The Dungeon Anarchist's Cookbook
Quotes from the Book
Capital punishment means those without the capital get the punishment. - Executed Prisoner, John A. Spenkelink
Spoiler alert. Nobody is going to read your autobiography disguised as a space vampire and minotaur romance. You and every other half-wit out there with a nearby Starbucks and a laptop is writing the same bile. What you’re really doing is inadvertently live-blogging the story of human mediocrity,
You keep destroying governmental buildings, Carl,” Donut said. “People are going to start thinking you have a problem with authority.
Ever since that first monkey looked up into the sky and saw something twinkling up there, you meat puppets have tried to force twenty pounds of existential meaning into a ten pound sack of chaos.
I had multiple, passive, low-tier stealth movement abilities that never worked for shit because I traveled with a dinosaur and a talking cat, but I hoped it would help cover my passage now.
Hey, Donut. If we were back home, you’d finally be able to knock that vase off the high shelf.” “That thing was a menace, Carl. It was haunted.
You know what, Carl? I’ve decided something,” Donut said, finally speaking. She released Mongo, who squawked and started investigating this strange, new world. “Yeah, Donut?” “I think they’re right about you. I think you’re crazy. Like, not a little weird crazy. Not guy who eats cereal without milk crazy. But crazy, crazy. Straitjacket crazy.” I took the cat into my lap, and then I pulled her to my chest. She purred heavily into my ear.
You could take a terrible situation and still find moments of peace, even joy. I needed to be reminded that was possible, and the game console did exactly that.
Carl: You’re supposed to be helping Katia sew. Donut: I DON’T HAVE THUMBS, CARL.
Carl is very good at killing things, and he can be very clever about it sometimes, but he doesn’t do secret Asian man style murders.” “Agent,” I said. “What?” Donut asked. “It’s secret agent man. Not secret Asian man.
Grab the stick?” Donut shrieked. “What do you mean, grab the stick! Thumbs, Carl! Thumbs!
At least you two are back together now,” Donut said. “And you got a nice box out of it. I know you find it unpleasant, Carl. But you being stubborn about this is causing everything to be more dangerous. We have to kill these things anyway, so if the AI wants you to kill in a certain way, I don’t see why it matters. This is just like one of those agility courses that Miss Beatrice used to insist I complete at all the regional cat shows. I did not like doing it, and I never ribboned of course, but I knew if I did well, I would get an extra brushing that evening. We are all prostitutes in one way or another, I suppose.
Orthrus. The most loveable hell-hound on this side of Alpha Centauri. The left side is for sniffin’ and the right side is for lickin’ and that pink belly of his? It’s for kissin’.
But that’s what happens, isn’t it? The universe shows us how cruel it can be, and we are worse for it.
My safe word is, "Harder. Daddy.
A distant part of me was alarmed at this attitude. But this was war, and there was no use pretending like it wasn’t.
We are all prostitutes in one way or another
That was pretty awesome,” I said once it was clear we were safe from the sharks. “Go fuck yourself, Carl,” Donut said.
This piece of paper was mercilessly ripped from a perfectly-innocent book. Anybody who thinks to mutilate books in such a manner is obviously a terrible person. I mean, one minute this book is sitting there, minding its own business, and suddenly… BAM! It’s torn away from its home. And even if it gets returned, you can’t just repair that sort of thing. It’s irreparably harmed. Anybody who would do that is a real jerk.
Puppies shouldn’t ever share a world with pain. Yet here we are. Thanks, earth culture.
Target any healers within range” or “Target anyone who thinks it’s okay to put mayonnaise on hotdogs.
New Achievement! You’re the reason why daddy drinks! You have, for an unspecified reason, raised the ire of the System AI. You have corrected the issue, and everything is back to normal. The acceleration action has been suspended. This time. Good boy. Reward: You’ve received a Gold Makeup Sex is the Best Sex box. You’re not going to break me. Fuck you all. I will break you.
Donut: WE NEED LIGHTNING? THAT’S JUST LIKE IN THAT TIME MACHINE MOVIE WHERE THE GUY MAKES OUT WITH HIS MOM.
Religion? Whatever do you mean? You can’t join a religion, Carl. You wake up at noon on Sundays.
One of the greatest things about having a religion is the unshakeable certainty that you’re right and everyone else who doesn’t believe the same as you is wrong!
I’m sorry, Carl,” the robot said, her head turning 180 degrees to look back at me. “The void is wet and hungry.
Mordecai spread out his wings. “I’m in the body of a goddamn cleric. That means I’m clipped. I can fly, but only short distances. Imagine if you suddenly woke up in the body of a eunuch and were then thrown into a supermodel orgy.” He looked up into the sky and sighed heavily.
Tracked All-Terrain Suicide Machine. The Royal Chariot – Contraption. If a snowmobile got drunk on moonshine and had a sweaty, ill-advised night with a hillbilly’s coon-hunting ATV, this oversized birth defect of a vehicle would be the result.
Did you know?
- It is the fourth book in the Dungeon Crawler Carl series.
- The story takes place on the dungeon's fifth floor, where crawlers are trapped in bubbles and must conquer four castles across different biomes.
- The audiobook is narrated by Jeff Hays, whose performances are widely credited with boosting the series' popularity.
- The book was originally self-published under Dinniman's Dandy House imprint.
- It holds one of the highest average reader ratings in the series.
About Matt Dinniman
More by Matt Dinniman
The Dungeon Anarchist's Cookbook
Dungeon Crawler Carl
About the book
The Gate of the Feral Gods is the fourth installment in Matt Dinniman's LitRPG series Dungeon Crawler Carl, which follows ordinary human Carl and his foul-mouthed, fame-hungry cat Princess Donut as they fight to survive a deadly, galaxy-televised dungeon that has consumed Earth. In this volume the pair, along with their dinosaur companion Mongo, descend to the dungeon's fifth floor, where surviving crawlers are sealed inside bubbles and must conquer four castles spread across distinct biomes within a strict time limit to unlock the stairs down. To pull it off, Carl is forced to organize and rely on a ragtag crowd of low-level, barely competent crawlers who have somehow stayed alive.
The book blends gallows humor, video-game mechanics, and surprisingly earnest emotion, using its absurd reality-show premise to probe themes of exploitation, spectacle, and resistance against a system designed to entertain a callous audience at the expense of human life. As in earlier entries, the story pairs over-the-top action and comedy with a growing examination of loyalty, found family, and the cost of becoming the hero an audience demands, particularly through the evolving partnership between Carl and Donut.
Dungeon Crawler Carl grew from a self-published and serialized phenomenon into a major commercial success, and The Gate of the Feral Gods is among the most highly rated entries in the series, carrying an average rating above 4.5 on Goodreads from a very large number of readers. The audiobook editions, narrated by Jeff Hays, are frequently singled out for praise and helped drive the series' popularity, and reviewers commonly highlight this book's escalating stakes, character growth, and a twist-laden ending.
Key characters
- CarlHuman protagonist navigating the deadly dungeon
- Princess DonutCarl's talking cat and fame-obsessed crawling partner
- MongoThe pair's loyal velociraptor-like dinosaur companion
- MordecaiTheir trainer and guide who advises them between fights
Book details
- First published
- 2021
- Length
- 571 pages
- Series
- Dungeon Crawler Carl #4
- Reading time
- 26 hours
- Author
- Matt Dinniman
- Genre
- Fantasy
- Goodreads rating
- 4.54 (198k ratings)
- First line
- “It was supposed to be easy. One bubble. Four castles. Fifteen days.”
Critical reception
- Holds an average rating above 4.5 on Goodreads from a very large number of ratings.
- Reviewers frequently praise the Jeff Hays-narrated audiobook editions.
- Critics and readers commonly highlight the book's escalating stakes, humor, and character growth.
Series & reading order
- 1 Dungeon Crawler Carl
- 2 Carl's Doomsday Scenario
- 3 The Dungeon Anarchist's Cookbook
- 4 The Gate of the Feral Gods
If you liked this, read…
- 1He Who Fights with MonstersAnother popular, character-driven LitRPG with humor and progression mechanics
- 2Ready Player OneShares a game-as-life-and-death premise with pop-culture-soaked stakes
Keep reading
Dungeon Crawler Carl
The Dungeon Anarchist's Cookbook
Tricked
Discount Armageddon
Blood Rites
Cold Days
Firefight
Angelmaker
Hexed
Skin Game
No Mercy
Homestuck
Hounded
Sweep in Peace
Saving the World and Other Extreme Sports
Angel
Magic Slays
The Dark Prophecy
Monster Hunter International
John Dies at the End
Peeps
The Throne of Fire
Ballistic Kiss
The Curse of Tenth Grave
This Book Is Full of Spiders
Seventh Grave and No Body
Calamity
Kill the Dead
The Angel Experiment
Infinity
Skyward
Dead, Undead, or Somewhere in Between
Invincible
The Scorpion Rules
Hard Eight
Sandman Slim
Grip of the Shadow Plague
Opposition
The Eternity Code
Project Hail Mary
A Destiny of Dragons
The Ship of the Dead
Burned
Shadowland
Second Grave on the Left
The Fall of Five
Kingdom of the Wicked
Born of Hatred
Gone
The Instructions
Hunger
My Commander
Bite Me
Burnt Offerings
Iced
The Lost Colony
Magic Bites
Pocket Apocalypse
Death's Mistress
The Twisted Ones

