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A father and daughter discuss life across their generations. Science, medicine, music, and whatever else they choose to discuss are on the table.
Aubrey
00:00
I'm not gonna get a tattoo for Dudend Crawler Carl.
Peter
00:15
Welcome back to Generations. I am one of your hosts, Peter.
Aubrey
00:18
And I am your other host, Aubrey.
Peter
00:21
Aubrey, how are you?
Aubrey
00:23
I'm doing pretty good. You know, I had my best friend come visit from Utah last weekend. Um, so I got to see her. I haven't seen her since like January, which was good, which means I didn't work on Monday, and then also I didn't have work on Friday. So I worked three days this week. Nice. Nice. Which was fantastic. Um, no tornadoes in the last few weeks though, so that has been good. Excellent. Um But yeah, I've just been chilling. How have you been?
Peter
00:58
Uh I've been pretty okay. I've been on call for a while now. Today is my last day of this 12-day run of call. So Yikes. Uh you know, had to go in for an emergency surgery Friday. Well, I guess technically it was Saturday morning. Anyway, I was awake from about 1. 15 until 3. 30, 4 o'clock at night. morning. The little bit of sleep I got, I mean I slept, it was in bed for a few hours after that, but it was one of these things where I never really fell deep asleep. I would like. flitter in and out of awake and REM cause like I would be laying there and then awake and then all of a sudden I'd be like, huh, that was weird. That must have been a weird dream I was having for a few minutes. But I would never like get into like Sleep where I felt like I was asleep. So yesterday, needless to say, I was dragging big time. I'm too I am that hits me much harder than it used to. When I was in residency, I could, you know, if I didn't get any sleep, especially when I was on general surgery, I was okay. I could make it through the rest of the day. And then just go to bed at like nine o'clock and do it all over again. And now again, I I just, well, last night was I felt I felt real rough. Real rough. But yeah, that's rough. But anyway, uh, should we get on to our topic?
Aubrey
02:26
I think we should.
Peter
02:26
Let's do it. So, as we hinted at last week We're gonna get to this week. We we we or two weeks ago, I guess. We're gonna talk about Dungeon Crawler. Carl, I think we both have feelings. I know for a fact the internet has feelings. Yeah. Because I've been on the receiving end of some of those feelings.
Aubrey
02:51
Oh, I see.
Peter
02:52
So I think, you know, let's talk about uh let's stay spoiler-free for the first little bit. We'll talk about, you know, what is the conceit of this story, what we've liked about it, how did we find it, that kind of stuff And then we're not going to go through a full, I mean, there's seven books out now. We both have finished them all. Book eight comes out in nine days or something, I think. Yep. Nine days. And so we're not gonna go through a whole, you know, beat by beat thing through the story, because I think that would be too much. But but we will get into a discussion where we can talk about things that would be considered spoilers freely. So we'll make sure that that's clearly delineated. But Aubrey, tell me first, how did you sort of discover Dungeon Crawler, Carl? What was your introduction to this year?
Aubrey
03:37
Yeah, my introduction was Hayden actually read it first because he was looking around for some good fiction that is just kind of different from the stuff we've been reading, but like still along the, you know, sci-fi fiction zone. Um, and he's like reading it and he's telling me that one of the characters is like a talking cat. And I was like I was like, I don't want to read that. That sounds weird. I was like, I I think I'm good. Like, let me know how you feel afterwards, but like I think I'm okay. And he's like Yeah, and her name's Princess Dona. And I'm like in my head I'm picturing like a giant, like human-sized cat. Like a like a human-sized cat that's like, you know, white and fluffy and it's some freaky weird video game like like I was like I don't know if this is the vibe of a book I want to read. He finishes the series and then his brother starts reading the series and is like Okay, Aubrey, you have to like you have to. And I was like, I don't know if I will. I think you're lying. And I was like, okay, you know what? I don't think they're very long books. I'm I'm looking for something to listen to on Audible anyways. Like I think it was right after I'd finished like Stormlight or something. Um and I was like, okay, maybe maybe I'll give it a try and I start listening to it. Yeah.
Peter
05:08
So quick question. Did Hayden read it or did he listen to it? He listens to it entirely. Yep. And we'll come back to that because I think that's an important point.
Aubrey
05:18
Yes. Very, very important. Yeah. So he was like, you should listen to it because this narrator, um, does all the voices and they're, you know, huge dynamic range of all the voices of the characters and they're just a really good audiobook reader. And I was like, okay So I got into it and immediately started reading it and I was like, okay, yeah, you got me. You got me. I like it. It's funny. It's fun. I like it. But what was your introduction?
Peter
05:51
Well, so I I think that I I I don't know for sure. I believe that it was really just the fact that A lot of people, especially in or associated with the my little DD group of friends, they had started reading it. And so people were just talking about it at work. And it's one of these things that, you know, this is how obviously modern internet works. Once you search for something, that's it. You're screwed. It's going to start showing up all over the place. the place. So then it was, you know, an occasional thing on TikTok about it or, you know, some post somewhere or just ads about it were were popping up and stuff. And so I'd been hearing about it for a little bit. Again, I was working through Stormlight. And then I wanted to work on uh three body problem. And after I got through the second book of three body problem, which is interesting, but much more just feels much more heavy. It's kind of existentially heavy and it's a little slower moving and everything because, you know, it was written in Chinese and so it's a translation. And I got through the second book of that, and I just needed something different. I needed something that was going to be a little more just a little more light, a little more kind of to feel a little more fluffy. At the same time, I will say Dungeon Crawler Carl is much darker than I was expecting because I didn't really know the whole conceit. I knew that it was in the RPG. you know, category. And I've read a few lit RPG books. I I when I first discovered the genre a number of years ago, I kind of I I I read a bunch of books and very quickly burned out because a lot of them are bad. Um have you read any other lit RPG books?
Aubrey
07:45
I've not. This is my only one.
Peter
07:47
I would say if you like Dungeon Crawler Carl, don't think that means you're gonna like other litter. RPG books.
Aubrey
07:54
No, I kind of had that thought where I was like, I think I like this specific series, but I don't know if I want to be in the same genre. Like, I don't think that's gonna be my thing.
Peter
08:05
Here's the reason I have had a hard time with a lot of other lit RPG stuff. In Dungeon Crawler Carl, Carl is a reluctant protagonist. He's a reluctant hero. Yeah. And we'll talk about that a little bit in in just a bit. But in so much of the other litRPG that I have read, now by no means does this mean this is all of it, but so much of it is just like a power fantasy and it's almost always written by dudes and it's a male power fantasy and the the the male main characters find themselves in this fantasy or science fiction world and realize that they have the ability to manipulate the world through their stats and through the RPG mechanics of it. And begin to exploit it and it always turns into this, in some cases, kind of gross malepow fantasy. Uh it is not uncommon for More mainstream. Again, I didn't go looking for this. This was just the things that were getting recommended to me when I first started reading a few. But almost all of them have some sort of like harem aspect to them that is kind of gross. And again, they just feel Oh, how do I say this without uh uh offending people? I'm not I'm not I don't care. I don't care. It feels like most of them are just written by a bunch of incels. Yeah. So I appreciate that there hasn't been any of that In Dungeon Crawler Carl. And that Carl, yes, he is absolutely manipulating things to the the systems of the game and everything. But not because he's like, ha, watch me become Lord Ruler over all, and I will have my concubines and my harem, and I will be the king, you know? So Yeah, yeah. So that I I think has been a refreshing thing. But it was one of the things that put me off a little bit is knowing it was LitRPG and having read some of these books that again, series that started out kind of cool and sometimes within a cup a book or two, sometimes in the first book, and I was like, screw this, I'm done. Other and like there's some I just DNF'd and then others where it was like I'm into this story and then like three or four books in, all of a sudden it's like, oh, there you go.
Aubrey
10:14
You finally got there. There it is. So
Peter
10:18
So um uh how much do you know about Matt Dinnerman, the author?
Aubrey
10:23
Not basically anything at all. I except for I've seen a few few TikToks in the in the last like week because of course I saw one TikTok about Dungeon Crawler Carl. Um and I I didn't know he just like looks like a regular schmegular white dude.
Peter
10:43
Well so he is. Here's the wild thing. So Dungeon Crawler Carl blew up in the pandemic. He started writing this in 2019. He was posting chapters on Royal Road. It's a free online web serial platform. He here's the wild thing. He was an artist who literally traveled the country. doing illustrations of cats at cat shows.
Aubrey
11:15
He actually what actually at cat shows.
Peter
11:18
Yes. Before the pandemic, that was his job. He traveled the country and would do commissioned artwork of people's cats at cat shows.
Aubrey
11:29
That's iconic.
Peter
11:30
And so he saw at one show there was at the at his booth where people because again he goes and he'd like set up a booth and people could come by and be like, oh yeah. Draw my Here's my cat. And one of these, he was there at his booth. There was a Persian cat that was next to his booth and just like stared at him for hours. And he, according to notes, thought to himself, I'm gonna put that in a book someday. So he was writing on the side. But this was like his yeah and then in 2020, obviously with COVID. all that shut down. And so he started publishing this for real and he started out self-publishing on Amazon and then it just exploded uh and went from there. Yeah. Um so I think the thing we need to talk about The key thing with this is the audiobooks. And the reason this is so important is most people who are familiar with the anyone who and I think anyone who has listened to the audiobooks will say. You need to listen to it. I did a little listen. I did mostly this excuse me. I did mostly listening and a little reading. Um, just if there were times where I was like, oh, I'm gonna read this faster. I wanna get some reading done. But another thing I actually found that I did fairly often with Dungeon Crawler Carl, because the audiobooks are so good and well done. is I found myself doing immersive reading. I didn't know that was a technical term, but that is the term for when you listen to the audiobook and read at the same time.
Aubrey
13:05
Oh, I have done that before, yeah.
Peter
13:07
So I would do that sometimes and then when I would do that just to make it fast I would really crank up the speed too.
Aubrey
13:12
A lot faster than if I was just Yeah, because I can read way faster than just listen. Yeah, when I when I've done that before, it's like three times speed because I'm just like zooming across the page.
Peter
13:21
Yeah. So um the reason I think that it's so important is not only will most people tell you that's the version that you need to ingest. But according to some things I found on Ren Online, and I didn't try and collect corrab corroborate this completely, but I found some things that said that the audiobooks have outsold the e-books and print books combined.
Aubrey
13:43
Wow.
Peter
13:44
So definitely the more popular thing. And I think that all boils down to Jeff Hayes.
Aubrey
13:54
Absolutely.
Peter
13:55
So you're the one who told me first about this. Tell me, tell me about Jeff Hayes. Tell me about the audiobooks, Aubrey.
Aubrey
14:02
Oh yeah. So Jeff Hayes is one of the most talented and wide-range audiobook readers I have ever experienced in my life. Um he is incredible. He does every single voice. He does the male voices, the female voices, the um robotic voices, the different creatures voices and He manages to keep things so consistent that you know exactly who is talking, no matter what, even when there is multiple characters having dialogue together Like, even if it doesn't say, you know, who is saying each line, you know exactly who's talking. It is very distinct. Distinctive.
Peter
14:53
And it's distinctive enough that If you're doing that immersive reading, you'll notice that not all the time, but it's not uncommon for Jeff Hayes to actually leave out
Aubrey
15:08
a little Carl said or yes yes I was gonna ask if that's how he did it like with the versus the real books versus the audiobooks If he kind of cut out a few words.
Peter
15:19
There is not all of them, but there's definitely ones where he leaves it out because, like you said, you don't need it. Um it's interesting. I have listened to So uh I listen to quite a few audiobooks. Uh I like them. Uh I like to read a little bit more, but I love being able to, when I'm mowing the lawn or when I'm you know, on a long driving over to Boise for a swim meet or something like that, be able to listen to uh an audiobook and get through, you know, just I Sometimes it's a nice break from podcasts, you know. Sometimes it's something I want something more. Most of the time I listen to audiobooks, you know, with a single narrator. Sometimes you'll get ones like a lot of the Brandon Sanderson stuff, especially the Stormlight Archive, he has two people. Uh the Wheel of Time was similar. It was the same actually, two people as who did the storm. Stormlight Archive, the two. Oh, Michael Kramer and Kate Redding. Yeah. And and so, you know, and sometimes you'll have that where it's okay, if it's m mostly a male character uh POV chapter or section, then you know it'll be Michael Kramer and then it would switch to Kit Redding with a little overlap here and there. If there was like a little section in each, it wouldn't totally cut back and forth. But I've also listened to reluctantly, I would say, some uh drama drum dramatized audio interpretations. I don't care for them. I think that uh I I know that murder bot Uh the Murderbot Diaries by Martha Wells. There's one or two of those. And I don't remember if it was that was the only version or if I had accidentally Bought that version rather than just the regular one. I think that that might be just how they did the audiobooks for Murderbot. Um I think that might be. I I don't love it. I really don't. It would be easy to assume that that's what's going on here with Dungeon Crawler Carl. you said. Now there are two other voice people who come in in book six. Patrick Warburton does the voice of Carl's dad. Uh it's minimal. Travis Baldry does some voice in there. I don't actually know who he voiced.
Aubrey
17:39
I think he does Ryu ra or Raoul the Crab, I think.
Peter
17:43
All right. Which makes sense. I can see that. Um but yeah, everything else is Jeff Hayes, all the characters. Yep. And so, you know, it's over 300 characters. I guess, you know, he has like this system of Reference clips to make sure when he's gonna do certain character he can get back into that voice and stuff But I think that it's so enjoyable and it's so distinct and it's so, like you said, consistent that that's what makes the audiobooks just it's what makes them really stand out. Yep. I've read so you know I've listened to some other audiobooks that are very distinctive where a certain narrator really adds to it. The Dresden Files comes to mind where James uh Uh Marsters has read all of those except he was unable to read book 11 and there was enough of an outcry that uh they actually went back and re-recorded book 11 with him as as the yeah no but they did it a couple years later but uh but i think that jeff hayes really stands out as uh as an incredibly talented narrator And an I would see voice actor in this, which Absolutely Um which I think elevates the audiobooks So tell me, we we've kind of talked about it. Just give me you what are your thoughts? What are your feelings in general about Dungeon Crawler, Carl?
Aubrey
19:09
Um, I love them. Cool. I love it. I think it it was a very nice break from like I like I said, I was reading Stormlight right before and obviously those Books are so long and so slow that it was a very nice breath of fresh air to kind of just like zoom through a high packed action And I mean honestly, like I say, let's
Peter
19:33
As we have discussed before, you look at Wind and Truth, almost 1,400 pages that just chronicles what happens over the course of 10.
Aubrey
19:43
Ten days. Ten days.
Peter
19:46
Yep.
Aubrey
19:47
And nice breath of fresh air for sure. Yeah, and it's very light Relatively, I guess. There's obviously like the dark moments, and it's definitely pretty graphic in some time some areas, some moments, but overall it keeps pretty funny. It is like there's pretty much always always funny moments which I don't often like read a book and like literally laugh out loud at what is being said, but I definitely, definitely did many times for Dungeon Crawler Crawler across the whole series where I'm like literally cannot stop myself from laughing out loud at listening to what's happening. Um Which is always fun. Like it's like I am excited to read the book. I'm never like, uh, not really feeling it. Like I would get in the car. And be like, yeah, I don't want to listen to a podcast. I don't want to listen, I don't want to listen to music. I want to listen to the book.
Peter
20:46
I mean, I made it through all seven books over the course of maybe seven weeks or so, you know.
Aubrey
20:52
Yeah, yep. I also cruise through them and then, oh yeah, I am wearing my fit.
Peter
20:57
Let me show the show the people.
Aubrey
21:00
Dungeon Crawler World. And then you got the little AI, you know, what is it?
Peter
21:06
New achievement. Homeschool.
Aubrey
21:08
Yep, new achievement.
Peter
21:09
Nice.
Aubrey
21:10
Very good. Yep. Love it. Um, so yeah, I can say with with a certainty, yeah, I'm a big fan. Big fan of big fan of the books. Very good.
Peter
21:19
But what about you? So here's where for me it's a little complicated. Okay. I thoroughly enjoyed the books. But, and this is where I say I've taken some flack online, I've had the temerity. to say that they're kind of light, fluffy, fairly inconsequential, but super, super fun and engaging. And some people have taken umbrage with my description of these as not art
Aubrey
21:47
Oh.
Peter
21:49
So that's the thing, is it's like, is there some sociopolitical commentary in the series? Yes.
Aubrey
21:57
Yeah.
Peter
21:57
But it's all fairly superficial. There's no deep moments in this book that really make you think. There's some powerful emotional beats. I will say I feel like they're not as powerful as they could have been because of the way Matt Dinner writes. And maybe that's what he was going for. Maybe that's what he wanted. Again, I don't say that as a criticism. There were things that I there were things that I thought the series was building to that I expected to have more emotional weight when we got there than they did. There are some other things though that were surprising emotional weight. So again, you know, I don't want this to sound like I'm being critical. I thoroughly enjoyed the books. I bought them on Audible Book. on audiobook. I bought them all on Kindle so that I can read them as well. I will be getting the new book when it comes out.
Aubrey
22:51
Yep.
Peter
22:52
But at the same time, I kind of look at them and like, but they're kind of fluffy. You know, this is like this is like kind of pulpy sort of There's nothing about these that makes me keep thinking about things in them other than, oh, that was fun, or that scene was funny, or whatever.
Aubrey
23:11
But yeah.
Peter
23:12
And so and that's where I find it odd the vehemence with which and passion that a number of people online have like Again, it is possible to love a thing, to find great enjoyment with it. but also be like, but this isn't fine art. And and it doesn't seem like there's it seems like there is this There is a segment of fans who don't seem to be able to separate those two things. and understand that entertainment can be a ton of fun and entertaining and we can love it, but it's also Just that. Entertainment. Yeah. And that's perfectly okay. We need entertainment in our lives. That's why I'm not saying that this is a bad thing. But people get so flippin' butthurt about the fact that I'm like, again. Do I love some knuckle-dragging bruiser death metal that's just like yes? Right. Is it art? Not really. It's fucking death metal. Over here, we've got, say, Beethoven's ninth. That's an incredible experience. One of the more transcendental experiences I've ever had in my life in listening to music. was listening to Beethoven's Ninth Live, performed on I Think Your Mom Was in the Choir and with the Orchestra, and it brought me to tears. Right. And over here we have the new Lamb of God album that I think is a great freaking Lamb of God album.
Aubrey
24:51
Yeah.
Peter
24:52
Those two are not the same thing, and that's okay
Aubrey
24:57
Right. Not everything needs to be Beethoven's.
Peter
25:00
Right. You don't want to. Your brain doesn't need to, nor should it need to listen. to Beethoven and Mozart and Brahms and Schubert and Schumann and all like all the time. It should be able to listen to, I don't know, Taylor Swift. Not for me, but you know what I mean? Like you should be able to listen to stuff that's just kind of fun and poppy and light and doesn't make you fo you don't have to focus to catch this or be like, oh, we're bringing back this motif from this previous movie. Like you don't Right. And it's the same way here. Like, look, Matt Dinneman is an admitted, he is, he says he is a pantser. That means he writes these by the seat of his pants. That's the term. In in writing, you've got plotters, you've got pants. Plotters are people who have an outline for every every book, every scene. And if it's a multi-book thing, these people will often have the whole thing planned out from the get-go.
Aubrey
25:51
Yep, Brando Sando.
Peter
25:52
Brando Sando. Matt Dinneman, he's a Panzer. He's got an idea of where he wants to go and he sits down and he starts writing it. That's great. I my first book was a complete panzer book. And and so but I say that because he's kind of taking it as it goes and he's putting things in and he's making changes and he's moving along because he doesn't Need to have some huge overarching societal commentary about everything. Now, again, does he work some of that in? Absolutely. But it's just I I thoroughly enjoyed them. I look forward to the next book. But also, Dungeon Carler Carl is entertainment. It isn't literature.
Aubrey
26:35
Right. And that is totally It's okay. That's totally fine. Yeah. Like you weren't saying that to be like this is the Shittiest book series I've ever read in my life, and it's actual trash. Like that's what it feels like the people who were just coming at you before.
Peter
26:49
Again, I've got a lot of stuff that I just did not finish. Just you know, started reading and I was like, DNF, no, I am out Do not want to have anything to do with this. This was not again, I mainlined them all. I'm looking forward to the next book. But it's okay for us to put it in the place where it fits in the pantheon of types of books written.
Aubrey
27:10
Right. Like there's there's book series that like I have literally gotten tattoos from because that's how important they were to my life, and this is not one of them. I'm not gonna get a tattoo for Dudden Crawler Carl.
Peter
27:22
I mean And that's okay.
Aubrey
27:28
I'm not saying that I thought about it. I'm saying that'd be fun. Right, but it's like those the books aren't the ones where I I sit and ponder about it. I'm not gonna ponder. And that's okay. I don't want to ponder about every book I wrote.
Peter
27:44
No. Sometimes we need to be exhausting.
Aubrey
27:46
That's exhausting. Yep. And they did just that. They did exactly that. So And it was lovely for that.
Peter
27:54
It it was. I'm gonna give a big overview and then we're gonna go into the spoiler section. So basically uh We find out, you know, Earth not alone in the universe. And as many uh s almost everything, when Earth finds out it's not alone in the universe, this goes poorly for us. Earth finds out it's not alone in the universe when all of a sudden All buildings just get crushed. Everything gets collapsed down into the ground. If you're inside a building, you're toast. If you are outside, you are okay. And this all happened because the Borant Corporation is coming to strip mine the planet. And while they do it to make extra money while they're mining for resources, they turn each planet that they're mining, you know, each planet gets turned into a crawl. And so the crawl is an 18-level dungeon. The humans who enter the dungeon. Get in this humans who don't choose to enter the dungeon, they're still up on the surface. Stuff's happening to them. We've had a few little hints here and there, but not much. And Carl goes down into the dungeon. He happened to be outside getting his ex-girlfriend's cat. They go down into the dungeon. Very quickly realize, oh, this is not a great place, but we can't go out. The cat eats a little biscuit treat thingy that turns her into a sentient. full-on not just a pet but now a full-on crawler a full-on character uh princess donut the queen and chunk and then we have donut and we have carl they now have to navigate this 18 level dungeon We find out that nobody's ever made it past, I think, level 13. Uh, and that each dungeon kind of has its own theme, and then key dungeons divisible by three, three, six, nine. 12, 15, and 18 all tie into this greater story, the scolapendra thing. The crawl is being broadcast throughout the entire known galaxy. Trillions of people watch it. They They can become patrons. They can again, it's just another way to make money. And so that's where I think some of the socio-political commentary comes in, is that all of this is in the sake of unfettered capitalism. where you know people are paying uh ungodly amounts of money to to send things to crawlers, to sponsor them, to support them. There people are getting advertisements. They're having to get pulled, you know, Carl's getting pulled out to go to a convention and and and all this is happening while again in the meantime There's this underlying thing about AIs at the core of each planet that are running things and a something happening with the AIs and the current AI for this planet is Go and cuckoo for Coco Puffs way earlier than they expected. Yep. And all of this kind of builds in where there's the stuff going on in the crawl, in the dungeon, and Carl as an agent of chaos is also making stuff happen outside the dungeon, impacting the bigger universe of of everything. Again, they're a ton of fun. And I strongly recommend them. I highly recommend them. But do know that this is, again, post-apocalyptic. Bad things are happening. Lots and lots and lots of people die in very gruesome and graphic ways, and sometimes gruesome and graphic things happen, and people don't die from it. There are good people, there are bad people, there are horrible people. It's but it's a lot of fun, especially given kind of how dark it can be at times. I still find that he does it, Matt Dinneman does a good job of still making them entertaining so they don't feel existentially heavy, even though if you take a step back, you're like, it probably should. I probably anything else you want to say before we just start talking about and again we're not gonna go through the whole thing, but any key things, key moments or or plot specific things that you are expecting or thinking?
Aubrey
32:03
No, I think we can just jump right.
Peter
32:04
Okay, so from here on out, folks, spoilers, uh, we're gonna talk about whatever we want. So, Aubrey, what do you think is gonna happen? Where do you think this is going?
Aubrey
32:20
I think that Carl will successfully dismantle the whole Borrent Corporation and probably end up destroying the entire universe. I kind of feel like it's gonna be like a he succeeds but at the cost of Everything sort of situation. That's kind of where I think it's gonna go.
Peter
32:38
So at the very beginning, when they talk about this 18-floor dungeon and nobody's made it past the 13th floor. I was like, oh yeah, well Carl's and Donut, they're gonna be the first ones to make it to 18. And I am with you. No, they're not gonna make it to 18. They're going to tear this thing apart before they ever get there. And that actually makes sense. You know, we're we've got book eight coming. I did see Matt Dinner himself on Reddit say He's thinking this will be about 10 books. So I thought that it was about halfway through. And then I read that and realized, oh no. So here's my thought. I think the final book will be level 12. Because I think something with the ascension whole God thing and everything on level 12, I think that's going to be somehow the mechanics of that level are going to play into uh to to the whole thing completely falling apart.
Aubrey
33:35
Yeah, yeah, I would agree. They he tends to there there's been a lot of things happening with the deities and the power that they have versus what they don't have. And I agree. I think I think that could be key to the destruction of the whole the whole shebang.
Peter
33:51
And you know, timing wise that would kind of work out because for the most part We've had one book per level. Um you know, I think is it the first book that was two levels? The first one is two levels and then we obviously level seven was like, I don't know, three paragraphs. That's a I'm underplaying it. But it was like maybe a couple pages because you know, Pony just busts on through the whole thing. So we skipped level seven entirely. But I can see where, you know, book eight finished, excuse me, book seven finished as they were getting ready to go down to level ten. And so we've got ten. I can see book eight being level ten, book nine being level eleven, book twelve, or book level twelve being book ten. would make sense for me. Yeah. Um what else? Any other big thoughts of where you think things you think key things you think might happen? Here's my big question for you.
Aubrey
34:44
Yeah.
Peter
34:45
Are Carl and Donut gonna survive to the end? Both of them.
Aubrey
34:50
I do not think they will. I have thought on multiple occasions that Donut was gonna die in a book. So did I. Um And I just have a hunch that she's gonna either die or something horrible will happen to her that will like take her away from Carl. Especially because in the most recent I think in the seventh book now I can't quite remember they kind of are like making this pact with each other to never be separated because any time they are separated everything kind of just goes to shit. Um and he is super, super protective of her, and she obviously does so much better when she's with him, and I just don't feel like she's gonna s
Peter
35:40
Survive.
Aubrey
35:41
And it's gonna be horrible, but that's just kind of where I think it's gonna go.
Peter
35:45
Yeah, I I'm I I have some gut feeling. At the same time I did read something where Matt Dinneman said Donut was not supposed to be a main character. She was supposed to kind of be there a little bit at the beginning and then she was gonna go away for much of it and maybe show up at some point later. And he fell in love with the character and made her kind of one of the primary characters. I I don't know. I can see where here's what I would say. That might be something that really, that really gets me.
Aubrey
36:18
I Yes, I agree.
Peter
36:20
One of the covers, and I can't remember which one, I was trying to find it really fast, but one of the covers, Dona is either not on or barely on.
Aubrey
36:28
Yes, that's that's what my first thought was. Is I was like, oh, she's not on the cover, she's gonna die.
Peter
36:34
So I literally, literally went and looked up to find out because I'll be honest, uh when I was thinking about that one, I was like, I'm I'm not gonna read it. If if she's done, I'm done. I'm stopping the books. Yeah. Yeah. But that's fair. It's it is interesting because here's what I would say. I kind of hope she does make it. Because I worry that okay, Carl already is kind of, he's not an anti-hero, but he's a reluctant hero. And he he does have a sense of morality to him. Yeah. But at the same time, he can play a little fast and loose with that if he feels he needs to And you know, we look at things like his ongoing use of the ring of divine suffering and things like that. But I worry that if Donuts gone, Carl loses himself.
Aubrey
37:33
Yes. Yep. I think if she's gone, he will go batshit crazy. And he's already kind of batshit.
Peter
37:40
Like I can see Carl becoming a villain. And And I don't think it's a little bit more than a little bit.
Aubrey
37:48
We can kind of see those Yeah, because we can kind of see those moments slipping through, and I feel like it tends to be more often when Dona is like separated from him and he can't cause she She can like pull him back. She hates the fact that he uses the ring of divine suffering. She she always is like, Carl, we don't monologue around the bad guys right before we kill them. Um Like she's she's kind of that sense of pulling him back to reality and I definitely think if she were to be gone he would it would it would just be over for him and he would just be crazy and yeah, it would be bad.
Peter
38:28
Yeah, that's that's what I worry about. Um I I think that, you know, you look at some of the big things that have happened. I was glad. I thought Beatrice, his ex-girlfriend, was going to be used much more strongly to manipulate him.
Aubrey
38:45
Me too.
Peter
38:46
Uh I was glad that it was kind of a whatever, I'm over it. You know, that basically they bring her in thinking this is going to give them some power over him. And I appreciated that it very quickly did not. That he was just like Yes. Yeah. This doesn't do anything.
Aubrey
39:02
Yeah, 'cause at the end in the epilogue of again now I can't remember which book it was, but at the very end when they are having they're at the perspective with B on the surface with her. knew whoever it was, Brad or something. Um and my like stomach dropped. I was like, oh no.
Peter
39:23
Yeah.
Aubrey
39:23
We cannot. We can't do this. Don't do this.
Peter
39:27
Yeah. I thought it was gonna be a much bigger
Aubrey
39:31
And I I didn't want I didn't want that to happen. Obviously because I love Carl and Donut, but also I was like, ooh, I feel like this is just gonna be a rough thing to listen to and just a rough I don't want that to happen to my to my my Carl and my donut, but I think it was The way that the scene where they're like on the show with Beatrice and Dona is so nonchalant and then the second the camera's cut off and she just loses her
Peter
40:05
Mine plays into her.
Aubrey
40:07
And I that whole time I was like, yes, donut, yes, do it.
Peter
40:12
And that honestly it's interesting because I could tell, I didn't think Carl's character is written in such a way that I expected if he ran into Beatrice that he would just kind of be like, uh, I'm kind of over you. Whatever. Yep. I was more worried about Donuts' reaction. and that she would want to go back with B. And so I was, again, I was very glad that she repudiated Beatrice and was like, there was no question of where her allegiances are Lie.
Aubrey
40:42
Yep. Yep. And same thing with Gravy Boat. Uh-huh. Ferdinand, the cat. I was super worried about donut handling that. And I mean it was rough, certainly, at first, because that makes sense, but then she pulled through and was able to work with Ferdinand as he because he was just gonna be there on the you know uh what's the war faction wars level anyways, and then she was able to kind of come back from that, which I thought was good. I was a little worried it was gonna be like a permanent bad thing for her, and she was just gonna be kind of permanently scarred and not able to handle herself around him. Um, but then she did and that was that was iconic. There was A few yeah, with with Carl kind of back to talking about Carl being a reluctant hero. In the beginning, few books. I feel like I genuinely genuinely was like he is just a good guy, especially in the first book where he's with the Metal Arch Res or what is it?
Peter
41:52
Metal Arc Residence.
Aubrey
41:54
Um And he just is like, I have to help them, even though it's gonna be pointless and it's just a bunch of old people and they're just gonna die. I I have to help them. He just had the sense of needing to help them and do whatever he w whatever he could And I did I did love that about him and I still think he has some of that inherent good about him. He just now is kind of like, I'll do whatever I need to do for the ends that I think Is is good. For the end I think is good.
Peter
42:25
You know what I mean?
Aubrey
42:26
Like in the later books and he's kind of like h like with everybody in Dungeon Crawler world, everyone gets ruined from everything that's happening to them. And that's um an understatement, but He still has the sense of he's just a good guy, which I do love.
Peter
42:45
And I hope he maintains a lovable guy. I hope he maintains that because I think it works well having that tension between his desire to do whatever he needs to to get through this or to break the system or whatever. I mean, that's his little mantra over and over is you will not break me, I will break you all. And so that's his driving motivation, but he does have limits. And you see as he's understanding things like, okay, you know, some of these people that he's killing in the dungeon are like these are real people. who have been conscripted to work in the dungeon and they're being reborn and all this kind of stuff. But it's like it it is still some of these are real people who he is. doing bad things to. And then, you know, the NPCs as well. You know, you've got all these NPCs that he realizes, oh, these are people. Um you know, again, who are stuck here and are kind of in a crap situation. And I think that's why in uh faction wars, he was like, no, I'm gonna change the rules so that these people from outside the dungeon who come in Treat this as their playground, die and then, you know, nothing like die in here but get reincarnated. No, no. If you die in here, that's it. You're dead. Because it's him saying, you know, I'm gonna stick it to you.
Aubrey
44:16
Yep. So like you're doing this to us, we're gonna do it to you. And yeah, that was all that was.
Peter
44:22
I will say that was one of the things, one of the the moments I really not even just moment, but I think the moment for sure that I really, really liked at the end of book six. When we realize, oh, there's a whole army of former crawlers who were coming back to be on Carl and Donuts. army and oh and like mess things up. Yep. And and I loved those. Especially in so, you know, Carl at some point gets the Dungeon Anarchist Cookbook and he kinda has to keep it alone, you know, keep it secret because It's now what is he? Is he the 25th author, I think? Yeah, 25th. So there's 24 different authors who have been writing in this book, leaving notes about things, their thoughts, and And it definitely gives him an advantage in a number of situations, teaches him things that otherwise he shouldn't or wouldn't be able to know at that point. But, you know, having some of these authors come back. And honestly, one of the more emotional scenes for me of the book was in book seven, when he finds milk. Um and you know they just they just embrace, they just hug each other. And it was, I thought, it very effective at Carl's had the Dungeon Anarchist cookbook since what? Was that the third book?
Aubrey
45:46
I think the third book, yeah.
Peter
45:47
I think that's when he gets it And so he's had this for a while, and we definitely know that he spends a lot of time in the book that we don't see. And so you can imagine that these previous authors have become real people for him, and he has this connection to them. And so to see him and and everyb nobody else really understands why, because he can't let him know. But to see him just like Break down and see, okay, here's this person who's been through what I'm going through and and I thought that's a good thing.
Aubrey
46:29
so badly trying to not fall prey to the system. Like they are tr they're writing in the cookbook so that they can help future people fight back against the system. They're not just trying to get the most powerful so they can get out of the dungeon real quick and live a good life or live the best life they can. Like they're actively trying to dismantle the whole thing by having the cookbook and writing the things that they can. Obviously some of them end up just in horrible situations and can't really do much about dismantling the system, but either way, like everything that they wrote in the cookbook was, like you said, like stuck with Carl. He's read all of their notes, he knows who they are. He And he thinks of them of like, he's like, that's my brother, that's my sister, those people that wrote like the authors of the cookbook. And It was very yeah, the the scene with Milk where he just like literally breaks down and she just like hugs him and is just like stroking his hair and Donut's like, Why is everyone kissing you? Like why are why is everyone hugging you and crying?
Peter
47:29
He meets all these these former these authors of the cookbook as they're coming, you know, some of them the ones who can are coming to to join his team and they all approach him and like give him a big hug or kiss him on the cheeks or whatever because you know they and they've been outside watching this. So they're seeing him watching put what they've put in there. They can tell. They know okay He's trying to put this to use. They can see what he's doing. Yeah. So yeah. Um I guess this has been optioned as a peacock show. Okay. I don't know how I feel about it.
Aubrey
48:03
Yeah, I think it could it had s it has some really good potential because of just the RPG sort of vibe, but I also don't know about that.
Peter
48:13
My concern is that it will I don't know. I worry that it's going to go poorly. Like I can see it starting out well and going a little poorly. Yeah. I'm yeah, so I I don't know. Uh the being executive produced by Seth Seth McFarlane. The good news is that the showrunner who's been assigned to it and the writer Chris Yost. He's done some good stuff. I guess he was a writer on Thor Ragnarok, so that's good. Okay. Is apparently a writer on the Mandalorian. I've seen some of it and it was good. Star Wars the Bad Batch? I don't know, because I'm kinda over Star Wars Yeah. Dinnerman is an executive producer, so he'll have some some say in it. Um I I don't know. We'll We'll see what happens with that, but I think this is just all what's been announced as of early this year. There's no timeline or anything. So Yeah. We'll be curious to see.
Aubrey
49:10
Um I would be interested to see how they would do stuff with the AI, like if they would with the AI's really long descriptions and long achievement descriptions and stuff like that, how would they do that? Because those are really important to the story. Those are like extremely vital. You kinda can't skip over that. Like would they freeze the whole screen? And then have the AI just be monologuing. Like I I d I mean I am not a writer of any show. I don't I'm not a very well-versed in cinema.
Peter
49:39
So I don't know how they would do that. And here's the other thing where I go, this is gonna be hard In other books, so let's take Mistborn or Stormlight as an example, or Wheel of Time, even those narrated by Michael Kramer, Kate Redding. Because they're just doing it all in their own voices, then when you see, again, I watched the first season of Amazon's Wheel of Time series. I didn't watch any more because I didn't think it was great, but it wasn't bad. It just wasn't great. Yeah. But it wasn't weird because you didn't have a distinctive voice for each one of the characters. They're not gonna sound like Jeff Hayes' voice. It's right. And that's the problem where he's done such a good job with distinctive, unique voices for each character, for everything. I mean You can't help but hear his voice for the AI when you see the work achievement. Achievement.
Aubrey
50:38
Yep. New achievement.
Peter
50:40
You know, it's just like it's there and it's Again, and unless they get Jeff Hayes to do a lot of this, and they're not going to be able to. Like there's going to be characters who just don't sound Right.
Aubrey
50:54
Yep, they don't sound right.
Peter
50:55
That will be interesting to see how people react to that.
Aubrey
50:58
Yeah, I saw a clip of Jeff Hayes just talking about Dundercolour Carl and he was like, I low-key can't do female British voices without hearing donut anymore. And he was like, I can't ever do the voice I do for Carl, I can't ever do ever again because you'll only hear Carl when you hear that. it doesn't matter what book it is or what's the context, he was like, that is the Carl voice and this is the donut voice. So he was like, I kind of have to have other people do British female voices because I just hear donut and everyone just hears donut when he does it. Which is funny. I also saw a clip. There's like a Dunden Crawler con or something. Or there was some sort of convention. Um and they were singing the what's the song that Donut sings at the end of one of the books?
Peter
51:55
Is it the Wonder Wonder It's Wonder Yeah yeah
Aubrey
52:00
Yep, and Jeff Hayes is actually singing it live in the donut voice, holding like a stuffed cat next to him, and the lyrics are like on the screen and Matt Denniman is playing the guitar and Yeah, it was and the whole crowd is singing along. Yeah, that was just kind of iconic. He's now it's just an iconic he's just an iconic guy with the iconic voices. You will only be able to hear those characters when you hear that voice. And I agree if they were to get other character or other actors and actresses to play those characters, it would just feel a little wrong.
Peter
52:34
That's the thing is they're gonna have to. And so Because it's live action. Jeff can't do all of it. It's live action. If it was animated, you could get away with it. But but a live action is what it's supposed to be. So I don't know. It'll be interesting to see. This is one of those where I I don't want to be that guy, but I'm kind of like, man, maybe this is better just as a book a slash audiobook. But I'll check it out if it ever comes out. That's always a big if. There's a lot of sh of books. and and comics things that get optioned and get announced and then never happen. So we shall see. Yeah. But um also final kind of thing, the you know, there's been a lot of characters that We've kind of lost over the series of the books that I thought would stick around longer. But there are a few key ones where I'm curious to see what happens. I really, really liked in uh book seven. I liked the reconciliation between Prepotente and Carl. Because they've had this very antagonistic relationship, and then you realize that, oh, actually a lot of that is just like a front. From Pony. Yep. And and so I thought that was another one of those scenes that I really enjoyed is when Prepotente, it's just I think just the two of them, Prepotente just like Gives him a hug and is like, oh, you're my brother, you know.
Aubrey
53:53
And Yeah, he's like, You're my best friend. I love you so much. And Carl's like, oh.
Peter
53:58
Um and I'm curious to see what happens with Katya. I hope Katya's not I hope we still get something of Katya going forward. Me too. Um. Because I think she was she's a strong character that I I don't want to lose permanently. I hope that whatever they do with her, I agree. It somehow works into this goal of dismantling the entire system.
Aubrey
54:22
Yeah, and I think it will. I just hope that it's not entirely background, like we don't see anything that she's doing, and then all of a sudden she comes back. I kinda hope maybe maybe in an epilogue or two or like the uh interlude type of chapters, we get some sort of perspective of what she's doing. Cause I feel like she was too too much of a main character c to kind of just drop her off and then see what happens. So How I do want to say one of my absolute favorite moments of the entire series is when Carl, two pony, is just like eat a bag of dicks, pony, and then he just goes. Yep
Peter
54:57
It is funny.
Aubrey
54:58
It's like actually my favor one of my favorite ones besides besides donut screaming die motherfucker die when she's drunk. Like those are just two of the most iconic So good. There's a lot of those iconic. I I those iconic kind of character interactions too, like pony just screaming. Yeah. The the just the goat scream. Yep. It's just so good. Just so good. Yeah, and donuts. Oh MG! Like before she says anything, her typing in capital letters anytime she's in chat. And you can you can tell because Jeff Hayes has like the the capital
Peter
55:39
chat donut voice and then the donut speaking voice and that's a iconic because there are times where donut doesn't type in all caps in the chat. You can tell.
Aubrey
55:49
Which is like you're like, oh. You can tell. Oh no. She's not. Yep. She does it on, she does do it on purpose. And then Samantha, too, I think is one of my favorite side characters. Samantha is the I will kill your mother just about everything is yeah. She's she's iconic. I'm glad we got to have her be like an actual character. Like, I'm glad they found a way to keep her in their like kind of party um situation 'cause she's just an iconic addition to other missions.
Peter
56:21
I agree. And it's interesting because I think she's a really strong, good character who comes from what probably is my least favorite book so far. I think that the Gate of the Faral, The Gate of the Feral Gods. I think that's probably my least favorite book just because the world setup setup is the first one. It's the bubble one, isn't it? Yeah.
Aubrey
56:42
Yeah.
Peter
56:42
The world setup is is interesting. Not my favorite. Again, still fun and enjoyable, but I like that, you know, we we have some good characters out of there. I mean, like, you know, Louis and Faraz. you know, th they come from there. Um you've got what's her name, the little dwarf girl who or or no Bonnie. Yeah. You know, so uh there's some decent characters that got pulled out of that that are fun uh as the books go forward. But well, anything else you want to say? I'll wrap I here's what I'll say. I'll wrap it up and say, again, people, it's okay. These are really fun books that I like an awful lot. It isn't my personality. That's okay if it is for other people. I'm not saying it shouldn't be. But I'm just saying, these are kind of, these are, these are just fun, fluffy, lit RPG books. that have some mild socio-political commentary, but nothing too directed, that are enjoyable, darker than you success than you suspect at first. and have some really good character interactions that I look forward to reading more of in the future.
Aubrey
57:52
Yes. Yep. I agree. Nope. They're very Very light and fun. I guess I don't know if again, I don't know if I want to say light. I get light with the dark moments like that.
Peter
58:02
Well, so here's the thing. By light I mean You aren't left, for me at least, I'm not left pondering these books for a long time after. I finish one and I'm ready to just boom move on to the next one to continue the story. I don't need time to sit with it and think about what happened. And most of my books that I read, I don't want them to be like that. So that's okay.
Aubrey
58:27
Yep. Right, because it's exhausting to have everything you ever consume be something you need to ponder.
Peter
58:32
I mean look, I'll be honest, now that I've finished Wind and truth. I'm like Brandon Sanderson. You could learn a lesson from this. You could learn a lesson. You aren't writing literature. that I'm going to sit there and think about and want to sit in and, you know, come back to over and over. You're writing fluff as well. You're just a little up your own ass about it. And you don't realize That it that's what it is. So again, things that I really like. I'm like, no, you could Stormlight would be better if it was a little bit more, if it took a few lessons from Dungeon Crawler Carl. And did not take itself. Yes, don't take yourself quite so seriously.
Aubrey
59:17
Yep. No need for that. Yep, I agree. Yeah, I am super, super excited for the eighth book. Um Hayden and I have it pre-ordered on Audible so we will we will get it the day of and I will read through that so fast, I'm sure.
Peter
59:31
Very good, very good. Well I will probably be right there with you because I'm a little adrift right now. I I finished Dungeon Crawler Carl. I then immediately went in and read uh Twelve Months, which is in the the newest book in the Dresden Files. That is book 18 in the Dresden Files. And there are like three or four interstitial novellas with side stories and stuff. So we are well over 20 books that comprise all of the Dresden Files now. That's crazy. And they're similar in that they're not as funny. They're but they're still just sort of pulpy, you know, neo-noir magic fantasy kind of stuff. And then I started reading, because I've read, I've got so many recommendations, and I've had a couple of them for over a decade in my Audible account. I was like, oh, let me read Pish Brown's Red Rising series. And I started the first one and I'm just barely into it, but it hasn't grabbed me yet, so we'll see.
Aubrey
01:00:32
Uh Hayden is finished just finished. Did you just finish the last Red Rising book? That's out. Yeah, he just finished the last one. There's se it's seven.
Peter
01:00:46
Six or seven.
Aubrey
01:00:46
I think the sixth.
Peter
01:00:48
Sixth. Yeah.
Aubrey
01:00:51
And he wants me to read it really badly.
Peter
01:00:53
Okay, so I might be there. That's encouraging. That's encouraging. At the same time there's a part of me that's like Do I really want to get that deep into it right now? Because I will want to just jump into book eight of Dungeon Crawler Carl when it comes out in nine days. Yeah. Uh so I may put that on the back burner until I get book eight done and then go and check that one. now so I can get through all six of those uninterrupted. Eventually actually what I really should do is I should in these next nine days, I should really go go and just mainline book three of three body problems so that I'm done with that series. Uh yeah, so you can just be able to do that. Maybe that's what I'll do. Who knows?
Aubrey
01:01:31
We'll see. There you go. We'll see.
Peter
01:01:33
Okay.
Aubrey
01:01:33
Very good.
Peter
01:01:34
Again. Really fun books. I love the story behind them. I love the fact that this is a dude who was just kind of doing something and they hit and they hit big. And I again I don't think that they're they're fun books. They're not what I would call great books. There's a difference, and that's great.
Aubrey
01:01:56
And that's okay.
Peter
01:01:57
So okay. Well we'll be back in another couple of weeks. If you think that uh I have all sorts of awful takes about Dungeon Crawler, Carl, bring it on. I I'm I'm inured to the hate Uh just, you know, come at me. Whatever. I get people. I love them. I think they're a ton of fun. I just don't think that they're literature.
Aubrey
01:02:22
So people get so mad about anything these days.
Peter
01:02:26
Okay, well we'll be back in a couple weeks and until then. Bye. Bye.