Dungeon Crawler Carl
Matt Dinniman · Book 1 of the Dungeon Crawler Carl series
One night every building on Earth collapses, and the survivors find themselves contestants in an alien game show: a dungeon eighteen floors deep, streamed to the rest of the galaxy. Carl goes in wearing his boxer shorts and a jacket, with his ex-girlfriend’s show cat, Princess Donut, who turns out to be far better at this than he is.
It reads like a video game written by someone who loves video games: loot boxes, achievements, levelling up and a dungeon run by an AI that doesn’t always do what its owners want. It’s also very funny, and sharper about corporations and entertainment than you’d expect. It started as a self-published series in 2020 and became a word-of-mouth hit. There’s an audiobook too, read by Jeff Hays, which many fans swear by: you’ll find it on Audible.
Fair warning: plenty of swearing and violence, so it’s one for the grown-ups.