Book Review: This Inevitable Ruin (DCC 7) by Matt Dinniman

 

4/5 stars. Another highly enjoyable book in the Dungeon Crawler Carl series. This story covers the highly anticipated 9th level Faction Wars where Carl and Donut have entered their own team in this ancient battle of opposing forces from across the universe. Another interesting feature of this Crawl’s Faction Wars is the surprising addition of an NPC team into the fray. The addition of former crawlers coming back to help the Princess Posse in Faction Wars added an extra dimension to the story that was unexpected, particularly with those individuals who had been authors of the Cookbook in earlier crawls.

Personally, I found the previous two entries much more emotionally moving and intriguing in their plotting and story development, but this story was entertaining with ‘aha’ moments, intriguing backstory reveals, and times of sadness or poignancy. In particular, the moments that Carl had with the former Cookbook authors and the emotional connections he made with each of them felt like special moments in the story. Also, the interludes that told the stories of many of the former authors were a nice addition to this 9th level storyline. Finally, the moments between Carl and Katia were especially illuminating about her backstory, and where we expect her to be heading at the end of the floor.

Once again, I also listened to much of this via audiobook and found Jeff Hays to be one of the most remarkable voice narrators working in the field today. Highly recommended audiobook!!

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