The Dungeon Anarchist's Cook-book - Dungeon Crawler Carl 3 Book Review
At this point in the Dungeon Crawler Carl (DCC) series, we're at level 4 of the dungeons. If you haven't got to this point, you should back up and read those first. Let's get into level 4 of the dungeon.
Carl, Donut, and Katia are now going through a subway system with no map or limited maps. They trade intel of the train lines with other crawlers as time goes on. The crawlers themselves are either out to get them (as Donut learns) due to the bounty on their head or helping them map out the system. Hekla's crew and part of the nursing home group are sharing intel with each other at this point. Carl and Donut connect with literally everyone who's willing to ensure most everyone can work together. They take on Katia as a favor, then permanently for reasons you'll find out yourself.
The train system is confusing. No one can get to the stairs early, the announcer says. After some absolute nightmare monsters, they come to the conclusion the environment is rigged to fall apart systematically after the monsters don't get their drug fix or the trains crash. Working together is the only way anyone is getting to the next level. It's just as cruel as the last level. And about train maps, forget making sense of it. That's not the point. As a reader, just forget trying to keep track. The author left a note about that in the front of the book.
An important development for Carl is the Anarchist's cook-book, which is a secret guidebook with notes from other crawlers. Think of it as the advice of past crawlers in a game guide, almost like Reddit or game help websites. Except Carl has to pretend he figured it out all by himself or the AI will catch on. The book's goal is to burn the game to the ground, which is why it presented itself to Carl.
Also, the AI can get mad. After a vetoed box is taken from a whole bunch of crawlers, the AI gave out a box with coupons because it was angry. They get a space of their own to train and sleep now, as well as table upgrades. Politically, the atmosphere is real charged up. Carl and Donut are kind of stuck in the middle of it, given Carl's previous experiences with royalty. They are also on the top 10, so they have bounties on their heads.
Here we get into sponsors, Carl with Valtay (more political charge) and Donut with royalty. Valtay sends carl a pill - a pill that he thinks is the worm that Valtay uses to control people. "Keeping the best of you alive" is the catchphrase for Valtay. Sponsorship works almost the same way as Hunger Games. All the crawlers have sponsors they can send messages to, but not receive messages back. They can get care packages like Carl did.
As we get through the level and Carl tries so hard to help everyone else, the trains are being destroyed by a player that really got overpowered or trains aren't running anymore. The advice of "you can't save them all" is really sinking in. Like Hunger Games, even when everyone is working together, you see players die. But Carl is still trying to save everyone by sharing information. It saves a lot, but not all, of the players. The next level is literally made to disperse crawlers, indicating that they don't want crawlers to work together. And they have a new media person who is very uptight and loved/hated by Odette. Zev is being "re-educated" which is ominous and makes me a little upset.
As for Agatha, she lives on. At level 8 and not with a chosen race. Somehow this woman made it this far and I have no idea how - unless she's some glitch in the AI system, which I suspect she is. We also find out that Frank Q is no more, but his ex-wife is out to get Carl. Carl himself reveals more about his life as we read. He grew up in an abusive home and his mother tried to kill her husband and herself to give Carl "a chance at life" for his birthday.
Lastly, I need to address a theme I keep seeing. Zev was sent for "re-education". It seems as if the game doesn't want the people stuck in the system to help the players. In other words, I think they'll eventually kill Zev for trying to be genuinely helpful to Carl/Donut/Katia. Much like Hunger Games, people who try to help the players get burned and killed for trying. When you add the system dispersing players so they can't connect back, it becomes an ominous and disturbing trend of keeping everyone isolated so they won't fight back.
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