My good friend (33F) is having jaw surgery tomorrow and as part of the care team, I was thinking it would be fun to have some read aloud options. She’s an adventurous reader but I’m expecting her to not have the longest attention span initially. Short stories or engaging poetry would be great. She likes sci-fi and genre fiction (but don’t feel like you need to limit suggestions to that) can definitely handle weird stuff, but maybe keep the body horror to a minimum. I’m also planning to hit up the library to look for beautiful coffee table books just for some browsing interest if you have favorites. Thanks in advance!
by teachingrobots
1 Comment
For me what broke my 10 year reading slump was dungeon crawler Carl.
You will not find a better narrator for the audiobook series either.
It’s recommended all over here for a good reason.
It’s a sci-fi book series, it’ll be 10 in total, 8 books are out now. It’s hard to describe in a way that doesn’t sound unhinged but I’ll try.
For the tone of the books, book 1 feels kind of silly, and by book 7 it’s insane action and heavy narrative.
Book 1 also leans heavily on video game jargon but that really falls away quickly, and I know a TON of non-gamers that are as obsessed with it as I am.
My favorite things about the book series is the character development, it’s absolutely incredible. I’ve laughed and also genuinely cried because of how compelling the characters are. The author does a great job of discarding tropes too which I love, and writes honest and complex characters.
It’s often compared to hitchhikers guide meets hunger games meets maze runner but it’s definitely of its own thing.
I’d highly recommend the audiobooks, a single voice actor does an incredible range of voices, easily exceeding 30-40 voices across the series.
In short, it’s about an alien corporation that seizes earth to mine its mineral resources, and gives the survivors a chance to regain control of earth by completing a challenge course called the world dungeon. The course is 18 floors and is televised to the galaxy which drives profits for the corporation. The protagonist Carl enters the dungeon with his cat who >! Gains human level intelligence !< and fights alongside him.
It’s a cool mix of sci-fi – aliens taking over earth, and fantasy – the characters use magic, etc.
Ive listened to the series easily 10 times. The fan base is amazing and the author is kind and engaging. It’s very cool.
I also love this persons take on the author and series:
[https://www.reddit.com/r/DungeonCrawlerCarl/s/NjyFFPXFHC](https://www.reddit.com/r/DungeonCrawlerCarl/s/NjyFFPXFHC)