I just started Dungeon Crawler Carl. In it he fights a Spanish speaking boss. The Spanish is not translated (so far) and if you can read it, it really changes the mood and impact of the entire scene.
Are there any other books that hide significant plot points behind the use of foreign language?
Yeah, that was not something I wanted to understand.
I listened to the audio book and understood snippets and hat was enough to make me super uncomfortable. I love the additional complexity that engendered but at the same time, a little much for a book where the protagonist runs around sporting heart dotted underwear.
One of the later books is pretty dark throughout
Bedlam Bride (6)? I’m finding it to be pretty dark. Butcher’s Masquerade (5) had its moments, too.
Bedlam Bride, too, but I meant Inevitable Ruin. Maybe “heavy” would be more accurate than dark
Okay, I haven’t gotten that far yet. This Inevitable Ruin is the seventh book. I’ll be there soon enough. :)
I think a lot of them go dark (I’m mid way through This Inevitable Ruin) but that scene with the hoarder, I dunno, for me, it hit much harder than anything else. I expect tragedy and sadness but that poor lady begging… It just got me.
I think it’s the innocent impotence. The crawlers all have agency. The former crawlers are stuck in bad contracts, but they’re contracts they signed. The system npcs think they have agency. But the monsters made from the people of the planets? They were just inside and are now experiencing disgusting body horror where they’re being forced to kill until they’re killed.
Hell, I’m still in book 3 and the whole thing is dark but approached with levity by the absurdity and the degree to which the system AI is keeping it showy.
I’m not one for spoilers so I’ll just say that the seriousness of the situation comes into focus during The Inevitable Ruin. It’s still silly but bad things happen and characters respond appropriately!
On the other hand, it’s a book where the almost complete annihilation of the human race happens immediately and we get a running tracker of how many crawlers die every day. The silliness is a mask, not the core.
I haven’t read the series, but after seeing more context of the scene…wow. That’s really bleak for what I assumed would be a more light hearted romp. It does make me actually want to read the books now, but damn.
Oh, it was a taste of what the book series has. DCC is a horror series under the mask of a light hearted dungeon crawler
Exactly, everyone has so much PTSD. Everyone you have ever known and cared about is already dead and your fighting for your life, is no way to go through a dungeon Carl.
Worth a reminder that Matt considers himself a horror writer, not a fantasy writer
In my head, that scene is much darker than almost anything that follows. There’s a lot where if you take a step back and think about it, ooof. But that’s scene is the most inescapable gut punch (if you know some Spanish.)
Great series though, mixes the light heartedness with an eventually pretty heavy undertone.
I don’t know, in the same book “There sure were a lot of babies in there, Carl” which hits pretty hard on how much murder Carl is doing and on how Donut really isn’t a human being.
It’s a dark and political story wearing the skin of a light hearted romp like a serial killer with their victim’s face.
It takes a book or 2 for the mask to really slip (hence the hammyness of the first book or 2). It’s an excellent story, though a little marmite like (you either love it or hate it).