Goddamnit, Donut!

I know I’ve been rather quiet of late.

I could easily blame the news. Between covering the wars and natural disasters and political fuckery, things have been busy. I could blame the summer, which all of you know is my least favorite season (migraines and sweating and bugs, oh my!). Both scenarios accurately explain my absence from this blogging space. But, there is a third reason.

I’ve joined a cult.

The cult of “Dungeon Crawler Carl.”

It’s M’s fault, of course. He listened to the first book in Matt Dinniman’s LitRPG series and was so impressed by the story and the vocal talents of Jeff Hays that he encouraged me to join too.

“You probably won’t like Carl, at first,” he said. “But give it a chance.”

I did. Soon I was also trapped in a post-apocalyptic world with Carl and his ex-girlfriend’s cat, forced to battle monsters on an intergalactic reality TV show where survival is not guaranteed.

So far, I’ve read the first four books in this funny, fierce and horrifying fantasy series, all on Audible. M’s picked up a handful of the books on Kindle and we’re thinking about contacting a local independent bookstore to put in an order for the first eight books in hardcover. Yes, we love “Dungeon Crawler Carl” and we’re not alone. The series has sold over 14 million copies.

When we’re not reading them individually, M and I discuss the books. We sprinkle the catchphrases into our conversations:

* New Achievement! Reward?
* Hi Zev!
* Mongo is appalled!
* You will not break me.
* Now get on out there and kill, kill, kill!

And like good cultists, we do our best to convert others.

What do you have to lose? This is a bad timeline. Let’s join forces and read for a while, then regroup and change the world. The powers that be have no idea what’s coming.

As Princess Donut says: “Viva La Revolucion, Carl!”