Book Review – The Gate of the Feral Gods by Matt Dinniman

The fourth book in Matt Dinniman’s Dungeon Crawler Carl series follows Carl, Princess Donut, Katia as they are forced into the fifth level of the dungeon. The crawlers have been separated into worlds that are more like bubbles or domes. As Dinniman describes near the end, like bubble wrap. Within each bubble, they are separated into smaller groups – air, land, water, and below ground. Carl and his group are in the air quadrant, and they must defeat a castle in each quadrant to open their bubble and open the staircase to the next dungeon.

Like previous levels, they are drawing into side quests for NPCs, but this time it’s different. The AI is now messing with them more than usual. It is giving them items that are dangerous and sending them on quests that will certainly get them killed. One of the quests involves collecting two watches and a box that together make a portal. This portal is the gate of the feral gods, and when opened will let out either a feral god or an actual god. Either way, that’s bad news for the crawlers. And the AI set it up so that opening the portal is essential to their survival. So yeah, damned if you do and damned if you don’t. When he opens it, it releases a fire god in search of a puppy, and the puppy is so big that is stands on their entire bubble. Then the AI offers insane gifts to any crawler who kills it but killing it will kill anyone in their bubble because the fire god will be upset. Like I said, the AI has completely lost its marbles and escape now seem impossible as Carl tries to save as many crawlers as possible.

At least that would be true if you weren’t Carl. As the books continue, Carl has slowly begun to lose his mind a little over how the game is messing with him specifically. Even his companion, Donut, has noticed. His mantra has continued to be, “You will not break me. I will break you.” And that mantra only gets louder the more that Carl sees the cruelty that the game levels on the NPCs and the crawlers. Seriously, Carl is doing everything in his power to take the corporation in charge of the game down and its only increased his popularity. And Donut’s. Because who doesn’t love a snooty, talking cat with a violent raptor as a child?

Also in play is a fellow crawler Carl met on the first two levels, Chris. He has gone mad himself but now we find out why. And it puts Carl in the position of trying to save him or killing him just to put him out of his misery. Another impossible decision.

The epilogue of this book is the book is brilliant. Carl’s ex girlfriend, the one who left him with Donut, is actually alive and still on Earth. She just never entered the dungeon. I can’t wait to see how this plays out.

Through all of this, Dinniman’s writing remains hilariously funny. He uses descriptions like sharktapus and uncircumcised gnome penis to let the reader know what Carl is looking at. The penis remark was about a person, not just their junk. I don’t think I’ve ever laughed out loud this many times during a book, ever. With the humor comes the irreverent violence of the gaming world. Each moment leads to something more surprising. I never know what is coming next and that is the highest form of compliment. Mystery writers wish they were this good at shocking their readers with twists.

5 out of 5 stars for the sheer balls it took to write this series. Already starting book five.