Matt Dinniman's "Dungeon Crawler Carl" Series

Literary Fiction, RPGs, and LitRPGs

Literary vs Genre Fiction

There’s a stark social divide between literary fiction and genre fiction. I’m constantly made aware of this—my initial plans as a writer were to be a poet and a cyberpunk novelist¹. I’ve since written four books of poetry, two self-help books, a short memoir, and a transgressive science fiction/crime novel. I’m currently working on a square literary fiction novel and also a TV pilot about a supernatural fighting force. I’ve heard lots of shit talked from various sides, schools of thought, and genre-dwellers about writers of other ilks.

It comes down to this: the literary books are seen as boring, pretentious, and lifeless, while the genre books are seen as “less than”-writing, hacky, and trope-reliant. The literary writers will get the majority share of the teaching gigs, awards, and public respect, while the genre writers get the bigger advances, front-of-store placement, and the fantastic movie options. Literary writers are thought of as smarter than genre writers. And pretty much everyone hates poetry who isn’t a poet, and the poets hate any poet who is more successful than they are.

In every genre, there are a few writers who break bigger than the genre to wider literary acclaim. Think of Philip K Dick and Jim Thompson who are commonly praised in literary circles. And literary writers such as Flannery O’Connor and Cormac McCarthy influenced many genre writers as well.

But really, outside of my inner-circle worlds of writing, most readers I met don’t care at all about what world a book lives in as long as it’s good. I’ve seen plenty of bookshelves with David Sedaris and Stephen King and Sylvia Plath. This is the truth of readership: is it a good book? Do you stay up a little later just to read the next chapter? Does the book make you demand an answer to the question: WHAT HAPPENS NEXT?

Enter the LitRPG

I have an in-person weekly RPG session with a group of friends. I worked at PlayStation on landmark RPG video games such as Final Fantasy VII. I saw Krull in the theater, twice. I’m well-versed in this world but have never given one shit about fantasy novels. Even as a kid, they couldn’t hold my interest. So I can’t really explain how I was drawn into what has become the beacon of a new subgenre of fantasy books: Dungeon Crawler Carl.

I give this the best review possible: I immediately bought the second one when I finished the first. This is what every writer wants to hear: one book made a loyal fan.

Matt Dinniman’s Dungeon Crawler Carl series not only broke a lot of rules of publishing but solidified a new genre: LitRPG². The best quality of DCC, as it is commonly called among its followers, is that it’s a page-turner. No matter the genre or the subject matter, all writers want their books to be loved and devoured. Until now, there hasn’t been a title from this new genre that’s broken out of its insider circles into the rest of the world—DCC is no longer just competing against other LitRPG books, but it's now in the realm of competing with every book in the store.

LitRPG is a genre that is for gamers, set with the reality of video games. Some will set their stories within a specific game, but others create their own game worlds in which their characters play. The standard trope is that a regular human gets stuck in their favorite video game, which is explained by everything from VR to a magic spell. In DCC, Carl and his cat survive the invasion of an alien race who demolishes the earth and turns it into a galactic reality show—if they survive this dungeon game, they get to stay on Earth, and well, live.

Dinniman posted up chapters on a site called Royal Road, one at a time. If a reader wanted to support him, he had a Patreon. For a fee, they got early looks at chapters. Once he had enough chapters for a book, he made an ebook and listed it at Amazon with a 2020 pub date. I’m not sure when exactly it took off, but it has 38,000 reviews on Goodreads. What percentage of readers have left a review here? DCC is a huge success for a self-published writer. Now the book is reprinted in hardcover by Ace, an imprint of Penguin, it’s been optioned by Seth McFarlane, and there is a video game version coming. Dinniman has created a vertical franchise.

It took me until the second book in the series to realize what the attraction is. I love the writing, but it’s not high art. There’s no inherent beauty in the prose, no grand literary gift. The book is funny, but that’s not it, either. While there is little to no character development, what is developed is the world of the book.

There are 10 levels to the dungeon that the aliens made from the destroyed Earth surface, and each book is just one level in that dungeon. As Carl and his cat explore the dank, dark hallways, they learn the rules of the world and how it functions, as does the reader. Carl and his cat are but tools for the reader to see the world that lives in Dinniman’s mind, and it happens to sound like the coolest game that has ever been made.

Strangely enough, the book it most reminds me of is Edward Bellamy’s Looking Backward, an 1888 science fiction book. The main character of this book, Julian West, falls asleep and whoopsy—wakes up in the year 2000, and the United States is a socialist utopia. He describes in the book every aspect of how the socialist country created a paradise on Earth. DCC has no political leanings, but the draw to the writing in both is for the description of day-to-day life in such a world. As science fiction was a new genre, and there were few tales of time travel, this book blew minds.

If it feels good, read it.

Read. It’s part of a healthy human intake. If you made it this far, I guess I don’t have to give you any encouragement. But maybe you’re stuck with old thoughts of what you do and don’t like. Break out, and read something new (to you)!

1. The poet part worked out, the cyberpunk novelist did not

2. In this article, Dinniman claims LitRPG is a style, not a genre. But I really think he has made it a genre.