Crawlers, start your engines. The next Dungeon Crawler Carl book, A Parade of Horribles, is coming out this Tuesday, May 12.
It’s the eighth installment in the wildly popular LitRPG series by Matt Dinniman, which currently has 10 total books planned. If you haven’t heard of the video-game-like saga, Dungeon Crawler Carl follows a regular old Coast Guard veteran named Carl, who happens to find himself outside when the world ends. Unfortunately for everyone else indoors when it happened, all man-made structures with a roof were immediately atomized, killing everyone inside. Any human survivors of this strange apocalypse eventually learn that the cataclysm was actually brought on by aliens, who also force the remnants of humanity underground into a “dungeon,” where they must learn to survive if they want to reclaim the world they once knew — or whatever is left of it.
Armed with his wits and his ex-girlfriend’s cat, Princess Donut, Carl must brave the floors of the dungeon and play the political game to get on the spectators’ good side, because the whole debacle is being broadcast across the galaxy in a twisted intergalactic reality TV show. Filled with dark humor, crazy twists and turns, and the classic-yet-approachable LitRPG style Dinniman uses to tell Carl’s story, it’s no surprise that Dungeon Crawler Carl has been topping the New York Times bestseller list.
If you’ve torn through all seven books and the official WEBTOON so far and can’t wait another moment for A Parade of Horribles, I don’t blame you. So, here’s how to preorder the next exciting installment so it hits your e-reader the moment it releases.
- Title
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Dungeon Crawler Carl
- Author
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Matt Dinniman
- Genre
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LitRPG/GamLit
- Pages
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464
Ex-Coast Guard veteran Carl is one of the few remaining human survivors of a devastatingly abrupt alien invasion. His only chance of survival is to fight his way through an alien-run dungeon with his ex-girlfriend’s cat. What could go wrong?
How to preorder A Parade of Horribles
Get it on your e-reader instantly
Historically, the Dungeon Crawler Carl series has been available for free with a Kindle Unlimited subscription, and it’s likely that A Parade of Horribles will also be available on Kindle Unlimited at launch. If you have Kindle Unlimited, I would obviously recommend not preordering the new book and saving a few bucks.
But if you don’t have Kindle Unlimited and want to preorder A Parade of Horribles so it lands on your e-reader when the clock strikes midnight, you can absolutely do so. The e-book is available to preorder for only $7 on Kindle, or you can grab a hardcover copy for $27 (Barnes & Noble also has a hardcover version available for preorder for $27, also set to arrive on May 12, 2026). The hardcover copy will have 704 pages.
But, unless you’re a physical book collector, that price is enough of a difference for me to bite the bullet and devour it on my e-reader, instead. Plus, you don’t have to wait for shipping — even if Amazon’s is pretty quick, I don’t think the package will arrive on your doorstep in the wee hours of the morning.
When you preorder the Kindle version, Amazon promises that the e-book will automatically be delivered to your Kindle device and app on May 12, 2026.
What is A Parade of Horribles about?
Carl and Donut take on the tenth floor
In the eighth book in the Dungeon Crawler Carl series, our favorite duo must complete a simple set of tasks — well, at least simple by dungeon standards: races. They must get from point to point and avoid finishing last if they want to survive. But as they pick up upgrades and move further along the track, that simplicity starts to feel suspicious.
Something is happening on the floor above, something called A Parade of Horribles — if the AI is to be trusted. No one knows what it is — not even the aliens running the show.
Don’t miss the next installment of your favorite pants-less survivor.
