Review: A Parade of Horribles (Dungeon Crawler Carl #8) by Matt Dinniman

Synopsis:

It’s off to the races in the explosive eighth book in the Dungeon Crawler Carl series.

As chaos and mass panic spread outside the dungeon in the wake of Faction Wars, Carl and Donut find themselves on the tenth floor, where they’re forced to compete in a surprisingly normal set of tasks. Well, normal for the dungeon.

Races. Get from point A to point B, and don’t come in last. After each race, they pick an upgrade for their vehicle and the track gets more challenging. It all seems a little too normal, a little too simple.

Ignore those strange glitches that are occurring with increasing frequency. Don’t listen to those whispers about what’s happening on the mysterious eleventh floor, something the system AI calls A Parade of Horribles. Nobody, not even the showrunners, knows what that means. Just that the AI has ominously dubbed it “a coming-out party for the ages.”

Everything is fine, Crawler. I repeat, everything is fine.

Carl hates that it’s business as usual. The rules of this floor have taken away his agency. That just will not do.

So Carl is planning a party of his own. It’s a plan so dangerous, so insane, he can’t even consult his friends lest the AI put a stop to it. Because if it goes wrong, it’s not just the end of Carl and Donut. No. The stakes are higher than they’ve ever been.

Review:

In literature, there’s a concept called “Chekhov’s Gun” — essentially that everything introduced in the story should be necessary to the plot. In simple terms, Anton Chekhov might have said, if a character has a gun early in the book, that gun should be used before the book is done. (In Russian, of course) 

As we have now reached the 8th book in the Dungeon Crawler Carl series, A Parade of Horribles, we might need to coin a new term — Dinniman’s Bomb, or would it be Dinniman’s Potion or…maybe Pig or Toe Ring or Tiara or Corpse or…well crud. The thing about Dinniman is that he not only introduces a gun, but he throws an entire arsenal at you, sometimes before we get to Chapter 2. And since he has so many books to play with, sometimes these elements pop up three books later in the most random of places. At this point, Dinniman has jam-packed so many tricks and treats into these books, I imagine there’s a lot of DCC fans that are re-reading (or re-listening if you’re a Jeff Hays stan) to the previous seven iterations before A Parade of Horribles releases on May 12. 

Okay…so I haven’t really talked about the newest entry in the series yet. First…I loved it. I didn’t have a ton of expectations going into the book — I’m perfectly willing to put my fate in Dinniman’s hands. Is it the best Carl book? I’m not going to go that far…frankly, The Butcher’s Masquerade is going to take a lot to top. At this point, it’s almost turning into a list similar to what we did with Marvel movies back about 10 years ago. So much of it turns into personal preferences with these books, but I’d place it fourth in my rankings, but I may totally change that after listening to the audiobook down the road. (Each of the books is a minimum four-star read in my opinion)

I appreciate Dinniman switching things up on every floor of the Dungeon. Sometimes that works tremendously, and other times it’s confusing for even the most-dedicated fans (looking at you, Iron Tangle). In A Parade of Horribles, it’s a little bit of both, to be honest. Much like the Iron Tangle, this book centers on transportation, but here Carl and his fellow crawlers are playing an amped-up version of Mario Kart, but in Carl’s version the final finisher in each race is eliminated. Like…eliminated, eliminated. Throughout the previous levels of the Dungeon, there’s always been a chance element, but if you’ve played Mario Kart, you know that a blue shell can knock you out within inches of the finish line. 

Frankly, I wouldn’t doubt if the inspiration isn’t actually Mario Kart, but Hot Wheels. When I was young, we had a huge cardboard box packed to the gills with those orange tracks. My brother and I would connect those suckers together, run them down our stairs, up couches, around coffee tables, all with our G.I. Joes, Transformers, and Star Wars figures lining the track. This book took me back to those memories, with a cargo ship full of mayhem dumped on each and every surface. 

Over the last few books, Carl and Donut’s circle has expanded explosively. Ironically, as the number of humans were cut down more and more by each successive floor, we were treated to more and more important characters. While I really loved the last book, This Inevitable Ruin, there is so much going on with so many characters — both in and out of the Dungeon. Here, Dinniman kinda goes back to basics. In a lot of ways, much of this book is just Carl and Donut — re-centering the series on the relationship that makes it all work in the first place. 

There is a strange sort of momentum in this one. There are seven races that the crawlers have to survive with plenty of twists and turns. At first, it’s crawlers versus NPCs, but as more NPCs get knocked out, more crawlers must face off. Carl, Donut, Prepotente (who may quickly be becoming my favorite character), and his inner circle are banging their heads together trying to figure out how to circumvent the ever-erratic AI. After that seventh race, we get the title event, which is the entirety of the 11th floor. The tone and pace of the parade is drastically different than the previous races, but the pressure on our characters may be the highest it’s ever been, while Carl works to maneuver everything perfectly in order to save himself and Donut.  

One of the real joys for me in reading the Dungeon Crawler Carl books is watching Dinniman paint his characters into a corner and then how they systematically work themselves out of it. Sometimes there is no magical solution and some of the side characters don’t make it out, but often there is something Carl or Princess Donut was given in some Gold or Platinum Box three floors ago that manages to do the trick. At times there’s a little bit of hand-wavy Deus Ex Machina, but Dinniman still manages to put it into the context of his very complex storyline to feel like it isn’t some gimick. 

In the last book, I started sensing that the AI was almost on Carl’s side. After witnessing what goes down in A Parade of Horribles, that may…no longer be the case. For as much as Carl and Donut can predict the NPCs or their enemies, when it comes to what the AI is cooking, it throws a crap-ton of monkey wrenches into the mix. 

By the time we finish up at the end of Dinniman’s latest entry in Carl’s saga, he’s got the playing field set for the final act. Recently, he said that he’s got ten books planned with the last two being Book 9, broken into two installments. I’m thrilled there’s more to come and kinda glad that there is an end planned out. Often when we get a LitRPG series there is no end goal and the protagonist keeps leveling up forever.

What’s that? You’d like to see my rankings of DCC Books? Sure thing…these rankings are subject to change, especially Book 8, which I just finished days ago. 

1. The Butcher’s Masquerade (Book 5)
2. The Gate of the Feral Gods (Book 4)
3. This Inevitable Ruin (Book 7)
4. A Parade of Horribles (Book 8)
5. Dungeon Crawler Carl (Book 1)
6. Carl’s Doomsday Scenario (Book 2)
7. The Dungeon Anarchist’s Cookbook (Book 3) 
8. The Eye of the Bedlam Bride (Book 6)

You might look at that list and think I wasn’t a fan of this book, but I think back to about 10 years ago when I was ranking MCU movies and I might’ve had Guardians of the Galaxy or The Avengers fourth on my list. All of these books are highly entertaining and addicting, but for various reasons I ranked a few lower than others. 

In the end, of course I recommend A Parade of Horribles. It’s a wild ride (literally) from the start and takes the audience to unexpected places on a mad and harried journey. It suffers a bit from some of what gets us there — so many complicated story threads, many of which we can’t see because we stay with Carl as our POV character throughout. Dinniman keeps the action fast-paced and fun with the dialogue between our characters edgy, but relatable. I will be awaiting the final two books in this series with bated breath, but I definitely don’t want Dinniman to rush it. Matt – take your time and finish Carl and Donut’s stories right. 

A Parade of Horribles will be on sale May 12, 2026.

Thank you to Berkley Publishing Group for providing this book for review consideration via NetGalley. All opinions are my own.