Books like “Dungeon Crawler Carl”

What to read after “Dungeon Crawler Carl” by Matt Dinniman: a list matched by tropes, mood and atmosphere. Under each book you will see what it has in common.

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1
Severance
Ling Ma · 2018
Similar atmosphere: “Satire”
A millennial office worker in New York keeps showing up to her publishing job as a fever turns people into repetitive, wandering shells. Her account of the collapse moves between satire of work and the quiet end of the world.
2
Snow Crash
Neal Stephenson · 1992
Similar atmosphere: “Satire”
- Satire
In a future Los Angeles split between franchised city-states, a hacker and a teenage skateboard courier chase a drug that works on both computers and human minds. The trail runs from the neon Metaverse to ancient languages and a plan to reshape civilisation.
3
Slaughterhouse-Five
Kurt Vonnegut · 1969
Similar atmosphere: “Satire”
- Satire
Billy Pilgrim, a chaplain's assistant and prisoner of war in Dresden, becomes unstuck in time, living his life out of order among moments in the war and on another planet. His flat, looping account turns a firebombing and a life's small cruelties into a dark joke about fate.
4
A Canticle for Leibowitz
Walter M. Miller Jr. · 1959
Similar atmosphere: “Satire”
- Satire
- Apocalypse
After a nuclear war, monks in a desert abbey preserve the few books that survive, including a blueprint signed by a martyred engineer. Across centuries they copy, guard and argue over the relics while civilisation slowly rebuilds and then repeats its old mistakes.
5
All Systems Red
Martha Wells · 2017
Same genre: “Science fiction”
- Found Family
- Survival
A security android that has quietly hacked its own governor module would rather watch soap operas than protect the survey team it is assigned to. When the planet turns hostile, it must choose between staying hidden and risking everything for the humans in its care.
6
The 5th Wave
Rick Yancey · 2013
Similar plot moves: “Alien Invasion” and “Apocalypse”
After a series of waves wipes out most of humanity, sixteen-year-old Cassie is alone and running from an enemy that could look like anyone. To find her little brother she will have to trust a stranger, even as she learns how the invasion really works.
7
Fahrenheit 451
Ray Bradbury · 1953
Similar atmosphere: “Satire”
- Satire
Guy Montag is a fireman who burns books in a future where reading is a crime and screens fill every quiet moment. After a young neighbour asks him whether he is happy, curiosity makes him hide a book of his own, and he begins to question everything his job stands for.
8
The Windup Girl
Paolo Bacigalupi · 2009
Same genre: “Science fiction”
- Survival
In a flooded, calorie-poor Bangkok kept alive by genetic engineering, an American trader hunts for lost seed banks while a manufactured woman bred as a servant tries to survive. Their paths cross with corporate enforcers and a city about to boil over.
9
The Road
Cormac McCarthy · 2006
Similar plot moves: “Apocalypse” and “Survival”
- Apocalypse
- Survival
A father and his young son walk through a burned America, pushing a cart of scavenged supplies and hiding from bands of survivors who hunt people for food. Their only aim is to keep moving south and stay alive while holding on to decency.
10
All You Need Is Kill
Hiroshi Sakurazaka · 2004
Shared in the plot: alien, survive
- Alien Invasion
- Survival
A young soldier is thrown into a war against alien Mimics and killed on his first day of battle, then wakes on the morning before, again and again. Each death teaches him something, and he must relive the same fight until he can survive long enough to find a way out.
11
Station Eleven
Emily St. John Mandel · 2014
Similar plot moves: “Apocalypse” and “Found Family”
After a flu wipes out most of humanity, a travelling theatre troupe moves between the small settlements that remain, performing Shakespeare. The story follows survivors across decades and asks what of civilization is worth carrying forward.
12
Speaker for the Dead
Orson Scott Card · 1986
Same genre: “Science fiction”
- Found Family
Years after the war against the Formics, Andrew Wiggin travels as a Speaker for the Dead, revealing the truth of the departed. On the colony world Lusitania he is drawn into the fate of a human family and the alien Pequeninos, whose customs hide a terrible secret.