Dungeon Crawler Karl is a science fantasy LitRPG book series written by American author Matt Dinniman.

It’s comedy — with extreme, graphic violence and horror.

Entertaining, even if you don’t appreciate video games, like myself.

Initially self-published by Dinniman via online publisher Royal Road, it and its seven sequels were acquired by Ace Books in 2024.

It’s unexpectedly become an absolute juggernaut in the publishing industry, completely rewriting the rules for self-published web serials.

We’re Obsessed With ‘Dungeon Crawler Carl’ and Think You’ll Be Too

A massive portion of this success is driven by the audio format. The series has accumulated over 140 million hours of listening time through Soundbooth Theater and Audible. The audio book reader is great ➙ Jeff Hays.

An alien corporation instantly flattens every man-made structure on Earth, killing billions of people indoors.

The remaining survivors are herded into a massive, 18-level subterranean dungeon.

This dungeon operates as a sadistic, televised intergalactic reality game show watched by trillions of aliens across the universe.

To survive, the “crawlers” must fight monsters, level up their stats, find gear, and entertain the bloodthirsty audience to gain sponsors

• Carl: A 27-year-old Coast Guard veteran who enters the dungeon wearing nothing but boxer shorts, a leather jacket, and no shoes—accompanied by an incredibly snarky AI that has a strange obsession with his bare feet.
• Princess Donut: His ex-girlfriend’s prize-winning Persian show cat. After consuming a magical pet biscuit early on, she gains human-level sentience, the ability to speak, and becomes a powerful, spell-slinging diva

Why is Carl with his ex-girlfriend’s fussy cat? Prior to writing the series, Matt Dinniman had made his living going to cat shows and drawing illustrations of cats for their owners. When Covid hit, those cat shows were cancelled, so he spent his time writing.

It reminds me of The Bobiverse Series, which I found better.

The series averages an incredibly rare 4.7 out of 5 stars across over 350,000 community ratings on Goodreads.

The audiobooks hold a near-perfect 4.9 out of 5 stars with over 120,000 reviews, frequently cited as a gold standard for audio production.

Book 1 is Dungeon Crawler Carl.

We Chase Shadows is the 2026 comedy-mystery novel written by bestselling author Richard Osman.

Osman is The Thursday Murder Club author. Always entertaining.

I actually wasn’t all that impressed with the first book in this series ➙ We Solve Murders (2024).

This one is better, but still a bit rambling and confused.

I couldn’t understand how the characters could so quickly & easily teleport between Italy, Sweden, California, Barcelona, and Quiz Night at Steve’s quiet village pub.

Comedy seems the goal, not the plot. And it is very funny.

… sunrise in the picturesque Italian hills, where a dead body is discovered on the steps of a luxury private villa. Found on the corpse is a threatening note signed by a mysterious entity.

Back at agency headquarters, the mismatched detective trio—Amy Wheeler (a fierce global security expert), Steve Wheeler (her structured, retired-cop father-in-law), and Rosie D’Antonio (a larger-than-life, bestselling author who finances the operation)—leap at the opportunity to sink their teeth into their first official case.

Their client, a wealthy supplement mogul hiding out in a high-security compound, has clear motives for keeping the police out of the loop.

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Ransom (2026) is latest in the fantastic Gabriel Allon series.

Excellent, as always.

No car chases. No gun fights.

Instead, believable, high-stakes tradecraft and classic suspense reminiscent of John le Carré.

It’s very up-to-date with references to Putin’s war against Ukraine. And believable technology.

It predicts the future of terrorists (Putin in this case) using drones to disable airports. To assassinate.

Legendary Israeli spy and master art restorer Gabriel Allon is reluctantly drawn out of his retirement after a prominent British real estate tycoon, Edward Knight, pleads for his help.

Knight’s glamorous socialite wife, Alice Winter, has vanished without a trace while vacationing with old university classmates in Ibiza.

As Allon launches his investigation using professional kidnap and ransom (K&R) strategies, he uncovers a web of deception.

What initially looks like a standard kidnapping unfolds into a massive international plot involving Russian bad actors who are laundering and manipulating money.

Silva has historically supported Israel and centered his long-running spy series on Gabriel Allon, a Jewish Mossad leader. He conspicuously mentions nothing about Israel in this book. It’s difficult to defend Israel right now after counting how many Palestinian children have been killed.

I read the original book in advance of the upcoming  full-cast audio adaptation of Young Bond: SilverFin on October 29, 2026.

This might be good for young adults. But I found it too unbelievable, even for a James Bond story.

SilverFin is a 2005 spy novel written by Charlie Higson. It is the first book in the Young Bond series, which chronicles the adventures of Ian Fleming’s iconic superspy James Bond during his teenage years in the 1930s.

He wrote 4 more after this one.

Plot Overview

• Eton College: The story begins in 1933 with a 13-year-old James Bond starting his first term at Eton College, where he deals with the rigors of school life, joins the school’s athletic ranks, and faces a cruel bully named George Hellebore.
• The Scottish Highlands: During his Easter holiday, James travels to the remote shores of Loch Silverfin in Scotland to stay with his terminally ill Uncle Max and Aunt Charmain.
• The Missing Boy: While there, James teams up with a local boy named Red Kelly to investigate the mysterious disappearance of Red’s cousin.
• The Hellebore Secret: Their search leads them to a heavily guarded castle owned by George Hellebore’s father, Lord Hellebore. Inside, they uncover a horrific, illegal medical experiment involving Nazi scientists and a serum derived from eels designed to create unstoppable “supersoldiers.

Night Fall is a 2004 novel by American author Nelson DeMille.

It’s the 3rd book in the detective John Corey series — and the weakest.

In fact, you could skip this book completely.

The author got interested in the the 1996 crash of TWA Flight 800 off Long Island, New York. And wanted to — somehow — write historical fiction.

The plot makes no sense.

DeMille couldn’t decide how to END the messy story. His son came up with an idea for an interesting conclusion.

Not recommended.

Quite good.

Moment of Truth (2000) is 5th in the entertaining Rosato & Associates series.

The central hook of the story revolves around a striking premise: a man frames himself for murder to protect his daughter.

When attorney Jack Newlin comes home to find his wife, Honor, murdered in their elegant dining room, he is instantly convinced he knows who committed the crime. Desperate to shield the real killer, Jack makes a split-second decision to doctor the crime scene so all the physical evidence points directly to him before calling the police to confess.

To guarantee his own conviction, Jack purposefully hires Mary DiNunzio, the most inexperienced rookie associate at the hot Philadelphia law firm Rosato & Associates.

Jack’s plan hits a major snag when Mary’s sharp legal instincts kick in. She quickly realizes she isn’t defending a guilty person trying to look innocent, but rather an innocent man trying to prove he is guilty. Refusing to let her client sabotage his own life, Mary risks everything to investigate the real conspiracy behind the murder.

A treat. It’s always a treat when the next edition in the life of Cork O’Connor is published.

One of my favourite book series

God’s Country (2026) is another fantastic read.

Set primarily within the vast and beautiful Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness of Minnesota, the story explores heavy themes of moral injury, evil, and redemption,

On a family canoe trip, Cork discovers a messy, abandoned campsite. Upon uncovering a dead body, Cork sends his family back to safety and sets off alone to track down a missing friend who was ahead, guiding 3 tourists.

Cork soon discovers that Cordell has been taken hostage by the ruthless Kennedy brothers.

The brothers are forcing Cordell to recreate a trek he guided years earlier for their late criminal father, hoping to locate a hidden stash of valuable loot.

As Cork pursues them, he is captured himself, forcing him to navigate escalating danger, wrestle with his darkest survival instincts, and take justice into his own hands

As I enjoyed the 1st book in the detective John Corey series, I continued with the 2nd ➙ The Lion’s Game (2000).

Quite good, as well.

The former homocide cop is surprisingly now working as a contractor for the fictional FBI Anti-Terrorist Task Force in New York City.

Asad Khalil—a highly trained and ruthless Libyan terrorist known as “The Lion“—fakes a defection to the West.

He arrives at New York’s JFK Airport aboard an international flight where something goes horribly wrong: the plane lands in total radio silence, and investigators find that every passenger on board has been killed.

Khalil escapes into the United States to embark on a bloody, targeted campaign of revenge against the American military pilots who participated in the 1986 bombing of Libya, an attack that killed his family.

Partnered with FBI agent Kate Mayfield, Corey must track the clever and dangerous assassin across the country in a race against time.