“The apocalypse will be televised.”

How do you know that the thing you love is becoming a pop culture phenomenon? How do you know it has broken out of the niche for which it was written, and is now getting ready to rampage through the zeitgeist? There are signs: a catchphrase dropped into casual conversation, a T-shirt spotted in the wild, your older relatives asking you “what do you know about this?”. This is how I feel about the absolute madcap spectacle that is Matt Dinniman’s Dungeon Crawler Carl series.

Here’s the pitch. A 20-something former Coast Guardsman named Carl is playing video games in the early morning hours of a winter night in Seattle, Washington. His ex-girlfriend’s show cat, Princess Donut, decides this is the ideal time to go out the window. Carl, wearing a leather coat, boxers, and slipping into the wrong shoes, quickly goes after her. This is when Earth is conquered by aliens. Instantly, billions die around the world as all buildings with a roof and all vehicles are sucked into the ground. The survivors are told that the new owners are instituting the 18-level World Dungeon to provide a method to get the planet back. Carl and Princess Donut enter and are registered as Dungeon Crawlers. This is just the tip of the high-octane video game insanity that this series becomes. It is by turns hilarious, action-packed, and horrific.

The last five years has seen the popularity of the series skyrocket, fueled in large part by the amazing audiobooks narrated by Jeff Hays. Dinniman and Hays were even guests at Brandon Sanderson’s Dragonsteel Nexus convention last year, which was amazing to see one of the current top fantasy writers rally behind DCC. The future is bright for these books, with an original graphic novel, a collection of the popular webtoon, an RPG, a few board games, and a television adaptation in the pipeline, breakthrough stardom awaits. Parents, please take note that these books are intended for a mature audience. Come on down and grab a copy of Dungeon Crawler Carl today!