I continue to listen to audiobooks throughout my day, as evidenced by two What I’ve Been Listening To entries this month. With writing, gaming, and working daily (boooooo), actually sitting down and reading a book doesn’t happen like it used to. But I have been on a bit of an actual reading kick lately. And since I’ve recently told you what I’ve been listening to, watching, and playing, you might as well know what I’ve been reading, as well!

Kindle Unlimited remains a useful subscription, and I’ve been digging into some things on my Fire Tablet. I had a Nook for years, before switching over to a Fire (I didn’t really consider switching to a Kindle – that’s less versatile). After all these years, I still like owning a physical copy of a book: Fills out the shelves. But for digital, borrowing them with KU, or my library app, works totally fine.

So, let’s look at mix of print and digital books which I’ve been reading lately.

DUNGEON CRAWLER CARL – Matt Dinniman

I have looked down my nose at LitRPG since I heard about it a few years ago. I didn’t really understand what it was, but that didn’t stop me from having a condescending attitude towards it as some kind of cheap fantasy.

Having recently jumped yet again back into the amazing Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy world, I was in something of a humor mood. I was going to re-read Johny Nexus’ Game Night (see below). Somehow my (ir)rational thought processes convinced me to check out a LitRPG book. I did a little quick research, and Dungeon Crawler Carl (DCC) seemed to be about the most popular book in the entire genre. So, I borrowed it with Kindle Unlimited and read it.

I don’t know that I’m ready to say I’m a LitRPG fan, but I liked it. Enough so that I followed it up with book two, Carl’s Doomsday Scenario.

To over-simplify, an alien race squashes the surface of the earth, killing everyone who was indoors at that specific moment, and the subterranean world becomes a multi-level dungeon. Surface survivors have a limited time to enter a portal down into the dungeon. You gotta think there’s not much infrastructure left for the surface dwellers: tough times ahead.

This is all done as part of an inter-galactic reality show, and the ‘crawlers’ who descend, have a time limit to continually move down to the next level, surviving monsters, traps, mobs, and other contestants. Kind of Running Man and D&D combined with an MMO.

Carl is a Coast Guard veteran who enters with is ex-girlfriend’s cat, Princess Donut, who becomes a crawler (not a pet), and the two form a party. The first book is about their surviving the first two floors.

There’s a ton of action, violence, and humor. The central premise is that the characters level up and get stronger (or die), and they operate like a videogame character, calling up inventories, seeing numerical values for stats, reading descriptions of items, spells, and skills, having chat capability, and essentially being in a life-and-death MMO.

I think Galaxy Quest is brilliant humor. Dumb and Dumber is lowbrow garbage. They are the opposite ends of the humor spectrum: clever humor and dumb humor. Michael Caine’s Without a Clue (clever) and Dudley Moore’s The Hound of the Baskervilles (dumb) are two more such examples.

Dungeon Crawler Carl has it’s lowbrow-ish moments, but it’s a lot more smart than dumb.

It’s a pretty rich and complex dungeon world. If you’ve played an MMO (or even a video game RPG), you’ll get it. The humor is pretty over-the-top, with violence liberally mixed in.

This is definitely not fan fiction, though it did start out as a free online serial before being picked up by Ace Books. This is a pretty good fantasy book. You will either like the central premise of LitRPG, or you won’t. The snarky comments contained in the LitRPG descriptions (they appear in bold) are pretty amusing. It’s a relentless pace, and millions of other crawlers die on level one, though we only meet a few. This is Carl and Donut’s story.

I don’t know how much of the genre includes humor, but I can see how it works for this type of ‘real person put into a gaming’ world. Even though the stakes are constantly life or death. I imagine there is ‘straight’ LitRPG without humor as well. I will likely try one of those. I suspect it’s a very different experience.

I don’t try – or like – stuff just because it’s popular (I haven’t tried Sarah Maas yet, and I’ll never like Tom Bombadil). I gave Dungeon Crawler a skeptical, but fair, chance. And I think it’s pretty good. I think it’s also a pretty long book. This isn’t a quick read. Book two was somewhat shorter, but still substantive.

If you have any interest in humorous LitRPG, I recommend giving it a try. Apparently He Who Fights Monsters is a similar series ‘up near the top’ of the genre. But DCC has eight volumes so far, so I’ll stick with this.

NOTE – From what I can tell, LitRPG is the same as Progression Fantasy, a term I came across when looking for something to read. The terms seem to be used interchangeably.

GAME NIGHT – Johnny Nexus

I was going to read Andre Norton’s Quag Keep, which I only learned about last month. More on that RPG-related novel when I do read it. Instead, I decided to continue on with the humorous side of gamer books, and re-read this one, after finishing DCC.

I read this over a decade ago on my Nook. After reading DCC and continuing my re-read of the Hitchhiker’s trilogy, I decided to re-visit this humorous book.

Five mortals are on an epic quest, but they are actually being controlled by gods, who are players in an RPG, run by the creator of the universe. It’s game night for the gods.

I thought that this was a pretty funny book in 2011. Re-reading it now – this is Dumb and Dumber, not Galaxy Quest. The characters and the gods are hollow tropes. I think it’s supposed to be a clever satire of players ruining a dungeon master’s well-planned game.

It doesn’t work. The gods and the characters aren’t very likable. The Warrior god (a ridiculously over-the-top anti-paladin) isn’t ‘that guy.’ He’s a completely obnoxious jerk that ruins the game. I kept wanting him to die, and the other characters don’t add much substance.

Re-reading, I felt like this was a book written by an RPGer who wanted to show everyone how clever he thought he was. It was a slog to get through. My original intent was to re-read this because I just discovered there is a sequel, and I wanted to read that. But I so didn’t enjoy Game Night again, I didn’t bother to read Saving Game. I downloaded book two of Dungeon Crawler Carl instead.

This is a rare book that I revisited years later and found I didn’t like it after all. You can get it via Kindle Unlimited if you want to see if I’m all wet or not. If you do, let me know what you think, in the comments.

It’s been several years since the last re-read, but I like David Bischoff’s somewhat similar trilogy, The Gaming Magi. That was good.

HITCHHIKER’S GUIDE TO THE GALAXY – Douglas Adams

I’ve got a Douglas Adams ‘Landing Page’ here, with links to all the Adams-related posts we’ve done at Black Gate. I’m a HUGE fan, and I’ve written several posts myself.

Last week’s What I’ve Been Listening To post included Don’t Panic: Neil Gaiman’s fantastic history of the series. ANY Hitchhiker’s fan should read/listen to his book. I enjoyed it so much, I ordered a couple non-fiction books about Adams, and I re-read the first book of the increasingly misnamed trilogy. Then started the second.

Hitchhiker’s remains brilliant, for me. I’m not as crazy starting with book four, or Eion Coifer’s authorized sequel – though they’re still enjoyable. But re-reading the first books, or re-listening to the original radio show, is always a treat. If you know me, you know Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency is actually my favorite Adams book, but I will love Hitchhiker’s until I die.

I’m listening and reading to multiple things right now, but I’m squeezing in a few pages of The Restaurant at the End of the Universe every day.

HITCHHIKER – M.J. Simpson

So, this is a biography of Douglas Adams. It came not too long after Gaiman’s book, and they are actually somewhat complementary, with Gaiman writing the intro for this one, and Simpson writing an intro for the third edition of Gaiman’s book.

This is one of the three books I purchased during this Adams phase I’m in. I’ve already read Jem’s The Frood, which is the official bio of Adams. I’m reading a chapter a day of this (I really am reading and listening to multiple things, and the 27 hour Annotated Sword of Shannara audiobook took up a lot of time).

I wasn’t really in the mood for his pre-Hitchhiker’s life, so it’s been slow progress, and that’s the first third of the book.

That’s on me. It’s a biography, after all. It’s definitely got a lot of info, and it’s well-written. But once I got to BBC radio ordering the first Hitchhiker’s scripts from him, things picked up.

I’d recommend reading Gaiman’s book before reading the full bios, if you’re really into Hitchhiker’s. But both this, and The Frood, are worth reading to learn more about Adams. No surprise that he was an interesting guy.

NO HALLOWED GROUND – Steve Hockensmith

And now, for something completely different. So, with all this fantasy and sci-fi and humor, I also worked in a little Westerns. I’ve written a LOT about Steve Hockensmith’s terrific Holmes on the Range series. Click here for a non-spoiler overview, with links to other posts. I cannot recommend this series enough for fans of Westerns, Sherlock Holmes, and/or mysteries.

As I mentioned in that link, Steve has started a spin-off featuring other operatives of the Double-A Western Detective Agency. I went back and re-listened to the first, Hired Guns, which introduced former Army cavalry men Oswin Diehl and Ira Hoop, along with Apache scout Eskaminzim. Then, I went ahead and read the second one, No Hallowed Ground,

From my essay:

‘Holmes on the Range is a mystery series, set in the Old West, with elements of Sherlock Holmes (prominently) in the background. The Double-A Western novels are not mysteries. They are Westerns. They very much evoke the vibe of those old Western movies with the bad guys running roughshod over weaker but determined opponents. The Double-A operatives prefer to help the good guys, though Colonel Crowe is taking jobs anywhere he can find them, to keep his newly-created agency afloat.

They’re chasing bank robbers through post-Civil War Missouri in No Hallowed Ground. And the group has a new member who causes all three men to tread carefully – Hoop’s wife!’

I like these adventure Westerns. Steve is a really good writer, and I enjoy reading him. He’s working on a new Holmes on the Range novel, but I hope we get more of Diehl and crew.

MISC

Regarding Westerns, I also read a couple T.T. Flynn short stories. When the Pulps died, Flynn shaped a new career writing paperback Westerns. I’ve written a couple Flynn intros for Steeger books, including this one for his horse-racing bookie, Mr. Maddox.

And I re-listened to the first five Cole and Hitch novels by Robert B. Parker (the Spenser for Hire guy). Titus Welliver (Bosch) read these, and he’s fantastic, as I wrote about here. I’d LOVE a screen version with Welliver as Virgil Cole. He’s perfect. Ed Harris made a pretty good movie of Appaloosa, which I wrote about here.

Other What I’ve Been Reading

What I’ve Been Reading: June, 2025 (Clive Cussler, The Continental Op, de Camp/Carter, Marvel’s Conan the Barbarian/Savage Sword of Conan)
What I’ve Been Reading: April, 2025 (Frederick Nebel, Norvell Page, Harold Lamb, Steve Hockensmith)
What I’ve Been Reading: November, 2024: (Glen Cook, Dodgers’ baseball)
What I’ve Been Reading: September, 2024 (Harold Lamb, Hugh Ashton, Scott Oden)
What I’ve Been Reading: November, 2023 (Holmes on the Range, The Caine Mutiny, Jules De Granden)
What I’ve Been Reading: September 2022 (Columbo, Douglas Adams, Cleveland Torso Murderer)
What I’ve Been Reading: May, 2021 (Cole & Hitch, Dortmunder, and Parker, and Tony Hillerman)
What I’ve Been Reading: September 2020 (Jo Gar, Sherlock Holmes, Casablanca the movie, more)
What I’ve Been Reading: January, 2020 (Glen Cook, John D. MacDonald, Howard Andrew Jones, more)
What I’ve Been Reading: December, 2019 (Scott Oden, Norbert Davis, David Dickinson)
What I’ve Been Reading: July, 2019 (Clive Cussler, Gabriel Hunt, Max Latin)

---

Bob Byrne’s ‘A (Black) Gat in the Hand’ made its Black Gate debut in 2018 and has returned every summer since.

His ‘The Public Life of Sherlock Holmes’ column ran every Monday morning at Black Gate from March, 2014 through March, 2017. And he irregularly posts on Rex Stout’s gargantuan detective in ‘Nero Wolfe’s Brownstone.’ He is a member of the Praed Street Irregulars, and founded www.SolarPons.com (the only website dedicated to the ‘Sherlock Holmes of Praed Street’).

He organized Black Gate’s award-nominated ‘Discovering Robert E. Howard’ series, as well as the award-winning ‘Hither Came Conan’ series. Which is now part of THE Definitive guide to Conan. He also organized 2023’s ‘Talking Tolkien.’

He has contributed stories to The MX Book of New Sherlock Holmes Stories — Parts III, IV, V, VI, XXI, and XXXIII.

He has written introductions for Steeger Books, and appeared in several magazines, including Black Mask, Sherlock Holmes Mystery Magazine, The Strand Magazine, and Sherlock Magazine.

You can definitely ‘experience the Bobness’ at Jason Waltz’s ’24? in 42′ podcast.