Metaphorosis Reviews
Summary
Dungeon Crawler Carl, Donut, and their friends have made it to the sixth level of the dungeon aliens created from Earth for their own fun and profit. Carl is sick of the whole pointless process, but to make a stink about it, he and Donut will have to power through as usual, making odd alliances, and killing monsters left and right.
Review
Yet again, I’ve enjoyed this episode in the saga of Matt, Donut, and the increasingly off-kilter AI that runs the dungeon. In many ways, it’s reminding me of Martin Scott’s Thraxas books. There’s not a lot that’s new in each one; they stick to a familiar formula. But they’re consistently fun and easy to read; they’re books I enjoy picking up.
In this volume, Dinniman hasn’t picked up the pace quite as much as I’d expected, though he does finally do that a bit at the end. It’s more – to use the terminology of the book – grinding progress, though that sounds a lot more pejorative than I intend. In brief, there’s a lot more leveling up and dungeon level accomplishment than there is real forward progress in the larger narrative. The book is currently listed as a 7 book series, though I’m not sure whether that’s the intended total. I do start to worry a bit that this will become a Vlad Taltos formula book, with a great beginning devolving into the same story and jokes over and over. The dungeon has (I think) 18 levels, and even a dozen books would be taking a good thing way too far. Still, so far, so entertaining, and I hold out hope that Dinniman, like his protagonist, has a plan.
Larger picture aside, we do get the usual crop of goodies here: Carl and Donut are good at heart, there’s some relationship development, there are cool items and spells, etc. We also get the usual weaker points: it’s often hard to follow what’s happening or why, and the geography is vague. The point, though, is that to date, the goodies far outweigh the weak points, and these books are just a lot of fun.
I do continue to think, though, that the old covers are a lot better than the new ones.
I received this book for free in exchange for an honest review.