Books Like Dungeon Crawler Carl: 9 LitRPG and Progression Reads to Devour Next
Absurd game worlds, dark laughs and stories that sucker punch you with feelings
Dungeon Crawler Carl by Matt Dinniman should not work. The Earth is demolished, the survivors are dropped into an eighteen-floor dungeon run as an intergalactic reality show, and our heroes are a man in boxer shorts and his ex-girlfriend's prize-winning cat. Yet somewhere between the deranged loot boxes, the fan mail from alien viewers and Princess Donut's magnificent ego, Dinniman smuggles in real grief, real rage at the machine chewing everyone up, and one of the most loyal found families in modern fantasy. It is laugh-out-loud funny right up until it puts a fist through your chest.
The good news for anyone staring at their finished copy: the itch it leaves is very scratchable. LitRPG and progression fantasy are booming, and the neighbouring shelves are full of snarky underdogs, broken game systems and stories that hide their heart behind a joke. These are the nine we recommend most at Ever After Books, with honest notes on how each compares, whether you are chasing the comedy, the crunch of a good levelling system, or that moment when a silly book suddenly makes you cry on the bus.
What to read after Dungeon Crawler Carl
He Who Fights with Monsters by Shirtaloon
Jason Asano wakes up in another world with an outlandish power set and an even more outlandish mouth. This is the go-to next stop for Carl fans: game-style abilities, escalating stakes and a protagonist who deals with cosmic horror by being relentlessly, obnoxiously funny at it. It leans harder into power progression and moral debate than Dinniman, and the series is long enough to live in for months.
Find He Who Fights with Monsters at Ever After Books
Unsouled by Will Wight
The Cradle series is progression fantasy rather than strict LitRPG, but it delivers the same core pleasure: watching an underestimated nobody grind, scheme and level up through a world of sacred artists who could squash him flat. Wight's pacing is immaculate and the payoffs across twelve books are enormous. Less comedy than Carl, far more training-arc adrenaline.
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The Wandering Inn by pirateaba
An ordinary young woman is dropped into a fantasy world and, instead of picking up a sword, opens an inn. Levels and classes exist, but the real engine is the same one that powers Carl's best moments: a growing, bickering family of misfits you would do anything to protect, and sudden turns into genuine tragedy. Fair warning, it is enormous. Gloriously, absorbingly enormous.
Find The Wandering Inn at Ever After Books
Beware of Chicken by Casualfarmer
A transmigrated cultivator looks at the deadly sect politics he has been dropped into, says no thank you, and goes off to start a farm. If Dinniman's warmth and comedy were your favourite ingredients, this cosy progression tale is pure comfort food, complete with a supporting cast of ascended farm animals worthy of Princess Donut. Low stakes, high charm, dangerously wholesome. It is our most-recommended comfort read for anyone who needs a breather between dungeon floors.
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A Deadly Education by Naomi Novik
The Scholomance is a magic school with no teachers, monsters in the plumbing and a graduation ceremony that kills half of each class. El, its prickly, sarcastic narrator, shares Carl's fury at a system designed to feed on the young, and Novik shares Dinniman's trick of hiding a fiercely moral story inside a body-count premise. Traditional fantasy rather than LitRPG, but tonally a sibling.
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Mother of Learning by Domagoj Kurmaic
Zorian, a grumpy student mage, is trapped in a month-long time loop that ends with his city's destruction, and his only way out is to learn everything. This is the puzzle-box side of Carl: exploiting the rules of a hostile system, iterating on failure, getting measurably stronger every loop. Drier humour than Dinniman, but the slow mastery is deeply satisfying.
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Ready Player One by Ernest Cline
The mainstream gateway drug for game-world fiction. Wade Watts hunts an easter egg worth billions inside a virtual world while a corporation cheats, bullies and kills to beat him to it. It has Carl's underdog-versus-the-machine spine and quest-chain momentum, minus the gore and most of the darkness. If you want something to hand a nervous non-LitRPG reader, it is this.
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Redshirts by John Scalzi
Low-ranking crew on a starship notice that away missions kill someone expendable every single time, and start investigating the narrative logic of their own universe. Like Dungeon Crawler Carl, it is a comedy about disposable people refusing to be disposable, and like Dinniman, Scalzi saves a surprisingly emotional gut punch for the end. Short, clever and sneakily moving.
Find Redshirts at Ever After Books
Iron Prince by Bryce O'Connor and Luke Chmilenko
Rei Ward is the weakest cadet ever admitted to a military academy for augmented fighters, until his experimental combat AI starts growing with him. This is for readers who loved watching Carl claw upward through a system built to break him: brutal tournaments, stat screens, and an underdog rise you can chart in numbers. Earnest where Dinniman is sardonic, and hugely addictive.
Find Iron Prince at Ever After Books
Keep the streak going
Want it narrowed down further? Tell What Should I Read Next? whether you want more laughs, more levelling or more feelings, pile the contenders onto your TBR list, and browse the wider Fantasy collection for the rest of the dungeon. New achievement unlocked: excellent taste.