Good narration, interesting (if horrifying) premise. But that’s about all I can say that is good about this dumpster fire of a book.
The pacing was all out of whack. The book was supposedly taking place over 5 days, but the days had little to no distinction between them. There were multiple times I had to zoom back several chapters to check if I had missed something. I hadn’t. There was no sign of the careful planning and outlining that must go into each DCC book. This felt overly rushed, like I was reading something abridged. Most of the plot progression was driven by deus ex machina, sometimes in a literal sense.
The humor was childish and crass throughout, significantly worse than the edgiest edgelord content I was already rolling my eyes at in DCC. I wouldn’t call DCC’s humor subtle or high brow, but it hasn’t yet sunk to the depths this did. (Worst offense was the origin story of one side character’s nickname.)
To add insult to injury, there was practically zero character development across the entire book. The main character was pretty much just along for the ride the whole time, and he barely changed from start to finish.
Here’s hoping this was just a fluke, because I don’t think I could handle DCC 8 being this lousy.