IN WHICH I REALIZE LEVELING UP IS MORE FUN IN GAMES THAN IN BOOKS

Have you heard about LitRPG? It's a fiction genre built around leveling up, stat points, gear drops, and video-game-like progression. As a reader who also happens to love video games, I thought this was a match made in heaven. So off I went and got myself a copy of the most popular contender in the genre: Dungeon Crawler Carl (DCC). For those unfamiliar with the series, DCC follows Carl and his cat Princess Donut as they're forced into a deadly intergalactic dungeon-crawling reality show after Earth's destruction. It's like The Hunger Games meets Running Man, in RPG fashion.

While I did devour the first half, the plot eventually dragged and lost steam, making it a struggle to finish. Ironically, the friend I bought the book for (so we could read it together) has probably already finished book eight by now, anxiously awaiting the next installment of who knows how many more.

The opening of DCC hooked me instantly. The dark humor, the ingenuity, the hilarious AI controlling the game, Princess Donut? Loved it all. I am absolutely the target audience for a dramatic, sentient cat who treats the apocalypse like a mildly inconvenient spa day. The novelty of mixing RPG mechanics with a quirky, post-apocalyptic story was a recipe for success, and I was eating it up... until the leveling up and inventory item fatigue hit.

As a casual gamer, I'm all about upgrading armor and stats, unlocking abilities, hoarding potions I will never use, etc. But reading about it? Not the same experience—I soon found out. The more DCC leaned into its leveling, stats, and loot, the more I found myself skimming. Scenes suddenly felt like patch notes, and the pages often read like inventory screens. But tedious as all that was, it wasn't the only reason why this series lost me as a reader.

I like Carl as a character. He's clever, snarky, and completely likeable. The problem isn't him; it's the pacing and structure around the progression of his story. Spoiler: Book one ends with Carl barely making it to level two... out of eighteen. That's roughly 11% progress through the dungeon after an entire book. It made the ending anticlimactic and underwhelming, making me feel a little cheated. And judging from what I managed to plow through of book two, this is how every novel in the series is structured.

Book two actually made things worse for me, introducing an underground city for Carl and Donut to traverse, along with complex subplots that seemed to take over the crawling main plot, convoluted systems, etc. I get why it was needed, but it became overwhelming rather than engaging. The humor and novelty from book one were almost entirely buried under logistics.

Still, I have to give credit where credit is due. The worldbuilding and all the mechanics Matt Dinniman has created are nothing short of amazing. From what my friend tells me, details introduced early weave into later books, and threads connect in ways that make the sprawling, complex world feel purposeful. The scale, creativity, and ambition of this series rival—or even exceed—George R. R. Martin (who I often mention because he impresses the heck out of me), and it's no wonder, given the whole universe of material Dinniman has built. Kudos to him.

For readers like my friend, who thrive on incremental progress, stats, loot, and long-term payoff, LitRPG is perfect. But I want emotional arcs, meaningful story tension (not just in the form of battles and hints of things to come five books down the road), and some kind of resolution within a single installment aside from completing a dungeon level. This structure would translate well to TV, so I'm actually looking forward to the live action adaptation.

What about you, fellow reader? Where do you land on LitRPG? If you've found one that you think I'd like, I'm all eyes.

If you've made it this far, thank you! And thanks for being a part of my monthly ramblings. As this is my last post this year, I want to wish you a very Merry (or Happy, depending on which side of the pond you reside) Christmas and a Happy New Year! May your 2026 be filled with great reads and maybe a few unexpected genre surprises.

See you in the new year!

—Sam ♡

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