Book Review – A Parade of Horribles by Matt Dinniman

What trouble could Carl and Donut get into now that the AI running the dungeon has lost its mind and Faction Wars is over? After leaving the ninth floor with a record number of crawlers, many chose to take deals so they could get out of the dungeon. Our favorite characters though – Imani, Prepatente, Chris, Elle, Lucia Mar – are still in the dungeon fighting the good fight. Or at least trying to as they are forced into seven races with NPCs and other crawlers.

These races force Carl and Donut to make impossible decisions as they have to decide how many NPCs to save so that crawlers aren’t racing against each other because the last team to finish in each heat dies and the more the NPCs die, the more the crawlers will have to race each other. Carl and Donut get upgrades to their vehicle which include a sarcastic, jealous GPS and a seat for Donut specifically designed to keep her safe – and of course the two things fight with each other during races because why not? The real kicker though is that the same driver can’t drive two races in a row and Donut really can’t drive at all because she’s a cat. Hiring mercenaries is the way around this rule and they keep dying in Carl’s car during races.

And that God, Emberus, that Carl followed early in the dungeon and now has to finish an impossible quest pertaining to who killed the God’s relative, is still expecting Carl to complete this quest. Carl, however, hatches an insane plan to get out of the entire thing. The problem is, once they get to the eleventh floor, he risks his friends lives too. And he does it by bringing in Scolopendra from the eighteenth floor (she’s a giant God shaped like a bug). The floor no crawler has ever made it to. This leads to one hell of a twist that I won’t spoil here and now I need the next book. Right now. You hear me, Matt Dinniman?

A lot of this book involves Carl and other crawlers to have to face their demons, both from their past Earth lives and from what they have done in the dungeon. The AI is kind of a jerk that way and now that it has totally lost its mind and wants to destroy the universe. There is one point where Carl totally loses it and has to be brought back around by his friends. It’s fair, that reaction given what the game has put him through.

I love this series of books for the sheer audacity of Matt Dinniman just doing whatever the hell Matt Dinniman wants. While the last couple of books have been a bit heavy in the details and I often have to google some of the characters because there are so many and it is hard to keep track of when or where Carl met them, I do really enjoy the adventure this is taking us on. The crazy gods. The dick jokes. The insane obstacles thrown down like gauntlets. And Donut’s bonkers personality. I’ve even caught myself typing work emails in all caps when I listen to the audiobooks before I remember that all caps means YELLING.

4 out of 5 stars as I impatiently await book nine.