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If you're reading this from the discovery feed, you're objectively bad at interacting with social media.

There's a lot of themes in the books, relating to trauma, free will, freedom and capitalism, morality under capitalism... The first book takes a bit to get into that part, building the world first, but even then there are early hints with Mordecai.

It's absurdist horror that transcends its litrpg framework to tell a multilayered story (all of which affect and interact with each other) with characters that change and develop and themes of found family, critiques of late capitalism and the attention economy, and managing unmanageable trauma

What. The hell. Is that.

Feeling a little better about not having read this yet, it's on the list because it has been popular but...

I haven't read it, and my only exposure has been through Distractible (Markiplier & Friends podcast), and I realized none of them actually read books. It seems like easy reading pulp fiction for people who don't like readin' them words on tha page.

"At least the kids are reading *something*," I say to myself as someone gifts me the audiobook.

some real touchgrass-core

Earlier this morning I told my wife it was Adventure Time for people who hate women.

I tried to listen to the audiobook and got about 30mins in before the physical discomfort I was attempting to endure grew too much. The prose is pretty bad by itself, and when it’s coupled with the audiobook reader’s performance it’s so viscerally awful that I can still feel it anytime I think of it

The comparison to RPO is unfair. It's much better than that. It has actual themes and characters and plot. But I can definitely see why these bits would cause folks to bounce off, and that is totally fine!

Tbh and this is not praise if RPO…I think RPO was better written

That's how I feel any time I recommend people one of my favorite "monster/supernatural romance" books and I'm reminded that my tastes are a weird mish-mash. And that most books in that category have found mainstream appeal *because* they're kinda sanitized. 😭

House on the Cerulean Sea and This Is How You Lose the Time War wrecked it for me. So much hype over books I really could not enjoy.

This feels a little vindicating as someone whose disdain was entirely vibes-based up to this point, thank you LMAO

"The Good Guys" series came out in 2018 and was a little more self aware of how silly the premise was, there was a something of a glut of "isekai, but you're being watched for entertainment" around that time frame iirc. DCC just seems to be something normal people are latching on as "new"

For the record, not trying to convince you to read it *at all*, I would not recommend the series to most people lol. I'm just autistic & have a lot to say!! Not all of it is good (some of it is pretty awful) but I found that the core message resonates in our current hellscape

I enjoy them as trash to read along with my wife.

Having only read off these couple of pictures, it’s a shame that some of these jokes are really close to being funny but get ruined by getting too dragged out and the childish overuse of swears.

It's absolute gamer slop and I thought I would hate it but the overall plot was compelling enough that I did listen through them. It was light enough to be something that I could listen to as background.

Ahhhh I didn't realize this was one of those modern books written in first person either

Lmao just this past weekend I requested it from my library, thumbed to a random page when it was available for pickup, and immediately dropped it back into the return slot.

I am unsure if I hate the achievement descriptions because of how terrible they are or love the achievement descriptions because of how terrible they are

Oh, yeah I’ve been hearing about this here and there lately too and uh, yeah I think I’ll pass also.

It's fair from the most well written book either but I do find it enjoyable as a nighttime read.

as a person who enjoys both RPGs and literature, the whole concept of a "LitRPG" makes me feel like this is Hell and I'm strapped to the cross at Golgotha

If you don't vibe with the humor, you still won't like it, but it's got actual pathos and characters unlike Klein's tour of his Funkopop shelves.

I think the best of them are running on the premise of "how would a world and its people be warped by functioning on video game mechanic rules"

It started with things like dot Hack and Sword Art Online which were like "what if you got trapped in a videogame" which, at least that's a premise? And then it basically just turned into wish fulfillment for people who never go outside.

well, in this specific case, the point was 'guy who has never written a book before starts writing serial online fiction during covid, it gets popular on royalroad, and he gets a publishing deal.'

I'd be curious to know the smart ones. The whole genre has seemed kinda bad from the start to me, but I haven't looked into in much.

People make fun of me for reading light novels; but honestly only the worst slop amongst them reads like this. The rest are much, MUCH better. The fact that this is popular is telling me that the audience is actually people with no taste....

Wtf.

I hear positive feelings about it but the accompanying art feels too close to "epic bacon" to make me really consider it.

It's hardly the largest problem, but the phrase ". . . Kid's menu from some diner *from* Canada" really pisses me off.

I didn’t realize it was this Basic

So that's what the reddit adults are so into. Huh. Makes sense I guess

yeah, my first thought was ready player one all over again

Oh god my friends have been trying to convince me to read these, thank you for posting this so I confidently turn them down.

Dinniman does this thing through the series where every time an IP is namedropped he has to include what kind of medie. like "the star wars movies" or "the mario kart game

They're already doing the thing in your replies where they're like "Yeah the first one sucks but it gets way better" and it's like ... sorry homie, if you read through 500 pages of this shit and sought out the next one, maybe I don't trust you when you say that.

I like dcc, buts its absolutely lowest common denominator drek. although I’d argue its closer to isekai “that time I was reincarnated as a slime” slop than Ready Player One. Its an endless story about a dude’s number going up as he fights other things that have their number go up.

It definitely suffers from a lot of the problems that crop up when a work is serialized and the author is doing everything they can to put out a chapter a week for their fans.

Oh no. I've been hearing positive buzz, but this just looks dreadful.

yeah its really rough, i feel bad because the author seems like a nice guy and it started out self published but it is not. for. me. happy for him and the fans tho

Honestly, this really makes me appreciate Dungeon Meshi more and mors.

that sounds worse???

"I drew my sword" just has a better brainfeel to it than "I clicked the sword in my inventory to equip it" haha

Oof that's bad, it's written like one of those video game isekais but with late '90s irreverent humor and edginess.

Those books give me the ick in the same way as Palworld

"ready player 1 for people who listen to critical role"

My BIL gave this series a try TWICE but hated it so much he couldn’t even get past the first book.

Didn't know anything about this until I picked up an adaptation that was being given away on Free Comic Book Day. Christ, it was like someone trying their own smartass version of all the dime-a-dozen isekai manga and light novels out there. Tossed it into my recycling can.

Absolutely fascinated that I’ve heard no one talk about these until the past 3 months only to discover just now there’s so many of them

this review? @abeewords.bsky.social www.jank.cool/you-deserve-...

She is technically correct, the best kind of correct

All you had to say is…nothing.

So this is my first exposure to the actual words inside these books...oooooof. Thank you for your service.

The books are just a silly lite read. But in this modern era the comodification, followed by enshitification, seems inevitable. (the pop culture falls in to the Vin diagram of large population + game culture) I havent had the fortitude to see if the game is playable.

I think that is not going to work well because a core premise of the book is the AI dungeonmaster has gone rogue and is hazing everyone Paranoia style

Been saying this to 'mericans for decades.

Fact. Being a successful writer has nothing to do with being a good writer. Only gotta connect with the right readership.

900 page book but its airport font size is pretty funny.

We sell these at the book warehouse where I work and they are massive. We had to put in a new bay to store them all.

The defenses I've seen of this amount to "you have to give it a chance to explain itself" or "you have to meet it on it's own terms" and a page count like that still wouldn't be sufficient to "explain itself" enough

I know you’re making a joke, but this really is like something from the Da Vinci code 

Lol, check out The Wandering Inn (another LitRPG). It'e even worse.

It helps understand it if you know it was first webfiction published on Royal Road. So basically exactly getting more views by making your work longer.

I have so many *better* things to waste my time listening to, holy shit

The fans LOVE the audiobooks because the reader does all the voices. Torturous.

I know for a fact you did not cherry pick these because I've seen two other people kvetching about these books, and they both used completely different examples from the same book aswell

I mean RPO has themes of wish fulfillment, nostalgia, and being trapped in the past. It fucks those themes up badly and doesn't really seem to have thought through how they impact the story, but the themes are there.

I read the first one. The only theme seemed to be “low stakes misogyny”

Everything has themes. Having themes comes for free with your text.

I’m enjoying it, but I can understand this opinion. I balked at your RPO comparison because they’re only similar on the surface level. RPO is pure fantasy wish fulfillment, whereas DCC is the complete opposite (and essentially Hunger Games)

Why do people get so defensive when their slop is criticized? Just enjoy it and move on, it's not a judgement on your character.

this isn't me saying they're good, just, that's why they keep ballooning

Speaking as someone who does quite enjoy the series, I feel like it's worth pointing out that it's worth noting that the series included with Kindle Unlimited so it was/is functionally free to check out for a lot of readers. I do think it's weird that it's getting as popular as it is, though.

yeah I like DCC but it's a big mix of "the subreddit makes my skin crawl", and also sometimes ya just gotta be cringe (says the rwby fan)

This is funny because the two common defenses I've heard of the series are "it takes a couple books to get good" and "the audiobook performance is great and makes up for the bad writing". But now apparently the audiobook performance ALSO sucks and takes a few books to get good.

LitRPG is a weird genre and I don't really think its for me. That said, from what I've heard Dungeon Crawler Carl is at least funny and self aware, unlike Ready Player One.

Cool, I enjoyed it

It's too long and too puerile but I liked it! It was presented to me as slop and it was fine slop! 2666 it certainly isn't but I didn't expect that coming in. It's definitely not Terry Pratchett either. I think it's about Neal Stephenson level but with different (kinder more humanist) opinions.

Oh yeah thanks for this. I was probably never going to read these books but these photos sealed the deal

It’s always nice to have your suspicions confirmed. Glad I didn’t waste the time.

Matt Dinniman is a feminist who loves women, if they’re not cheating whores that is!

As someone who has read ready player one, I disagree. Ready player one was all about masterbating to 80's nostalgia and how that made the protagonist "special" DCC is about how popculture is used to enslave and torture society for the entertainment of the elite and how fucked that is.

You're kinda making me want to hate read these books now.

I’m a librarian and I personally enjoy this, but I have to always ask “how do you feel about Reddit?” It’s RPO if Reddit had a say.

it’s probably juvenile for me to reflexively hate popular things without giving them a chance but it has rarely steered me wrong

I feel vindicated for assuming these would be exactly this based fully on the title.

I read the first one and it was fine. I read the second and mourned the time lost.

Im not normally a fan of litrpgs, but ive been really taken by this one. The themes of capitalism is destroying the world and everything in it, and humans are at their best when forming communities are alittle on the nose. Also, gallows humor, satire, and explaing why objectification is bad.