A Parade of Horribles

Read Time: 3 Minutes

Dungeon Crawler Carl remains one of my favourite audiobook series going around, and honestly at this point Jeff Hays deserves to be studied in a lab somewhere. One man somehow performing what sounds like a full cast production feels like it should be impossible.

Book eight opens with a recap by Samantha which, look, I appreciate in theory because there is a lot going on in this series now. But Samantha works much better in smaller doses. Listening to her ramble through the recap was… an experience. Useful, yes. Pleasant? Debatable.

Once things properly kick off, Carl and Donut find themselves dealing with the tenth floor, which largely revolves around a series of races. On paper it sounds simple compared to the chaos of previous floors, but naturally this being Dungeon Crawler Carl, “simple” rapidly spirals into increasingly absurd death traps and dungeon nonsense.

The races themselves are entertaining enough, especially the escalating insanity of the vehicles and upgrades, but if I am being honest this is probably the first book in the series where parts felt a little slumpy for me. A lot of the story devoted to the races and while it absolutely serves a purpose in the broader story, I did occasionally catch myself thinking “okay, let’s move on to something else now.”

That said, the back end starts pulling together hard.

The AI continues its descent into complete unhinged madness, the broader lore surrounding the Primals and the system gets expanded significantly, and the growing sense that the entire universe may be heading toward catastrophe gives everything a steadily mounting tension underneath the silliness.

As always, Carl gets shoved into impossible situations where trying to save everyone usually means making things catastrophically worse for himself. Some side characters finally hit the end of the road, others continue growing in interesting ways, and a few long-running mysteries start slotting into place. There is a fairly hefty lore dump toward the end, but honestly the worldbuilding is compelling enough now that I was fully on board for it.

Very happy Biggs the Sluggalo is still around. What felt initially like a throwaway gag race, those violent ICP-loving slugs remain one of my favourite races and one of the funniest recurring bits in the whole series for me.

Even with some pacing issues through the race-heavy sections, this is still a fantastic audiobook series overall. I have relistened to these books more times than I can count, and while I suspect this particular instalment may not have the same replayability as some earlier entries, it feels very much like a major setup piece for whatever madness comes next.

And it really does feel like the endgame is approaching now.

Jeff Hays once again completely knocks the narration out of the park. The sheer range of voices, emotional delivery, comedic timing, song performances, and production quality remains absurdly good. Quietly glad they’ve dropped the guest narrators too. Sure, Carl’s dad was an obvious choice, and Travis Baldree was good… but honestly would have worked just as well with only Jeff at the mic.

Overall, maybe not my favourite entry in the series, but still wildly entertaining and packed with enough lore, chaos, and emotional payoff to keep me fully invested. If this is the runway toward the finale, I am absolutely strapped in.

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