I’ve obviously been reading DCC since book 1. I was really looking forward to this book as a culmination of a lot of what’s been building up. It isn’t that. It’s just a mess.
DCC has always been chaotic and irreverent. It progressed from a fairly straightforward scenario (guy and cat get thrown into a deadly alien video game and overcome challenges with awesome power-ups) to a really complicated game world and intergalactic political landscape. That isn’t in itself bad. But with all that complexity, Dinniman isn’t focused on making a coherent story of it. He seems much more interested in injecting random chaos at every moment than maintaining a cohesive narrative or following the thread of what’s been set up before.
It’s 100% shock value, irreverence and special effects.
This book is deeply self-gratifying. I’m sure he’s enjoying writing this stuff, with his idea clear in his own head and a license for freewheeling creativity. And there may be a type of reader that might enjoy frantically jumping between random explosions and obscene, irreverent gags. But by any conventional notion of literature, this is hot garbage. Dinniman’s lack of skill and art in writing becomes more and more evident. It feels like with his rise to independent popularity, he has far too much access to recreational drugs and far too little editorial oversight. Just my guess.