There is no more Dungeon Crawler Carl for me to read. I started this journey about a year ago, and last month, I completed A Parade of Horribles. I eagerly await books nine and 10, which are certainly still a ways off. What better time than the present to rank the books so far? There are eight books, and they’re all incredible, but some are more incredible than others.
All 8 Dungeon Crawler Carl Books Ranked from Worst to Best
8. The Dungeon Anarchist’s Cookbook
Something’s got to be at the bottom. It’s worth noting, though, that The Dungeon Anarchist’s Cookbook is perhaps the most important book in the series. The Dungeon Crawler Carl series gets valuable exposition, lore, and character work in cookbook entries, and it’s one mechanic of the story that really pays off down the line. It just has the most convoluted level, the Iron Tangle, in the entire book and is otherwise somewhat unmemorable.
Score: 4/5
7. Carl’s Doomsday Scenario
One day, this book might rise the rankings. It features the first truly climactic, edge-of-your-seat ending with the creation of the titular bomb. Carl’s Doomsday Scenario has a lot of things going on, but none more important than the bomb that still looms over the narrative. If and when Carl does finally use it, this Dungeon Crawler Carl book will become that much more important. The third floor of the dungeon is mostly unremarkable, though.
Score: 4.5/5
6. The Gate of the Feral Gods
This is where the series infinitely ratchets up. The stakes get much higher, and things get a whole lot wackier. Wherever anyone thought the series might go, this is where it changes. I thought that Dungeon Crawler Carl would take a Hunger Games-esque route and pit Carl and Princess Donut against one another and have them refuse to kill each other as the final contestants, but The Gate of the Feral Gods is where I knew that was in no way happening.
Score: 4.5/5
5. This Inevitable Ruin
This Inevitable Ruin seems a little more interested in attempting to make readers feel something, which is one of the only downsides. There’s so much to love here: the culmination of the cookbook storyline, the long-awaited Faction Wars, and a bunch of massive twists for the overall storyline. At first, I wasn’t as into the action-heavy story that carried through the first half of the book, but that gives way to some incredibly emotional scenes. There is a ton of lore here, too.
Score: 4.75/5
4. Dungeon Crawler Carl
I am obviously not one of the people who thinks the first book is one of the worst. Those people are right that the levels are uninteresting in comparison to future books and that there aren’t that many characters. It’s very much a tutorial-level, sort of introductory book for the LitRPG genre. That said, it operates so perfectly on that level, and Carl, Princess Donut, and Mordecai are a great trio. The video-game mechanics that I love about this series are on full display, too.
Score: 5/5
3. A Parade of Horribles
If you wanted to argue that A Parade of Horribles is the best book, I simply wouldn’t fight you on it. It is excellent. It’s rather fitting that, at this point, it’s the final book, because it feels so ridiculously climactic. Obviously, there are things to accomplish in the next books, but the fact that crawlers have escaped has made the eight-book journey so worthwhile. It also features the most unhinged (and this is saying something) plot twist in the series with that final character reveal for Scolopendra.
Score: 5/5
2. The Eye of the Bedlam Bride
The card mechanic in The Eye of the Bedlam Bride is incredible, and it brings in some of the wildest and most fun characters in the series. But what truly sets this book apart is the emotional side of things. This is the deepest look we get at Carl and the tragic backstory that has been alluded to in previous books along the way. If they’d ratcheted up the cruelty just a bit (as if learning about Carl’s younger brother he didn’t know about and the scenes with his father aren’t cruel enough), it might just have landed number one on this list.
Score: 5/5
1. The Butcher’s Masquerade
Sometimes, it’s as simple as one epic monologue, and Princess Donut delivers that near the end of The Butcher’s Masquerade. The revelation that some people are alive on the Earth’s surface and that Beatrice happens to be one of them is a huge gut-punch, and everything Matt Dinniman does with her character here is pitch-perfect to provide the most powerful bit of reading in the whole series.
Score: 5/5
