Dungeon Crawler Carl is a science fiction and fantasyLitRPG book series written by American author Matt Dinniman. It was initially self published by Dinniman on Royal Road, until the first six books were acquired by Ace Books in 2024.[1] The series follows Carl, a Coast Guard veteran, and Princess Donut, his ex-girlfriend's cat, as they are forced to participate in a deadly, intergalactic game show where Earth has been transformed into a massive dungeon crawl.[2]
The series begins with the sudden arrival of alien entities known as the Borant Corporation, who restructure Earth into a multi-level dungeon for their amusement. Humans and various Earth creatures are forced to become "contestants" in a live-streamed, gladiatorial game show, Dungeon Crawler World. Carl, having just been cheated on by his girlfriend and left with her cat, Princess Donut, finds himself thrust into a deadly competition with uncountable viewers across the galaxy watching their every move. Early in the first novel Princess Donut becomes sentient due to a special pet biscuit that Carl received for bringing the first cat into the dungeon. The biscuit also enhances Princess Donut's base stats, causing the dungeon to view her as the leader of her and Carl's two person group, which she dubs the "Royal Court of Princess Donut". As the series continues Carl encounters several other dungeon crawlers that include Frank Q and Maggie My, who have targeted Carl out of revenge. Other characters include Samantha, a banished lesser deity who inhabits the severed head of a love doll and who joins the Royal Court.
The dungeon levels are filled with traps, puzzles and monstrous creatures, all designed to test the contestants' strength, cunning, and teamwork. As Carl progresses through the dungeon, he gains experience, levels up, and acquires new skills and equipment, typical of LitRPG stories. Carl also learns that there is an ongoing power struggle between the corporations that run the various seasons of Dungeon Crawler World, which has caused the Borant Corporation to speed up the competition in order to stave off its competition from acquiring it.
The series is known for its dark humor, over-the-top violence, and the unlikely but endearing partnership between Carl and Princess Donut.
Development
Matt Dinniman at the 2025 AuthorCon in Williamsburg, Virginia, holding a plush of Princess Donut.
Dinniman began writing Dungeon Crawler Carl in December 2019 and started publishing the series on Royal Road. Due to the series' popularity, began self-publishing the series on Amazon in 2020.[3] While writing the series Dinniman drew upon his experience playing MMOs such as RuneScape, as well as the concept of in-game chatting, which he noted "adds another element because there’s all these different dynamics happening at once."[4] Prior to writing the series Dinniman espoused a desire to write a novel with a death-game setting; he also wanted to include a tortoiseshell colored Persian cat after seeing one at a cat show, where he was working as an artist. Per the author, he did not initially plan for the cat to be sapient and that this developed as Dinniman continued the series, as he tends to create and embellish the story as he works. This eventually led to the creation of Princess Donut as she is presented in the series, a character that Dinniman has stated is vital to the series. Dinniman is known for his interaction with his fanbase and allows his Patreon subscribers to impact some limited elements of the story by voting on the outcome of external factors such as lootbox content.[5]
The series includes some dark and comedic elements. In an interview with Grimdark Magazine Dinniman stated that it was difficult to maintain the balance between these two elements and that rather than automatically write a comedic scene after each dark one, he instead relies "on the characters themselves to get from point A to B, and humor is oftentimes a major coping mechanism."[6] Dinniman initially kept track of the series' characters and storylines via a spreadsheet that grew up to 198 pages, requiring the use of a second spreadsheet to track the content on the first. The size of the spreadsheet eventually crashed Dinniman's computer, causing the author to hire someone to create a Notion database for better ease of use.[5]
In 2024 Dinniman stated that he planned for the series to span ten books, but that "nothing is set in stone".[7]
Publication history
Early publication and Ace Books
Dinniman began publishing Dungeon Crawler Carl on Royal Road in 2020 and self-published the first entry in the series on Amazon on October 2, 2020, in ebook and paperback format.[3][4] He would continue in this form until 2024, when print rights to the series were picked up by Penguin Random House, who released the first volume through their Ace Books publishing wing on August 27, 2024.[8] Ebook rights to the series are still held by Dinniman, who continues to self-publish the entries via Amazon.[6] As of 2024, seven novels in the series have been published, most of them self-published before the series was picked up by Ace Books.[2]
In response to questions about whether the publisher would make changes to the series, Dinniman responded that the story would remain the same but that the series had undergone rigorous edits and that the releases would contain parts of a bonus novella set in the universe, Backstage at the Pineapple Cabaret.[6]
Audiobooks
The main audiobook adaptations of the Dungeon Crawler Carl series have been narrated by Jeff Hays, who has produced the adaptations via his company Soundbooth Theater.[9] Dinniman has stated that Hays's narration of female characters is so convincing that he has had people ask him if Annie Ellicott, a Soundbooth Theater artist, was an uncredited narrator for the first book.[5] Some guest narrators have appeared on the audiobooks, such as Travis Baldree and Patrick Warburton in book six.[10]
Per Dinniman, sales of the audiobook adaptations of the novels have surpassed the physical and e-book copies of the series and that much of his fanbase first experienced the series via Audible.[5]
In addition to the main audiobook version, the series has a separate production called an "Audio Immersion Tunnel", with a full-cast, original sound effects and music.[11] According to the author, these will not be replacing the existing audiobooks and are a separate product.
On the ninth floor, nine factions battle for control in a deadly war game, but with the AI failing and unexpected challengers rising, the stakes are higher than ever, only one will make it out.
Sales and reception
In a review of the first book for Locus, Gabino Iglesias criticized some jokes, and found the book repetitive, but wrote that "the important thing here is that the novel never becomes boring" and that the "shortcomings are easy to overlook".[2] Tonya Cherry of CKRM favorably reviewed the series, praising the audiobook narration and calling the series "a wild ride that blends humor, action, and a touch of heart, making for an unforgettable journey."[20]
As of December2024[update], the first four books published by Ace had sold almost 55,000 copies.[21] In March 2025 the seventh book in the series, This Inevitable Ruin, ranked #2 on The New York Times' Best Seller List for Audio Fiction,[22] while the fourth book, The Gate of the Feral Gods, ranked #9 on the Best Seller List for Hardcover Fiction.[23]
Television adaptation
In August 2024, it was announced that Universal International Studios, in collaboration with Seth MacFarlane’sFuzzy Door Productions, acquired the rights to adapt Dungeon Crawler Carl into a television series.[24]Christopher Yost is set to write the series adaptation. Dinniman expressed excitement about the adaptation, while Erica Huggins, President of Fuzzy Door, described the project as aligning with the company’s vision for genre-bending storytelling.[25]
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