Dungeon Crawler Carl has reached frankly insane heights of popularity. If you’d told me a few years ago that a LitRPG series with well over a million words (and the final books aren’t even out yet!) and sentences like “Did you just rip your d**k off and throw it at me?” would take the world by storm without a screen adaptation, I simply wouldn’t have believed you. Nor would I believe the sheer reach across demographics. From the newly bred to the nearly dead, Dungeon Crawler Carl appeals to all walks of life.
Singlehandedly legitimizing LitRPGs as a genre is impressive in and of itself, but one might also find themselves more interested in horror after a readthrough of Dungeon Crawler Carl. Here’s a list of books to give a shot if you’re hankering for more scares after you’re finished with Carl and company.
1. Man, F*ck This House (And Other Disasters) by Brian Asman
Humorous flowing prose. High creep factor. Obviously the “Boo! Haunted House!” trope has little left to plunge in the year of our lord 2026, often reading as derivative to savvy horror fans. Still, Man, F*ck This House feels fresh and compelling. It’s a satisfying weekend read if you’re not looking to say, devote your heart and soul to a massive novel series that will rapidly take over your life. While the titular story is the highlight, the rest of the collection is nothing to sneeze at.
Set in the rapidly expanding town of Jackson Hill, New Mexico, Man, F*ck This House mainly follows the Haskins family, but other owners and/or occupants of the old house star in the other stories, “Hurdy Gurdy”, “Line of Sight” “In the Rushes”, and “The Tire Swing.” I won’t spoil too much, just know that the dark humor and junk-food like consumability will definitely appeal to DCC fans looking for a little something to snack on this Halloween season.
2. John Dies at the End by Jason Pargin, Writing as David Wong (John Dies at the End #1)
This actually times out well, as the next book in the John Dies at the End series is set for release in just a few shorts weeks on November 3rd, 2026. There Are No Giant Crabs in This Novel will be the series’ 5th installment. John Dies at the End has long been a beloved horror-comedy standard, winning over hearts in the 00s and maintaining and expanding its fanbase in the ensuing twenty-ish years. Sci-fi, crude humor, and ultraviolence abound, all hallmarks of Dungeon Crawler Carl, of course.
Dick jokes galore? Check. Internet humor that’s become outdated but is still endearing and nostalgic in its own right? Check. Weird, f*cked-up drugs? Checkity-check! World-ending horror? You know it, baby! Some find the characters’ reactions to the peri(?)-apocalyptic environment they’re in trite, but I implore you to think about how we as a collective have reacted to the minor apocalypses of the past few years. We crack jokes about it! GOD, do we joke about it! I still have a playlist on my Spotify called “I Can’t Wipe My Ass: A COVID-19 Apocalypse Playlist.”
It’s Kevin Smith’s Call of Cthulhu, if that makes any sense. It’s an extremely ridiculous story that somehow feels true to life, and you end up taking seriously in the end, especially some of the scarier parts. Sounds familiar!
3. Horrorstör by Grady Hendrix
Now this is a personal favorite. I’m gonna start out referencing another horror property, actually, and giving it a swift plug. Horrorstör is great for fans of Dungeon Crawler Carl, but perfect for fans of SCP-3008, The Infinite IKEA. Horrorstör may read like a straight comedy based on the premise, but think about the recent surge of interest in liminal horror. I don’t know, have you ever been at an IKEA late at night? Looking for that last bit of fashionable Nordic storage in the endless stretches of the warehouse? Or wandering through frozen moments of ersatz lives, staged homes with no residents?
…No? Just me? Well, screw you guys anyway. Read Horrorstör. Grady Hendrix’s ORSK serves as his IKEA analogue, and something is Wrong in that store. Each day brings with it broken windows, damaged merchandise, and chaos. The book follows a brave group of employees that volunteer for an overnight shift at ORSK, very effectively using a furniture-catalogue-esque format to help tell the story. You will bounce between laughing your a** off and being deeply disquieted, just like with Dungeon Crawler Carl.
4. Tales From the Gas Station: the Dark God by Jack Townsend (Tales From the Gas Station, #1)
Now this is a working class novel series. Much better than I thought something based off of a Creepypasta could be. Join Jack Townsend, (Lemony Snicket style, the “author” is the in-universe narrator) an extremely sleep-deprived (or is he?) gas station employee, as horrors untold and disturbing delusions haunt the halls of his mind, and the gas station he works at. John will tangle with everything from Dark Gods to time-manipulating demons in the course of his minimum wage duties. The perfect stubborn protagonist, John won’t let anything come between him and his meager paycheck.
Tales From the Gas Station oozes personality, and its humor and horror walk hand in hand, much like with Dungeon Crawler Carl. The crude, sometimes potty humor keeps the tone just light enough that the series doesn’t turn into a slog of a never-ending human suffering. I’m personally also a big fan of how Jack is not at all the manly protagonist type like our Carl. Jack is a smart guy, but the first time he gets a gun in his hands, he throws it instead of shooting it. God bless him. It’s like DCC in the best ways, but polar opposite in others that make it compelling in its own right.
5. Gideon the Ninth by Tamsyn Muir (The Locked Tomb, #1)
Lesbian necromancers in space. It’s the elevator pitch to end all elevator pitches. You know how Carl’s a valorous, half-insane, diet murder-hobo protagonist who maybe doesn’t care about the intergalactic politics that he’s in the middle of QUITE as much as he should? Look no further than Gideon Nav, Cavalier to Harrowhark Nonagessimus of the Ninth House. Imagine Carl if he was a swords girl instead of a bombs guy, and had something resembling a sex drive. And no cat. (No book is perfect, okay?)
The humor is pretty similar to Dungeon Crawler Carl‘s, only less rooted in pop culture. Notably just “less,” not “not at all.”
While initially appearing to be second-world space opera sci-fi fantasy, it actually ends up being distant future sci-fi, and for excessively complicated plot reasons (just like Carl!), Gideon and the series’ main antagonist are meme machines in their own right.
The second and third book in the Locked Tomb series are pretty different from the first, fair warning, but this is one of my all-time favorite series of books, and if you dug Dungeon Crawler Carl, I really think you’ll at the very least like Gideon the Ninth.
Finding that oh-so-specific flavor…
I’ve never really read a book like Dungeon Crawler Carl, but there’s elements of its spirit all over the literary world. While there’s plenty of LitRPGS to go for while you wait for The Beautiful Place, to keep with the vibes of the season, maybe it’s time to pick up a fun little horror book that might freak you out, might make you cry, and will definitely make you laugh.
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This articles is written by : Fady Askharoun Samy Askharoun
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