The Butcher's Masquerade (Dungeon Crawler Carl)
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • Carl and Princess Donut refuse to be prey in the fifth book in the Dungeon Crawler Carl series—now with bonus material exclusive to this print edition!
Attention. Attention. The gates are down. The hunters are loose.
Run, Run, Run.
A lush jungle teeming with danger. Savage dinosaurs seeking blood. A fallen princess intent on vengeance. A mysterious, end-of-floor celebration for the top crawlers, dubbed “The Butcher’s Masquerade.” But that’s not all.
Just when Coast Guard vet Carl and his ex-girlfriend’s cat, Princess Donut, think they’ve seen it all as they compete to survive in the galaxy’s most popular game show, the latest dungeon level introduces a terrible new threat.
The sixth floor. The Hunting Grounds.
As the remaining crawlers battle for their lives, outside tourists are finally allowed to enter the game, and they are ready to hunt. Among them is Vrah, a famed and veteran hunter, intent on collecting the biggest trophy of her career.
But her prey is far from harmless, and this season they are fighting back.
Welcome, crawlers. Welcome to the sixth floor of the dungeon.
Attention. Attention. The gates are down. The hunters are loose.
Run, Run, Run.
A lush jungle teeming with danger. Savage dinosaurs seeking blood. A fallen princess intent on vengeance. A mysterious, end-of-floor celebration for the top crawlers, dubbed “The Butcher’s Masquerade.” But that’s not all.
Just when Coast Guard vet Carl and his ex-girlfriend’s cat, Princess Donut, think they’ve seen it all as they compete to survive in the galaxy’s most popular game show, the latest dungeon level introduces a terrible new threat.
The sixth floor. The Hunting Grounds.
As the remaining crawlers battle for their lives, outside tourists are finally allowed to enter the game, and they are ready to hunt. Among them is Vrah, a famed and veteran hunter, intent on collecting the biggest trophy of her career.
But her prey is far from harmless, and this season they are fighting back.
Welcome, crawlers. Welcome to the sixth floor of the dungeon.
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Community Reviews
I genuinely did not think this series could keep escalating the way it has, and then this book happened. Floor six throws Carl and Donut in as prey, and watching Carl respond by immediately bombing a hunter capital before the floor even begins is exactly the unhinged energy I needed. Donut's bard arc is equal parts disaster and triumph, Prepotente becomes one of the most emotionally devastating characters in the series, and the Masquerade sequence alone, a ballroom full of political landmines, a cat show, and velociraptors, is worth the price of admission.
What keeps this from being a pure highlight reel is how much the quieter moments earn their weight. Donut's reunion with Beatrice, the promise Carl makes about the ninth floor, Miriam Dom dying on her own terms with Carl beside her, these land hard because the characters have been built so carefully. The ending leaves you bruised and breathless, especially with that final cruel twist involving Eva and Katia. Five books in, this world still surprises me.
We have a pregnant bear, someone we love is wearing the tiara, a few people we know die. This one pulls no punches.
Loss of friends, heroics, and STDs. The perfect combination for yet another fun book in the series. So far this is my favorite book in the series. Thanks Matt Dinniman, I look forward to the next one!!
Not only is Dinniman the single best writer in the entire LitRPG genre, he’s also in general an incredibly talented action scene and character writer. There’s only so many ways I can say a book series is so phenomenal it and the fandom surrounding it have become a large part of my life. But that’s the situation here.
I love this series, I love these characters, and I love these gut-punching epilogues. I’m already planning to get a tattoo from this series (still deciding if I want to go with the Desperado Club logo or something else?) because I know I’m going to always feel this appreciation for it.
This is a beautiful story so far and I’m very much looking forward to seeing how it continues in the next book :-)
I love this series, I love these characters, and I love these gut-punching epilogues. I’m already planning to get a tattoo from this series (still deciding if I want to go with the Desperado Club logo or something else?) because I know I’m going to always feel this appreciation for it.
This is a beautiful story so far and I’m very much looking forward to seeing how it continues in the next book :-)
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