Here are 100 books that Dungeon Crawler Carl fans have personally recommended if you like
Dungeon Crawler Carl.
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As we watch the news–the increasing number of earthquakes, volcanoes, wars, inflation, the rapid progress of AI, unelected elites deciding they know best for the world, and more–we don’t know how to process it all, and it leaves us feeling anxious. My passion for helping my readers not just escape but actually live better fuels me. I created this retelling of the Book of Revelations from the POV of celestial warriors and fallen angels in the unseen realms of our world to allow my readers to “make more sense” of the world and be at peace.
The premise of a fussy angel and a fast-living demon positions the book with humor, which I absolutely loved. As the plot unfolds, we discover that these two figures have been living on Earth for thousands of years and enjoying it. So when the demon receives word that the Apocalypse is upon them, they conspire together to subvert the ancient prophecy that predicts the world's end. LOL
The ingenuity and cleverness of these authors are top-notch, starting with the character names: The demon character is Crawley. If you recall, Satan was made a snake in the Garden of Eden after tempting Adam and Eve. But it doesn’t stop there. Crawley creates a motorway that emanates evil, with all of the issues associated with that. LOL.
THE BOOK BEHIND THE AMAZON PRIME/BBC SERIES STARRING DAVID TENNANT, MICHAEL SHEEN, JON HAMM AND BENEDICT CUMBERBATCH
'Ridiculously inventive and gloriously funny' Guardian
What if, for once, the predictions are right, and the Apocalypse really is due to arrive next Saturday, just after tea?
It's a predicament that Aziraphale, a somewhat fussy angel, and Crowley, a fast-living demon, now find themselves in. They've been living amongst Earth's mortals since The Beginning and, truth be told, have grown rather fond of the lifestyle and, in all honesty, are not actually looking forward to the coming Apocalypse.
Ever since reading Heir to the Empire (Timothy Zahn), I’ve been fascinated by science fiction stories with amazing characters and intriguing concepts. I love finding a new story, especially one that isn’t being talked about, and falling into that world. I still get lost in the worlds of the Deathgate Cycle and Rose of the Prophets because they introduced me to concepts and places I’d never imagined or thought to imagine before reading them. I crafted a world and characters both familiar and alien because of these influences and I’m still drawn to them when I start a new book no one is talking about, like those on this list.
From the moment I first began listening to the audiobook, I fell in love with this story. I was all in the moment Ryland Grace stumbled through answering the question “What is 2 plus 2?” The layering of the story, the threat to Earth concept, the educational presentation of very high-level scientific concepts to an audience of all ages, and the way Andy Weir made this reader feel so many emotions over a rock just keep drawing me back to it.
I literally just finished another listen less than a month ago and already want to go back to a story. I still don’t see many people talking about it. And the ending? Every story has its own perfect dismount landing, and this one nailed it.
Ryland Grace is the sole survivor on a desperate, last-chance mission—and if he fails, humanity and the earth itself will perish.
Except that right now, he doesn’t know that. He can’t even remember his own name, let alone the nature of his assignment or how to complete it.
All he knows is that he’s been asleep for a very, very long time. And he’s just been awakened to find himself millions of miles from home, with nothing but two corpses for company.
His crewmates dead, his memories fuzzily returning, Ryland realizes that an impossible task now confronts him. Hurtling through…
I’m KrazeKode; I’m a college student turned author who spent his teenage years reading a lot of web novels, and eventually, I ended up writing some. People liked them enough that I decided I wanted to do it as my job instead of writing boring code for some company, so now I do that instead. I’ve read a lot, and a good chunk of them were cultivation books. I really love this genre and find that it has a lot of potential to explore. It is generally a super fun setting and world and has a very different style and feel compared to most other Western English works, making it quite refreshing.
This book is probably my favorite cultivation novel out there, and for good reason. If you’re not aware what cultivation is, it’s a system of fantasy and magic inspired by eastern Taoist philosophies and chinese stories about reaching immortality and feature a lot of those themes.
It’s an entire genre and one I enjoy quite a bit, and Cradle, to me, is the very pinnacle of this genre. The book manages to bring a very fresh and exciting tale of cultivation that’s also still quite friendly to new readers just getting into the genre. It’s well beloved by the fans of the genre and held in extremely high regard, and I personally marvel at just how well it executed the story and just how rich and exciting the setting was for the story.
Sacred artists follow a thousand Paths to power, using their souls to control the forces of the natural world.Lindon is Unsouled, forbidden to learn the sacred arts of his clan.When faced with a looming fate he cannot ignore, he must rise beyond anything he's ever known...and forge his own Path.
As an author, I’m fascinated with the fictional quest for power and the challenges and changes that journey both entails and provokes. Progression fantasy, beyond all the numbers and formalized rankings, is about the character first… not just people growing stronger, but how that growth impacts them on a fundamental level. It's something central to my own fiction, and as I’ve explored the progression fantasy genre, I’ve loved seeing the different ways other authors tackle that same idea. The worlds, people, and magic systems vary wildly between different series in the genre, but that central conflict’s impact on those engaged in it remains uniquely compelling.
Iron Prince is unique in this list (and among most progression fantasy books) in that it takes place in the distant future, on one of many planets in a galaxy at war.
Instead of mystical cores or game or system-imposed leveling constructs, individuals are given CADs (combat assistance devices) that largely do the same thing.
What I love about the book is that the main character, Rei, is the ultimate underdog. He’s done everything he could to achieve success despite his shortcomings, only to get crushed by peers and a governing system that abhors weakness.
His determination to push on is one of my favorite traits in characters, and ensures that we, the audience, remain engaged, even as he learns to leverage his unique gifts. Smart and never boring, I can’t wait for the sequel!
Reidon Ward will become a god. He doesn't know it yet, of course. Reidon was born weak, sickly and small. Afflicted with a painful disease and abandoned by his parents because of it, he has had to fight tooth and nail for every minor advantage life has allowed him.His perseverance has not gone unnoticed, however, and when the most powerful artificial intelligence in human history takes an interest in him, things began to change quickly. Granted a CAD—a Combat Assistance Device—with awful specs but an infinite potential for growth, Reidon finds himself at the bottom of his class at the…
I love fantasy, particularly comic fantasy. But there's an art to making something that is mind-meltingly silly feel real and meaningful, at the same time. To make it feel solid. If something is too chaotic, too randomly silly, then the narrative integrity disintegrates. You're left feeling, ‘yes, I know that the troll has now mysteriously turned into a chicken; but really, what’s the point?’ On the other hand, if the story isn’t silly enough…well, then it becomes straight fantasy, which is wonderful when it’s done well, but can feel mundane and derivative when it is not. I've deliberately limited this list to include only two Discworld books. To include any more would seem, well—silly.
I first read this when I was a teenager because I loved the TV show. But though the book has a lot of cleverly mad humour, there is more of a melancholy undercurrent here. The science fiction ideas are creatively insane, but they are always brought down to Earth by the palpably flawed characters, which give the whole book a reality it would otherwise lack. This elevates it from whimsical science fantasy to something solid and substantial. For smeg’s sake, give it a read!
Awakening from a drunken spree in a London pub to find himself on one of Saturn's moons, Lister joins the Space Corps and boards the Red Dwarf, determined to return to Earth
There’s always time for a good laugh, the kind that makes your beverage of choice try to escape out your nostrils. There’s something magical about a book that can make you laugh, because comedy is so personal to each of us. I have a very strange sense of humour. It’s an odd hybrid of British sarcasm, Australian swearing, and Canadian self-deprecation. Because of this, when I find something that clicks and genuinely makes me giggle, I won’t shut up about it. I’ll tell the postman, the pizza delivery person, the police officer who keeps telling me to put trousers on when I’m out in public. Now I’m telling you!
This book takes the fish out of water trope I just spoke about in a whole different direction. In Vainqueur, it’s not so much a fish, as a hungry shark that finds itself out of its usual element.
A dragon wakes up from a lengthy nap and finds that the whole world is now an RPG-style game. It can level up, gain abilities, and accept quests. Thankfully, it’s a bloody big dragon, which makes some of the quests a tad easier to complete.
The dragon really steals the show and behaves exactly as you’d expect a grumpy old murder machine might. The book has wonderful dialogue and a fresh perspective on some of the genre tropes. It’s a nice easy read, with the perfect amount of groveling minions.
Vainqueur Knightsbane is your average dragon: a giant, fire-breathing lizard who loves to take naps on his golden hoard, kidnap princesses for fun, and make the life of adventurers miserable. Vainqueur's only pleasure in life is to watch his treasure get bigger, one coin at a time.So when a would-be thief turned unwilling minion tells him about "classes," "levels," and "quests," Vainqueur wonders if maybe, just maybe, he should consider a career change. After all, why bother hunting monsters for free when you can get paid for it?
Though I write, I will always be a LitRPG reader first. I enjoy these stories for their ability to craft interesting magical worlds, their creativity of plot, and their breadth of scope. Some LitRPGs are two-dimensional, which have their place, but each of the stories I’ve listed here are most definitely not. They act as my inspiration, both in how I wish to write and in how I’d like to be more creative overall. My day job is as a technical writer for a software company, and LitRPG stories got me back into reading, forced me to think more creatively, and allowed me to follow my dream of writing my own.
Whenever I think of a ‘typical’ LitRPG, I think of World Tree Online. And I’ll be honest, I dropped it once before picking it back up! Years after my grave mistake, I still point people towards this story because it exemplifies many of the reasons why I love this genre: A thought-provoking world where human emotions take root in both the good and ‘bad’ characters; a story where there are actualconsequences when things go wrong; and a magic system with endless possibilities, driven by creativity and perseverance.
If I haven’t sold you yet, know that the action escalates with each book and the author only got more creative as time went on. This story is one I draw inspiration from often and I hope you check it out.
In 2056, the world’s most powerful AI System, ARKUS, comes online. Created to extend human lifespans, it quickly makes world-changing discoveries in health science. It also develops an advanced VR headset that uses consumable nanomachines to let users experience time faster in virtual worlds.
Two years later, ARKUS releases World-Tree Online, a game where players scale a giant tree with thousands of unique game worlds hanging from the branches. The game’s time-dilation makes it so that one hour of playtime feels like one month to those in-game, allowing humans to virtually extend their lifespans.
Though I write, I will always be a LitRPG reader first. I enjoy these stories for their ability to craft interesting magical worlds, their creativity of plot, and their breadth of scope. Some LitRPGs are two-dimensional, which have their place, but each of the stories I’ve listed here are most definitely not. They act as my inspiration, both in how I wish to write and in how I’d like to be more creative overall. My day job is as a technical writer for a software company, and LitRPG stories got me back into reading, forced me to think more creatively, and allowed me to follow my dream of writing my own.
One of the behemoths in the LitRPG genre, this story invented a magic system with infinite possibilities that is universally simple to understand as soon as you read how it works. More importantly, the story has some of the best characterizations I’ve ever read, introducing a cast of characters that each have defined motivations and backgrounds, helping to build out the world that the main character has been thrown into.
It starts as a story about a man whisked into another world, and quickly sets itself apart from other portal fantasies. I have yet to find any magic system like it and I thought of it often when I created my own.
Jason wakes up in a mysterious world of magic and monsters.It’s not easy making the career jump from office-supplies-store middle manager to heroic interdimensional adventurer. At least, Jason tries to be heroic, but it's hard to be good when all your powers are evil.He’ll face off against cannibals, cultists, wizards, monsters...and that’s just on the first day. He’s going to need courage, he’s going to need wit, and he’s going to need some magic powers of his own. But first, he’s going to need pants.After cementing itself as one of the best-rated serial novels on Royal Road with an astonishing…
Though I write, I will always be a LitRPG reader first. I enjoy these stories for their ability to craft interesting magical worlds, their creativity of plot, and their breadth of scope. Some LitRPGs are two-dimensional, which have their place, but each of the stories I’ve listed here are most definitely not. They act as my inspiration, both in how I wish to write and in how I’d like to be more creative overall. My day job is as a technical writer for a software company, and LitRPG stories got me back into reading, forced me to think more creatively, and allowed me to follow my dream of writing my own.
Jake's Magical Market has become one of my standout favourites because of how many different ideas can all (logically and cohesively) fit into one story. The initial premise promised a magic system based on internalized decks of cards, but the unfolding story reveals a much more sinister universe filled with mystery, corruption, and intrigue than I could have ever expected from its humble start. Jake meets each challenge head-on, growing stronger along the way, and each new arc in the story is crafted with creativity and very well thought out. A special shoutout to the author’s second series ‘A portal to nova roma,’ which some argue is even better, but Jake’s is still the more memorable read.
Meddling gods. A magical card system. An apocalypse no one could have predicted.
Jake is working at the neighborhood market under his apartment when the world ends. He expected nuclear war, a computer virus, or even climate change burning everyone to a crisp to bring about the downfall of civilization. But cruel and arbitrary gods from another world? Who would have guessed that?
When these cruel gods shuffled Earth like a deck of cards, nothing was in the same place anymore. Monsters, dungeons, and magical items appear scattered across the globe. And suddenly, everyone has access to a new, strange…
Though I write, I will always be a LitRPG reader first. I enjoy these stories for their ability to craft interesting magical worlds, their creativity of plot, and their breadth of scope. Some LitRPGs are two-dimensional, which have their place, but each of the stories I’ve listed here are most definitely not. They act as my inspiration, both in how I wish to write and in how I’d like to be more creative overall. My day job is as a technical writer for a software company, and LitRPG stories got me back into reading, forced me to think more creatively, and allowed me to follow my dream of writing my own.
This book surprised the heck out of me. In a genre where overpowered main characters are the norm, this story proved that even the greatest of powers can have limitations. It proves that with enough creativity, even the simplest of abilities can astound and amaze. The story also does an amazing job of mixing in intrigue and mystery without needing to constantly explain or do information dumps. I could blather on about this story, but above all else, the way in which it was executed makes it a must-mention on this list.
A world on the precipice of the apocalypse. A secret forged in the flames of war. A chance to start over.
For John Sutton, only one of those three things matters.
Retired from a decade of brutal war, he wants nothing more than a quiet pastoral life while he does his best to stem the steady increase of his Doom Points before they hit 100, signaling the start of the end.
He’s been given a small farm on the outskirts of the empire as a thanks for his service, but no matter how far he travels, it's impossible to escape…
