Hi everyone! Let’s skip the pleasantries and get right into this review. If you haven’t seen my reviews for the first two books in the DCC series, please check those out. Now, let’s talk about the third book in the Dungeon Crawler Carl series.

Content Warning: Violence, Gore, Crude Humor, Explicit Language

Not so long ago, Earth was colonized by a powerful group of aliens and turned into the set of their most popular survival show, Dungeon Crawler World. Carl and Donut have been pretty lucky so far, but nothing could have prepared them for the third floor. The Iron Tangle is the most complicated railway system in the galaxy. Trains of all sorts zip along on impossible tracks. Monsters lurk in every car, and there are only so many ways to escape. Luckily for Carl and Donut, they have the popularity and skills to survive even the toughest situations, and they’ll need all of the luck they can get. Along with all of the other enemies, they now have bounties on their heads. Not even their fellow crawlers can be trusted. The key to surviving all of this could be hidden in a silly little cookbook.

Out of the three books I have read thus far, The Dungeon Anarchist’s Cookbook has been the most fun. I love the setting and appreciate Matt Dinniman explaining that it is purposefully confusing. I think what worked for this book most was that there was little to no exposition about the new floor. Previously, I had praised the first two books for utilizing exposition effectively, but the lack of reasoning or any sort of logic made it all the more fun. This book is not all fun and games, though. Dinniman does a good job sprinkling in hints at Carl’s backstory, among other tragedies that are hidden within the bizarre world of this novel. I also appreciated the new side characters, like Katia. I’m interested to see what the new group dynamic will be in book four. With all of that being said, I’m hooked on the Dungeon Crawler Carl series and cannot wait to see what kind of nonsense is in the next book.