10 Books Like Dungeon Crawler Carl (LitRPG, Sci-Fi, and Pure Chaos)

The Problem With Falling Into a Series You Can't Stop

Dungeon Crawler Carl has a way of ruining you for other books. It's absurd, it's brutal, it's somehow genuinely moving between the explosions, and the pacing is so relentless that you look up and realize you've read four books in a week and it's three in the morning. Once that momentum gets going, the fear is that any wrong pick will kill it dead.

The good news is that Carl readers are loud about what they read next. There's a whole ecosystem of books that scratch the same itch — the LitRPG core of the thing, the smart-ass narrator, the dark humor, the "one more chapter" engine. Here are the ones that keep coming up, roughly sorted by which part of Carl they satisfy.

1. The Murderbot Diaries by Martha Wells

If you loved the sarcastic inner monologue — the part of Carl where he's grumbling at the AI while everything explodes — Murderbot is the closest thing going. It's a security android that hacked its own governor module and would genuinely rather binge its favorite TV shows than deal with humans. The books are short, fast, and laugh-out-loud funny, with a surprisingly warm heart underneath all the snark. "Murderbot is always the answer" is basically a standing rule in recommendation threads.

Who it's for: Anyone who came for the violence and the jokes and stayed for the reluctant hero who just wants to be left alone.

2. He Who Fights With Monsters by Shirtaloon

The most natural next step in the LitRPG space. Jason Asano, a smart-mouthed Australian, wakes up in a fantasy world where magic runs on game-like rules, and proceeds to annoy basically everyone while leveling up at an alarming rate. The humor has the same irreverent, meme-literate energy as Carl, and the series is enormous, so if it clicks, you won't run out for months.

Who it's for: Carl readers who specifically want more LitRPG — stats, skills, loot, and a hero who never stops talking.

3. Cradle by Will Wight

If the part you loved was the progression — the satisfying grind of a character getting stronger, leveling up, and earning every scrap of power — Cradle is the gold standard. Lindon starts as the weakest person in his entire culture, deemed worthless, and spends twelve books clawing his way up through the sacred arts. It's less jokey than Carl, but the momentum is the same: you finish one book and immediately start the next.

Who it's for: Readers who want the leveling-up fantasy with real stakes and a zero-to-hero arc that actually pays off.

4. Primal Hunter by Zogarth

A system apocalypse where the world gets folded into a game and the protagonist, Jake, discovers he's very, very good at it. It's one of the books most frequently recommended alongside Carl and He Who Fights With Monsters — same LitRPG bones, same "I can't stop reading this" energy, and a protagonist who leans into the chaos instead of resisting it.

Who it's for: Anyone who wants a straight shot of the LitRPG genre without a steep learning curve.

5. We Are Legion (We Are Bob) by Dennis E. Taylor

The Bobiverse and Dungeon Crawler Carl have famously overlapping fan bases, and it's not hard to see why. Bob, a software engineer, dies and wakes up as an AI aboard a self-replicating space probe. Then there are more Bobs. Then the Bobs start having philosophical disagreements with each other while exploring the galaxy. It's smart, funny, and populated with a narrator who sounds like someone you'd actually want to talk to.

Who it's for: Carl readers who want to trade the dungeon for deep space and keep the sense of humor.

6. Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir

The sci-fi pick that got recommended over and over, largely on the strength of its audiobook. A schoolteacher wakes up alone on a spaceship with no memory and the knowledge that the sun is dying, and he has to science his way out of it. It has the same problem-solving propulsion as Carl's dungeon crawls, and the friendship at the center of it is one of the most affecting things in recent science fiction.

Who it's for: Readers who want the "can't put it down" engine with a lighter, warmer emotional core.

7. Red Rising by Pierce Brown

For the reader who liked the dystopian, class-war, everyone-is-complicit-in-a-brutal-system side of Carl. Red Rising follows Darrow, a miner in a color-coded caste society, who infiltrates the ruling class to tear it down from the inside. It's darker and less funny than Carl, but the momentum is ferocious, and once it grabs you it doesn't let go for six books.

Who it's for: Carl readers who want the rage and the rebellion turned up, with the jokes dialed back.

8. Ready Player One by Ernest Cline

Several readers described Dungeon Crawler Carl as "Ready Player One for this decade," which is a fair comparison. A virtual treasure hunt, endless pop-culture references, a hero who survives on wits and knowledge of obscure trivia. If the gamified, everything-is-a-challenge structure is what hooked you, this is the direct ancestor.

Who it's for: Anyone who wants the gaming-culture energy and doesn't mind wearing some 80s nostalgia goggles.

9. Discworld by Terry Pratchett

For the reader who came for the absurdity and the jokes. Discworld is the great comic fantasy series, forty-plus books of wit and wisdom about a flat world balanced on four elephants on a giant turtle. The one caveat every fan gives: don't start with the first book. Begin with Guards! Guards! or Mort, then circle back. The humor is different from Carl's — sharper, more satirical — but it's the same reminder that genre fiction can be funny and smart at the same time.

Who it's for: Readers who want the laughs without the stat sheets, and a series that will keep them busy for years.

10. John Dies at the End by Jason Pargin

The wildcard pick for the reader who loved Carl's horror-tinged absurdity. A pair of slackers take a drug called "soy sauce" that lets them see the things living just behind reality, and everything spirals from there. It's crude, genuinely unsettling, and extremely funny, often in the same paragraph. Pargin's whole catalog — This Book Is Full of Spiders and Futuristic Violence and Fancy Suits too — operates in the same deranged space.

Who it's for: Carl readers who want the dark comedy and the monsters, cranked up and given zero restraint.

Where to Start

If you want to stay in the LitRPG lane, go straight to He Who Fights With Monsters or Cradle — they're the closest relatives and the most frequently recommended. If you want the voice without the genre, Murderbot is the answer, full stop. And if you want to try something completely different that still hits the same pleasure centers, Project Hail Mary or Discworld will remind you why you started reading in the first place.

The real risk isn't finding a book. It's that you'll finish one of these and, like every Carl reader before you, just go back and reread Carl. And honestly? That's fine too. Glurp glurp.