor was enjoyable and the story is fast paced and easily read. The story progresses towards a predictable out come but the encounters an
Content Warnings
Graphic: Cursing, Death, Gore, Violence, and Injury/Injury detail
thedragonswarrior's review against another edition
adventurous
dark
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
2.5
Two star reviews are reserved for books that were so bad I did not finish, but had something enjoyable about them. This gets 2.5 because I finished it.
So I want to start by saying this is not a good book, and I would never recommend someone else read it. That being said, the good things about this book are that the action is fun, the characters are sometimes tolerable, and the author does a great job at two things: setting up seemingly impossible problems that the characters solve in interesting ways, and really getting a reader curious about what's going to happen next. This last one is somewhat clumsy and heavy handed, but it is very effective, so credit where credit is due.
This book is also incredibly racist and misogynistic. I'm pretty sure the author thinks most people in South America do not live or sleep in houses, either that or he thinks the continent is on the other side of the planet from North America. The book is full of gross sexist jokes, oftentimes in places and situations where they make no sense. The main character is practically sexless in the ways he responds to conversations about sex or sexuality, but the world around him is disturbingly horny, with the narrative pausing occasionally to breathlessly describe the details of an alien woman's gigantic boobs.
Also I'm pretty sure the author thinks the MC is a good person, but he chose to rob a group of people (racialized and otherized) who just helped him, then kill their leader. He accidently kills all their kids when he does this. How does this make him feel? Just kinda bad! Like a bit of a jerk! And how dare they make him feel bad about it (his words not mine.)
I use this detail to illustrate how incredibly bad at character writing the author is, at least in this first book. He really wants to have his cake and eat it too. He wants to write a fun and fast paced sleazy trashy adventure book, which he's pretty good at doing! But he also wants his characters to be complex and deep, he wants them to make hard and complicated choices and deal with the consequences both internally and externally, he wants to satirize our world and say something deep and meaningful about it, and at all these things he is an absolute failure. Also his worldbuilding is terrible. What a waste of an intergalactic society.
All in all I will not ever recommend this book, and will actively discourage others from reading it.
So I want to start by saying this is not a good book, and I would never recommend someone else read it. That being said, the good things about this book are that the action is fun, the characters are sometimes tolerable, and the author does a great job at two things: setting up seemingly impossible problems that the characters solve in interesting ways, and really getting a reader curious about what's going to happen next. This last one is somewhat clumsy and heavy handed, but it is very effective, so credit where credit is due.
This book is also incredibly racist and misogynistic. I'm pretty sure the author thinks most people in South America do not live or sleep in houses, either that or he thinks the continent is on the other side of the planet from North America. The book is full of gross sexist jokes, oftentimes in places and situations where they make no sense. The main character is practically sexless in the ways he responds to conversations about sex or sexuality, but the world around him is disturbingly horny, with the narrative pausing occasionally to breathlessly describe the details of an alien woman's gigantic boobs.
Also I'm pretty sure the author thinks the MC is a good person, but he chose to rob a group of people (racialized and otherized) who just helped him, then kill their leader. He accidently kills all their kids when he does this. How does this make him feel? Just kinda bad! Like a bit of a jerk! And how dare they make him feel bad about it (his words not mine.)
I use this detail to illustrate how incredibly bad at character writing the author is, at least in this first book. He really wants to have his cake and eat it too. He wants to write a fun and fast paced sleazy trashy adventure book, which he's pretty good at doing! But he also wants his characters to be complex and deep, he wants them to make hard and complicated choices and deal with the consequences both internally and externally, he wants to satirize our world and say something deep and meaningful about it, and at all these things he is an absolute failure. Also his worldbuilding is terrible. What a waste of an intergalactic society.
All in all I will not ever recommend this book, and will actively discourage others from reading it.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Ableism, Addiction, Animal cruelty, Animal death, Body horror, Body shaming, Child death, Death, Drug use, Fatphobia, Genocide, Gore, Gun violence, Misogyny, Racism, Sexism, Torture, Violence, Xenophobia, Blood, Trafficking, Sexual harassment, Colonisation, Injury/Injury detail, and Classism
abirchtealeaf's review against another edition
dark
funny
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
4.25
Look to be clear this is a light novel. Maybe it doesn't look like but the title of this should be.
How I ended up in the dungeon with nothing but my cat, underwear, and dynamite.
Taking this book as what it is. It's tremendous fun. The action goes fast enough to almost make you forget how horribly bleak the setting is. It's a decent take on the genre and compared to something like solo leveling, omvient readers viewpoint, or even any power scaling dungeon, crawling book it comes off less serious and more lovable.
Now to be clear this book comes with a pretty big list of trigger warnings. If none of those bother you and you want something fun. It's a pretty good read.
How I ended up in the dungeon with nothing but my cat, underwear, and dynamite.
Taking this book as what it is. It's tremendous fun. The action goes fast enough to almost make you forget how horribly bleak the setting is. It's a decent take on the genre and compared to something like solo leveling, omvient readers viewpoint, or even any power scaling dungeon, crawling book it comes off less serious and more lovable.
Now to be clear this book comes with a pretty big list of trigger warnings. If none of those bother you and you want something fun. It's a pretty good read.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Death, Drug abuse, Drug use, Genocide, Gore, Gun violence, Slavery, Violence, Blood, Kidnapping, Grief, Death of parent, Murder, Gaslighting, War, and Injury/Injury detail
Moderate: Animal cruelty, Animal death, Child death, and Blood
The book goes fast and doesn't linger but it's a dark setting. It's seems intentional that everything is awful and yet there is no time to longer on it.liline163's review against another edition
adventurous
funny
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
3.75
Content Warnings
Graphic: Death, Gore, and Violence
Moderate: Child death, Cursing, and Injury/Injury detail
ashley_bitton's review against another edition
adventurous
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Animal cruelty, Child death, Death, Gore, Violence, Blood, and Injury/Injury detail
calyps0ph's review against another edition
adventurous
dark
funny
hopeful
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? N/A
5.0
I loved this book! contains just enough earth pop culture references to not be insufferable like Ready Player One, but is more grounded than the whimsy of hitchhiker's guide (which I loved, don't get me wrong). love the (mild) gore, satire, and crude humor.
the game mechanics (loot boxes, leveling, stat points, etc.) got a smidge tedious—though its clear Dinniman tries to cut out down the unimportant details once readers have adjusted to premise—as well as the xp farming bits, but it's clear from the beginning that the first three levels are TRAINING. I disagree with the people grouching that the story is moving too slow because book 1 progresses through only two levels: if the levels moved any faster, y'all would've complained Carl was OP and the pace was unrealistic. once they get to level three and choose race/class, things will (hopefully) expand beyond defaulting to familiar tactics (explosives and magic missiles), and we'll get to see more inventive boss fights. it's clear that there are overarching political agendas at play, both inside and outside of the dungeon, and there are a number of complex characters that I'm invested in.
if I had to critique something besides the repetition, it'd be Odette's obscenely massive breast armor? I get that it's high-level gear, but with the loot boxes being somewhat tailored to the crawler, I want an explanation as to how and why she ended up with the appearance she's famous for when (if?) we get the backstory on her crawl. as for the rest of the female nudity, I'm not necessarily mad about it... yet. bodies are bodies, and there's nothing wrong with describing them, and right now, Dinniman's grotesque depictions lean more into body horror than sexualization. BUT! that could change. the only other nit-picky thing I have is Donut's Second Chance spell, which is originally described as being able to raise a monster of a lower level than the caster from the dead (Chap. 30, p. 257). In Chapter 45, Carl describes that Donut "could now apparently resurrect monsters up to five levels higher than herself" (396). The word "apparently" makes me think that there's some explanation for this, but for now it's an inconsistency.
can't wait to read the next book! long live science fiction!
the game mechanics (loot boxes, leveling, stat points, etc.) got a smidge tedious—though its clear Dinniman tries to cut out down the unimportant details once readers have adjusted to premise—as well as the xp farming bits, but it's clear from the beginning that the first three levels are TRAINING. I disagree with the people grouching that the story is moving too slow because book 1 progresses through only two levels: if the levels moved any faster, y'all would've complained Carl was OP and the pace was unrealistic. once they get to level three and choose race/class, things will (hopefully) expand beyond defaulting to familiar tactics (explosives and magic missiles), and we'll get to see more inventive boss fights. it's clear that there are overarching political agendas at play, both inside and outside of the dungeon, and there are a number of complex characters that I'm invested in.
can't wait to read the next book! long live science fiction!
Content Warnings
Graphic: Gore, Violence, Blood, Murder, and Injury/Injury detail
Moderate: Animal cruelty, Animal death, Body horror, Child death, and Gun violence
Minor: Incest, Infidelity, Sexual content, Trafficking, Cannibalism, and Classism
jenabest's review against another edition
adventurous
fast-paced
4.0
I picked this up on a whim, then started with much trepidation after someone I typically align with really disliked it. But maybe I went in with more accurate expectations?
I mostly enjoyed this, and while I wish there weren't SO many books in this series, I do think I'll chip away at it.
The premise is cool, and honestly, I'm here for Princess Donut. It's not a deep thinking read and the humor is really on par with online video game spaces. I'm really hoping book 2 gives more plot and less "action, action, action" but I'm rambling a bit because it wasn't bad and I had a good time.
HOWEVER - some of the content will seem questionable at best if you miss one teeny tiny paragraph. It states that "the game" takes stereotypes from Earth and then caricatureizes them further. This is probably a questionable judgement on the author's part, but I don't think the intent is malicious. At least, I really hope not.
I mostly enjoyed this, and while I wish there weren't SO many books in this series, I do think I'll chip away at it.
The premise is cool, and honestly, I'm here for Princess Donut. It's not a deep thinking read and the humor is really on par with online video game spaces. I'm really hoping book 2 gives more plot and less "action, action, action" but I'm rambling a bit because it wasn't bad and I had a good time.
HOWEVER - some of the content will seem questionable at best if you miss one teeny tiny paragraph. It states that "the game" takes stereotypes from Earth and then caricatureizes them further. This is probably a questionable judgement on the author's part, but I don't think the intent is malicious. At least, I really hope not.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Animal death, Death, Drug use, Gore, Violence, Murder, and Injury/Injury detail
lecheeese's review against another edition
adventurous
funny
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
5.0
A Dungeons & Dragons-style dungeon crawl with the wit and imagination of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. Will be sure to get you out of a reading slump as it's VERY addicting!
Did we really just start a meth war between the goblins and the llamas?
Content Warnings
Graphic: Animal cruelty, Animal death, Death, Genocide, Gun violence, Slavery, Suicide, Violence, Forced institutionalization, Blood, Dementia, Murder, Colonisation, and Injury/Injury detail
Minor: Drug use