Dungeon Crawler Carl

First impression: Ready Player One for gamers. (That's not a compliment). Second impression: actually deep, and I love that sassy cat.

I was close to dropping the book after the first few pages. The constant "hilarious" in-game descriptions were really off putting. The whole premise of "what if a regular person was dropped into Warcraft!" was pretty dull, too.

I kept pushing through though because I'm a sucker for a good cat character, and Princess Donut is excellent. I stayed because I do enjoy a good power leveling fantasy when the characters are also good. By the mid point I was detecting some interesting themes on voyeurism and capitalist exploitation.

For the record, though, Matthew Woodring Stover did a much better job on those topics with the Legacy of Cain series - grittier, more complex, and ultimately more horrifying.

So far, I can say I enjoy DCC, but I doubt it'll have a permanent spot on my shelf.