Review: The Dungeon Anarchist's Cookbook by Matt Dinniman

The Dungeon Anarchist's Cookbook (Dungeon Crawler Carl, #3)

by Matt Dinniman

Release Date: August 12, 2025 (First published March 19, 2021)

2024 Ace

Hardcover Edition; 532 Pages

ISBN: 978-0593820285

ASIN:  ‎ B08V4QSV6W

Audiobook: B094X214V9

Genre: Fiction / Fantasy / Dystopian / LITRPG

Source: Review copy from publisher

 

4 / 5 Stars

 

Summary

The top ten list is populated. The sponsorship program is open. The difficulty is ramping up. The first three floors were nothing compared to what Carl and Donut now face.

The Iron Tangle. An impossibly-complicated subway system built out of the world's subterranean railway systems, all combined and then tied together into a knot. Up is down. Down is up. Close is far. The cars are filled with monsters, the railway stations are less than safe, and the exit is always just a few stops away.

But there is hope. For the first time, the crawlers are all working together. The loot is better than ever. And the secret to unraveling it all may be hidden in the pages of a seemingly-useless book. Welcome, crawlers. Welcome to the fourth floor of the dungeon. 

 

My Thoughts

The Dungeon Anarchist's Cookbook is the third book in the enormously popular Dungeon Crawler Carl, and to this point probably my least favourite one of the series. To be fair, it was still highly entertaining, the story progressed quite well, but I still found the plot to be somewhat tedious at times. Even though I have been reading these books since they were first published, and actually read this the first time in 2021, the re-read wasn't any better; I still missed Mordecai and the AI wasn't quite as entertaining as usual. 

 

The character development is always spot on and this one focused more on Katia's development than on the others which suited me just fine. She went from this quiet girl who follows orders to one who contributes and was much more forceful when throwing out ideas or when disagreeing with what Carl thought, something I liked quite a bit as Carl has this tendency to take over situations.  I also really enjoyed a lot of the things she could do with her character and thought some of them were quite creative and cool. And because I am reading her development somewhat differently this time as I have already read the book, I am seeing a lot that I missed the first time. I have to give kudos to the author for the subtle way he develops his characters as you don't see how he manipulates the character growth until you look back and go, wow, that was great. And because of my review schedule, I don't really have time to re-read books today, something I do regret a lot as I have a Masters in Lit and can spend hours analyzing this stuff.  

 

I am one of those people that didn't mind the train system and found it interesting. I still remember getting lost on the Paris system when I was probably about 17 years old, riding it from one end to the other because I didn't know how to get off and find my stop, so I understand the confusion of the train lines if you are not familiar with them.  That isn't the part that I found tedious, but the constant discussions around the planning and what to do are what actually got tedious.  And I wish more time had been spent on the Cookbook, although it does feature more in future books, but I loved that concept when it was introduced. I also found the whole bounty idea quite fascinating as from a psychological standpoint that would definitely throw a wrench into the whole survival aspect of the game as people's motives are not always the same nor are they altruistic.  In fact, this book was more psychologically fascinating and looking back I can see the impact the relationships formed and developed on this floor will have on future floors.   

 

Verdict

The Dungeon Anarchist's Cookbook was a complex book that had a complex plot/story, but I did feel the overall pacing was somewhat on the slower side than in previous books.  I do really feel like this booksmarks a turning point when it comes to relationships as well as consequences to actions as Carl has a tendency to just jump in and react when things happen even if he has a plan. Having read the other books in the series, including book eight that I got as an ARC copy, I can see how this book sets up some serious stuff coming down the pipeline. While the book may be slower than previous instalments and people don't necessarily like the trains, it was still a fun, wild ride and I highly recommend this series.