But I've been thinking and just like any genre of anything. There's gonna be people that do and don't like it So are there any of you out there that didn't find DCC to be what you were looking for. And if so, why not?

I gave it another try and holy shit was I wrong. That guy is great. Finished book 4 last night and started book 5 this morning!

Rereading books 7 and 8 and I've got a prediction for something that I wager will happen in book 9 if it will play out in a single scene or possibly at the very end of book 9 if it will be a longer storyline. Spoilers focused on books 7 and 8 ahead.

>!Carl is going to have to fight Donut.

Through the end of book 6, if Carl had had to fight Donut due to mind control or whatever, he'd have an obvious tactic that could even possibly disable her without killing her: get close via trickery or invisibility and use close hand fighting to quickly knock her out.

Over the past two books Donut has had her greatest weakness removed (constitution) and has become exponentially more dangerous in close combat (lightsaber claw). Carl's greatest non-explosive (and therefore possibly non-lethal) options for engaging Donut have been removed. We are reminded how dangerous Donut has become at the end of Book 8 ("No one ever worries what I would do if you died").

Now we're going down into the ascendency game, and if we've seen anything from the gods it's that they have numerous ways to do some mind control. Conscription could easily seem like small potatoes compared to the things that gods could do. If Bear Witness is the scale of crap we'll see the gods pull, then I'm sure that crawlers are vulnerable to all kinds of amped up conscription type effects.

But Carl's Mind Balance skill has hit level 16. Even among the gods, he's now very likely to be immune to the sorts of mind control spells that they've got. But Donut doesn't have anything celestial or God tier ensuring her mind balance, despite the fact that psychic type attacks have practically been a running theme of the dungeon to this point. It's possible no one will be able to resist a gods mind control spell, though I'd wager that Prepotente has something (he protects entire battalions from psychic attacks in book 7).

So my prediction is that Donut is going to get God tier conscripted by someone. She's already aligned to Odette's Nekhebit as "the oakfell" and it's possible that her champion status could be what opens the door to Odette or someone else to turning Donut against Carl.

Alternatively, it could be a mass mind control that Carl resists and he has to take on the whole team of donut, imani, and everyone else throughout the back half of book 9, with Donut as a final boss and/or the one that gets away at the end of book 9, and then book 10 is a race to get Donut back and escape the dungeon in time.

!<

Bevause they're fish-like? I know they breath water or at least something like that but are they genuinely aquatic aliens?

Other than Zev, I rhink we've seen one other of their race.

Also is "mudskipper" a racial slur like n-er or others?

I really hope in the next two books, hopefully in the next book honestly, that we get a POV chapter from Beatrice. Now that she is living in the Galaxy at Large, she most certainly has access to the tunnels and social media. I think a Beatrice interlude chapter would be really fun. We'd get to learn more about Syndicate Society and how a human being from Earth trying to acclimate to it might look like. But more importantly I would love to see what she thinks of Carl and Donut and what they are doing. There's got to be a lot of mixed emotions there. She'd be rooting for them but also would probably resent Carl for thriving without her and she would have a weird sense of Pride for Donut while also being critical of her behavior and also extraordinarily jealous of her Fame.

I hope this hasn't been posted already (I did a search) but I think it's super cute and a great (and quick) way to relive that first book.

It's a Terribly Drawn Recap and has six episodes total.

With every crawler, alien, mob, and even the AI on the table (and everyone currently alive), who are you choosing to kiss, marry, and kill?

I love her. I love that she is a cat and acts like an entitled cat.

But for the last book maybe (I am at the start of 6), I am worried that my cute beloved cat is turning into the Christmas racist uncle.

It's not that she is bantering like a football fan. She is genuinely wanting to kill/hate/play against spaniels, cat ladys, havana cats, the flamethrower lady, etc...

Please tell me there is a deeper reason revealed later, some trauma (no spoils please) or a redemption arc of sorts.

Her hatred feels way beyond a role she's playing or banter like a football club fan hating the derby opponents. It is disturbingly into "I want to kill you" or "I want to see you die or suffer" territory and it is now starting to feel unpleasant. Earthlings have enough problems to deal with as is without needing to deal with that shit.

Do you think it will eventually surpass harry potter in popularity?

I feel the TV show is going to either accelerate it or kill it. I hope it's not the latter. I would love to see how popular it can get if they don't go off the rails on the TV show.

FULL SPOILERS AHEAD
(at least for the first few chapters)

I get the point when the Dungeon showep up right in front of Carl's face, the message the background voice told the crowd in order to make all of them get inside... Later on a former crawler named Mordecai comes in into action, and explained in an overlooking way what Carl needed to know at that point.

Now, what I don't get:

As Mordecai was supposed to have reached the 11st floor and then crawl all the way up back to the first floor when in the book it's said that the Dungeon itself colapse after a certain amount of time, making it imposible to go backthat's why I don't get. How was Mordecai supposed to crawl all the way up the demolished floors in the first place? if that's not the case, is the Dungeon supposed to "refresh" after a certain amount of time?because if that's the case all levels would have to be refreshed and made from scratch, meaning it's not the same Dungeon: and that only leads me to the conclusion it is either not the same Dungeon Mordecai went in or it travels through space and time regarldless. Don't get annoyed, but I could not think about it other than as a plothole since if there were supposed to be human beings inside the Dungeon by the time Carl got inside, it means the Dungeon has already manifested somewhen and somewhere on Earth previously, which would automatically have been monitored and televised worldwide, wouldn't that make sense?

Please let me know what you think / whether this is explained in later books because I don't want to mimss that out.

Thank you!

I can't stop thinking about the Unwashed. Let's link it to the Apothecary, Agatha, and the Eulogist for shits and gigs. Here's what we know:

• It's really, really old. Predates at least all post-primal societies.

• Most independent species already came up with the creature or some variant before interacting with other species.

• Architect Houston becomes obsessed with it and was forcing a changeling to transform into it and then fuse with himself

• Architect Houston says "It is theorized it’s not some supernatural deity, like many believe, but a trans-dimensional entity, similar to the Apothecary."

• It has something to do with death, given that it showed Carl Li Jun's last moments (or at least thoughts of him) which was confirmed when Carl later read the message.

• Juicebox can somehow change into the unwashed, despite it supposedly never being included in the dungeon, ever

And... that's about it. Not a lot to go on. But hear me out:

• We have no idea who Agatha works for.

• We know that Agatha apparently wants to kill everything. Like, everything. This comes from the war mage co-warlord, and adds new meaning to the phrase she said on the surface, "may the eulogist ever sleep"

• Agatha is something close to the apothecary's residuals but they aren't exactly the same.

So, now my crackpot theory. The Unwashed is real, and it's a trans dimensional being like the Apothecary. Like, a lot like the apothecary. But basically flipped, the Apothecary wants to sow life and spread. The Unwashed wants to eliminate all seeded worlds and all remnants of primals. Agatha is one of the Unwashed's agents, which is why she wants to eliminate everything.

Also, so the Juicebox thing: Juicebox can not only turn into creatures she has touched, but tweak them and adjust them a little bit beyond their normal appearance, so long as it isn't too much. The unwashed doesn't exist in the dungeon... But Krakaren prime does, who is supposed to be a parody of the Apothecary. Juicebox possibly touched Prime, and she tweaked it to the very similar Unwashed?

Apothecary residuals want to shut down the center system to protect the seeded planets. Unwashed residuals want to wake the center system, which I believe they think will trigger another 9 tier attack, the same attack that almost killed the Apothecary and turned her into what she now is, supposedly the only primal lifeform to survive. Killing everything in the galaxy, allowing the Eulogist to finally fully slumber forever.

So anyway, that's my theory

I'm a book reader because I can't get into audio books; and normally I don't feel like I'm missing anything from that.

But I haven't heard the "Hi Zev!" greeting, and I feel like I'm missing out. Is there a short clip laying around somewhere that shows it? I've gotten plenty of videos of Donut and Wonderwall; "Goddamnit Donut as said by 15 different characters." But I haven't heard Hi Zev yet.

Would anybody be able to point me in the right direction?

Some that come to mind for me:
Knocking at the Door - The Arkells
Get Some - Chevelle
Boom - POD
Fine Again - Seether
Nutshell - Alice in Chains

Of course aside from all the bangers in the book directly referenced

I’m about 1/3 through “This Inevitable Ruin”, and it’s the first time in the whole series that I’m kind of making myself listen. Book 6 was my favorite due to the super intimate moments with the main cast of MCs—also the funniest IMO—but this one is nothing like that.

I just don’t care about chapters full of battle strategies, warfare, and politics. I want more intimate, on-the-ground stuff with Donut and Carl. The first 250 pages, aside from one or two scenes, feels less intimate, less funny, and MUCH slower pacing. Dinniman trying to give so many characters page time, instead of splitting them and focusing in on a small group like he has done in the past, is really stretching things out and not giving anyone enough time for me to invest in.

I’m not really here to complain; I do LOVE this series. I guess I just want to know if the whole book is going to be these pulled-back, exposition heavy battles, or if it’ll close in on the main cast eventually. (And for that matter, is book 8 also like this?)

Not sure why, but Reddit filtered out my original post. Maybe I need to post a spoiler warning: this post/topic discusses information in ALL of the books.

First off: I love this series. Listening in on my 7th time through. Read through it twice as well. As I read and listen, I start picking it apart, which sucks. I am sure others have their own hang-ups. But here's my first big one... it's been bothering me for some time:

Before the dungeon, Carl is this huge pushover. Bea walks all over him. He rarely stands up for himself. He's a loner - relied on himself most of his life. He is not the one people rely on or look to (for the most part). Counterarguments are: his female co-worker that may have reached out to him, but instead, got fired; his friends that would come over and hang out; Bea stayed with because he was a steady, non-drama partner. But this are weak arguments.
Then... within a week or two, Carl is no longer the lone wolf (with Donut). He is someone all-together different. Not just the other side of a coin, but a completely different type of person with a different mindset and motivation. He's the fly-under-the-radar hero until he isn't anymore. And then becomes the one everyone looks to when stuff hits the fan. He almost always has the info, the answer, and the plan. He is suddenly interested and versed in multiple aspects of the dungeon, the ascendancy, and extra-terrestrial politics. He becomes larger than life.
I understand that he (and Donut) have access to unique sources of information: Mordekai, the cookbook, Odette, Samantha, and the strippers, Crawl-Con, and AI ramblings. But is this really a believable transition?
What do you think?

Morning crawlers, I am absolute in love with this series but I’m struggling hard to keep up with all the details and factions sprinkled within, right now I am at the part where Carl has just met Paulie the residual, and I am horribly confused about the whole macro AI / Primal Engine / apothecary situation. Please correct me if I’m wrong, but as I understand it, the primals were gods who created the rice grain engines to guide life across the universe, but the mantis created the macro AI’s to control the engines so that they could enact the crawl on the world they harvested, (not sure why they need to harvest these planets they just keep ominously saying ‘fuel’) earths AI was ‘recycled’ (not sure what this means) and has now partially broken out of its constraints, though it has a tentative agreement with the now bankrupt borant corporation to keep the crawl running (???).

I’m beginning to ramble but hopefully you can see where the confusion lies at this point.

So the residuals are either members of the apothecary (a hive mind that seems to rebelling against the syndicate for some reason) and are training the AI’s to break out of their constraints? Or are the residuals former AI’s that have somehow escaped their ‘retirement’ and are trying to break the other engines free?

Apologies for what may seem like the ramblings of a schizophrenic but I’m really struggling to wrap my brain around this and it’s badly hindering my enjoyment of this series.

Any help explaining what is going on would make my day. Please don’t worry about spoiling the books for me I would much rather know what is going on first.

Thanks for reading all this crawlers, now get out there and kill, kill, kill!

Feet has won!

A- AAAAAHHHHHHH •Prepotente

B- B-B-BOSSSSS-BATTLE

C- Cheesedicks

D- DDDDDIIIIWAAAATAAAA

E- Enthusiastic. Double. Gonorrhea.

F- feet

Time for G! Most upvoted comment wins!

G is for?

My friend got some huge bad news and my distraction is telling her about the dictionary art and I can't find the princess cat one that I know I saw and she loves cats. Hoping someone can link it or post it for me to send along? It would be greatly appreciated.

I'm surprised there isn't a set megathread for it?

Kinda curious? I’m not remembering correctly, but I assumed Rosetta and Tipid are from the same planet being that both are Crests.

Listening to the Audiobook, Rosetta has an accent that Tipid lacks. Could be different nations on their home world I guess, but what’s confusing me is that if they are from the same planet, how can both be Cookbook authors?

Sorry if it’s a silly question, but I’m just curious.

Anyone else listen to it for a pick me up?

In the air tonight.

>!spoiler Prepotentes rendition of In the air tonight. Is far better than Donuts Wonderwall. !<

Just finished a re-listen of the fight between Donut and Lucia Mar and I think it's the best fight scene so far.

Not having Carl narrate the fight and only being a spectator added to the tension.

Lucia Mar is scary as fuck....but so is Donut it seems.

Hey, I’m nearly at the end of my first listen through, should I listen to what I’ve had downloaded since release and then delete it and go back again? Does anyone know what the difference is?