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!

With this book you get exactly what's on the box.
We meet our main character on a child winter night wearing pink crocs, boxes to s, no shirt and a leather jacket and carrying a squirming prize winning tortoiseshell Persian cat.
His inventory is, half a packet of cigarettes.

This is not your typical dungeon crawl. Not your typical setup. The basis of the story is similar to Running Man meets Hunger Games, in a high-fantasy (plus bombs and guns) rogue-like dungeon crawl, with elements that feel similar to Douglas Adams, and somewhat similar to Diabolo.. kinda. The target audience is pretty clear, it's self-critical of the genre, it's ultra-violent, and has some ridiculous humour, off colour sexual content, and also peppered with some sober deathdealing brutality and remorse.

The audiobook is beautifully produced with one narrator doing a lot of different voices. Dialogue in tunnels has a touch of echo on it, calling over long distances is less loud, robotic AI tooltips or other-being voices have effects on them. The effect is really immersive and very well pulled off.

The story is a lot of fun, and this is only book one.