Helloooo Crawlers!
Bringing people together through stories is what makes events like Dragonsteel Nexus happen, and this year we had more guests and authors in attendance than ever. Among them was Matt Dinniman, a storyteller who has embellished the apocalypse with plenty of flair for years. He started publishing Dungeon Crawler Carl independently back in 2019, and in the years since Carl and Donut first entered the dungeon, they have become the face not only of their series, but of the LitRPG genre, commanding a huge audience on Audible, Goodreads, and Kindle.
Dinniman presented on the last day of Nexus, a raucous celebration of Carl and Donut’s adventures and the very last panel of the convention. Maude Garrett hosted and drew together an onslaught of content and questions for Matt to confront. Matt brought backup, though. The audiobook narrator with a thousand voices, Jeff Hays, joined him on stage.
“Carl, this is an outrage!”
Matt brought a passage from Dungeon Crawler Carl Book 8, a boss fight featuring brand new characters and a kangaroo monster with an acidified pouch concealing his weak point (why a male kangaroo has a pouch remains to be seen). The violence was graphic, the implications for Carl and Donut were appalling, and I may never look at kangaroos the same way. Matt, your capacity for imagination is unmatched and your readers are in for a sick treat with Carl #8.
Jeff’s performance set the audience laughing immediately, with every moment of grisly carnage and Prison Pocket’s pouch shenanigans reinvigorating the mirth at every turn. Yep, the kangaroo’s name is… yep. (Of course this was the panel my dad, brother, and cousin attended with me. And no, they couldn’t stop laughing.)
“We are so not getting invited back next year,” Dinniman joked as Jeff’s cold read ended.
New Achievement!
It's Jeff’s incredible performance that helped bring Dungeon Crawler Carl to the massive fanbase that the franchise commands now. Dinniman says that more crawlers enjoy his story through Jeff’s performance than through other means combined. “I write for audio, I always have,” Matt said in a recent interview on Audible.
Matt’s writing has to exist for Jeff to bring it to life, and the process can be grueling. “I may write 800,000 words for a book that ends up only being 270,000. And that’s not good for an author’s mental health.”
There Are Outliners. There Are Pantsers. And There Is Matt Dinniman.
Matt says that the content in the Crawlerverse will keep coming, though he may not write full novels set in the crawl after DCC wraps up. He’s been exploring Carl’s world in greater depth through the most recent books in the series, and with thousands of ideas cooking at all times, he isn’t sure what will make it to the page in any given book. There are outliners, there are pantsers, and there is Matt Dinniman. The man lets his Patreon subscribers control outputs from the dungeon’s loot boxes, the layout for some of its floors, and even the real world locations that the system AI turns into levels. Notorious dungeon challenges like the Iron Tangle can be blamed on these Patreon interferences, and between Matt’s insane revision process and his Patreon, there is no telling where Carl’s story will go next.
Dinniman had this to say about the writing process for DCC: “I make everything up as I go along. If I set up a Chekhov's gun, I might have an idea about how I want it to go, but it doesn’t always go that way. I enjoy the journey as much as I enjoy anything else.”
With beautiful new print editions, the webtoon, the comic, the Crocodile side story, an upcoming TTRPG, and book eight on the way, there is a lot more for Donut Holes to enjoy. No update yet on the NBC Universal adaptation, which is slated to be directed by Chris Yost.
If you haven’t started Dungeon Crawler Carl yet, give it a try. Whether it's Dinniman’s humor, the tropes of LitRPG, or the majestic presence of Princess Donut, the Queen Anne Chonk, there is something for you here. Be warned though, this is definitely not a kids’ book. If you’re interested, check out this blog post for more LitRPG goodness.
Comments (6)
@Brendan Morgan Yes, this was recorded! It will be on Brandon’s YouTube channel! We have a lot of Nexus content that we are working through, but this panel is a priority! We won’t have a breakdown of Maude’s questions outside of the transcript for the video on YouTube.
Sounds like a fun time! Was this recorded? Is there any place to find the questions and answers?
I’m obsessed with these books. I honestly didn’t think I would ever find a series that I love as much as the Stormlight Archive by Brandon Sanderson, or that I would find a narrator that I adore as much as I do Michael Kramer, but this series has done it. In only ten days I’m already listening to book 4. I’m obsessed! Jeff Hays narrates these books so well. I catch myself laughing out loud so often. Matt Dinniman’s writing is fantastic. The comedic timing, the pace of the adventure, the way he slowly peels back on the layers of the characters…It’s just perfect.
Great article! I’m so jealous that I missed out. Maybe I’ll get to go to Dragonsteel one of these days.
It is a rough day indeed when I misspell Jeff’s name but I get Prison Pocket right. Thanks for the callout, and for the read!
Everyone spells my name wrong. Nice article, though!
It was a great convention and a great event. His name is Hays though, without the e :)