How Did a Talking Cat Make Me Care About an Entire Galaxy?

I have read fantasy for years. Romance, epic fantasy, vampires, dragons, magic, all of it. I had actually never read a LitRPG before Dungeon Crawler Carl, so I honestly had no idea what to expect.

What I expected was to get attached to a few characters.

What I didn’t expect was for this to become the first series I’ve ever read where I care just as much about the world as I do the people in it.

Normally when I finish a book, I don’t spend my time wondering what happens to the world. I wonder what happens to the characters. My friends and I actually realized that whenever we talk about books, we almost never talk about the plot. We talk about the characters. Who we love. Who pissed us off. Who broke our hearts. Who we’d absolutely lose our minds over if they died.

Dungeon Crawler Carl is the only series that has ever changed that for me.

Don’t get me wrong, I am ridiculously attached to Carl, Donut, Samantha, Ellie, Mongo, and so many of the other characters. They’re some of my favorite fictional characters I’ve ever read. But this is also the first time I’ve found myself obsessing over the actual world.

What happens to Earth?

Can the AI actually be stopped?

What happens to every civilization that’s trapped in this insane system?

Can the whole thing actually be broken?

I genuinely need to know.

I’ve read Game of Thrones, Harry Potter, Throne of Glass, Dragonlance, Anne Rice, Black Dagger Brotherhood, Sword of Truth, and so many other fantasy series over the years. I’ve loved countless characters, but I’ve never been this invested in what happens to the world itself.

The biggest proof of that is how fast I devoured this series. I started Book 1 on May 12th. By a few days after Book 8 released on Audible, I had already finished all eight books. I have never burned through a series that fast. Ever. Usually I bounce between series or take breaks, but I couldn’t with Dungeon Crawler Carl. Every time I finished a book, I immediately started the next one because I had to know what happened.

Matt Dinniman somehow took one of the most ridiculous concepts I’ve ever heard and turned it into one of the funniest, most emotional, most stressful, and most addictive series I’ve ever experienced.

This series has made me laugh so hard I had to pause the audiobook. It has made me angry, it has broken my heart, and it has made me genuinely anxious for characters I never expected to become so attached to.

But more than that, it made me care about an entire universe.

Not just Carl.

Not just Donut.

Not just Samantha or Ellie.

The entire damn universe.

I don’t just need to know who survives.

I need to know what happens to Earth.

I need to know what happens to the AI.

I need to know if the galaxy ever breaks free from this nightmare.

For me, that’s what makes Dungeon Crawler Carl so special. It didn’t just become one of my favorite book series. It became the first series that made me care as much about the fate of the world as I do the characters living in it.

And honestly, I don’t know if another series will ever top that.