Dinniman has done it again. The fifth Carl book continues to escalate the stakes, the action, and the emotion. Carl continues his active opposition to the Borant Corporation, which gets stricter with its rules even as Carl gets more open with his resistance. On the seventh floor of the dungeon, additional players are added: hunters, outsiders to the dungeon who pay for the opportunity to hunt the crawlers for sport. Carl takes that personally, and goes on in no uncertain terms, a killing spree. There are moments where this gets almost over the top, but Dinniman manages to show how cruel they all are every time they claim to be a “real person” unlike the Crawlers. This is exactly the sort of material a poorer explorer of this genre would ignore, and Dinniman is great at it.
The emotions keep getting more intense around Carl and Donut’s relationship as well. There are moments on this floor when it’s clear she feels the pain and terror of the situation, and it’s heartbreaking. As Carl’s partner, she rarely just gets to be a cat, and there are a couple of those moments in this book. Carl and Donut’s relationship is the beating heart of this story, and the heartbeat is strong in book five.
Everything else I want to talk about is a spoiler. Go read it. 11/10.