Carl is outside in his boxers trying to get his girlfriend's cat out of a tree when everything with a roof on the planet is destroyed and the smaller number of survivors are made to compete in an intergalactic dungeon game similar to D&D. If this sounds kind of dumb, I described it correctly; it's kind of dumb. It’s also fairly entertaining and has a good amount of heart. People who have played any sort of role playing game, like World Of Warcraft, will probably be extra amused.

Doughnut Holes represent! All hail Princess Doughnut. I just finished book 4.

Awesome. I assume that means that at least the second and third are good? Do the books get more or less entertaining as it goes along?

Okay but what happens to his girlfriend's poor cat???

I'm interested in checking these books out, but I'm a big weenie who can't handle anything bad happening to innocent animals. And I'm not exactly mentally stable lately -- lol -- so I'm currently trying to avoid anything like that that could send me spiraling. (I know it sounds ridiculous and I'm working on getting help, I promise lol)

So, uh... Can anyone tell me if there's any bad stuff happening to any animals (like the aforementioned kitty???) in these books? 😅

Also, I don't know that I'd necessarily call it sci-fi, maybe more fantasy with... well. it's complicated. In any case, I enjoyed it, and the rest of the series and highly recommend it.

DAMMIT DONUT!!!

I enjoyed them; They were pretty good. maybe a bit cliche, but hey, that's part of the charm.

DCC is Fantasy, not science fiction.

I finished the most recent, #8. I think it was the weakest of the series, just because there are so many plot threads and characters to help track of at this point.

I really enjoyed DCC and it's a pretty fun ride but honestly from what your saying I'd suggest you avoid it for a while. It's fun but it's also bloody and full of violence. It starts out with killing 99% of humanity and everybody in it is dealing with some heavy PTSD and it's hopeful and people pull together but it's still a tragedy.

From what I've read about þe books, þe cat eats a magic cat treat and gains þe ability to speak (I assume it gets smarter, too) and becomes a companion. It gets its own pet eventually, too.

I haven't read þem. I can't answer your question about how animals are treated in þe books, but from þe descriptions it seems fairly YA FWIW.

All the "magic" is technology though.

So? Nothing about it is realistic, science fictions requires a basis of reality, it’s supposed to be something you can see your world in or part of the galaxy. Along those lines.

Hard science fiction is when it tries to fit into our current physics and accepted notions.

Edit: It’s not more science fiction than Star Wars and Star Trek, and both of those are considered “science fantasy”, I don’t think it reaches even that level. It’s fully in fantasy, don’t let the “earth” and “human” aspects conflate it.

Not at all similar to “D&D,” the genre is LitRPG

edit: glurp glurp, motherfuckers

It’s extremely dark. If you’re not in a good place mentally, avoid.

Family and party members kill each other, frequently. So read between the lines about the “pets” and animals, and that provides the dark context.

For something with a similar premise, see: https://www.royalroad.com/fiction/72050/discount-dan
Focused on a backrooms dungeon instead of a space dungeon, but seems like similar vibes.

I'm about a third of the way into the first book. A friend of mine has been reading the series, and he said it'd be right up my alley. Between that and everyone on the internet talking about these books, I figured I'd give it a shot.

Immediate regret. From the moment I started reading, I was getting flashbacks to reading Stephanie Meyers twenty years ago: the repetitive language; mundane grammar; weird, heavy-handed characterizations. The presentation was similar to the bad fanfics and YA novels that were coming out when I was in my 20s.

I keep trying to give it the benefit of the doubt. I get the impression that the main character is supposed to be a little dim, so maybe the first-person narration is supposed to be reflecting that? But even that only explains some of it. It's otherwise so trope-y and winking. Reading it honestly feels like watching Spielberg's Ready Player One again, where the point is not a good story, interesting characters, or even good craft, just nodding at the in-jokes.

I'm going to finish this first book this weekend, because I made the mistake of buying it. But unless something substantially changes in the next couple hundred pages, I will not be continuing the series.

So, yeah, I'm glad people are reading it and enjoying it. Just wanted to provide a different opinion from all the comments glazing it, because it doesn't have universal appeal.

The cat goes in to the dungeon with him and is gifted with sentience immediately, becoming the protagonist's sassy partner. It's cheesey fun.

As others have pointed out, the book has a lot of over the top violence and death, so you might want to stay away. On the other hand, though, the author is far more into gore and comic book ultra violence than cruelty. Many people find Princess Donut -- the cat annoying -- but by book five no great harm has befallen her or any of the other protagonists.

I'm on five and it's mostly stayed constant. I haven't seen it get better or worse.

She becomes the actual protagonist of the book leaving Carl in his rightful spot. Cleaning litterboxes.

(jk. kinda.)

Sorry but to most people star wars is scifi. I appreciate that you're correct, but words only have so much value as their ability to be understood, so sometimes wrong words are right.

No, it’s distinctly fantasy because of the force. It’s not even up for debate, the genre “science fantasy” was essentially made for Star Wars/Trek because they’re fantasy, but had so many parts of science fiction along with it.

If “most people” are flat earthers, that doesn’t suddenly make them correct.

As you said, word have meaning, but they ALSO evolve over time to accommodate new ideas, as well as local dialects that bleed out in common vernacular.

And that's great, but outside of the sci-fi fantasy niche people do not refer to anything with a space ship as science fantasy. Pop-Culturally space ships and lasers is sci-fi.

Maybe because they don’t know better…?

If someone is gonna keep using the word wrong and never get told it’s wrong, how are they supposed to know?

This isn’t even a nerd only or a niche thing.

The MCU isn’t suddenly science fiction because one person has a space ship, what kind of logic is that?

Yes, the distinctions between sci-fi, science fantasy, epic fantasy, etc are lost on a lot of people. I can appreciate that posts about DCC are not particularly relevant to the /c/sciencefiction community. I think that some movies in the MCU are explicitly categorized as science fiction on platforms like IMDB and Netflix, for example Guardians of the Galaxy or Thor: Ragnarok. The rigid definition of sci-fi that people use in the literary world are often ignored at the scope of mass appeal.

So quite perpetuating it lmfao. People like you, who know “better” who keep using the terms wrong are why it’s still happening.

Why is someone providing some information to others so upsetting to you?

Every square is a rectangle, but call it one, and you’ll be corrected. It’s not a rectangle in this case, it’s a square.

I appreciate that hot take. First books, IMO, tend to be more formulaic. I'm currently reading and on book 5, and there's been a number of times the author's used strong vocaublary or literary devices that I've appreciated. The feel of the series has certainly made some adjustments, and it makes sense considering he's at six and change years writing it at this point.

To quote the book #5:

Book 5 is just scratching the surface, but the tones get worse, not better, at 5 you should understand this about the story.

To say it’s not cruel, is so weird, and a few of the nonmain protagonists are gone, they don’t stay the same from book to book.

To quote Dinnamin

”if I don’t like their voice, I kill them off”.

Good to know, thanks

Ready Player One is kind of a good comparison; both in that case and in this one, my expectations were pretty low, but I enjoyed reading them. My reading list is mostly populated with nominees and winners of the major SF&F awards, but I decided to read this one based on recommendations from folks here in Lemmy, and because of folks I talk with a lot online (I play wow classic). I wasn't really expecting it to be amazingly well crafted, but I still maintain is silly fun.

Huh, okay. Not many series can stay even decent for eight books, so that's encouraging.

Hmm, okay. I never played D&D, but has friends who did.

The cat becomes his constant companion, as far as I know through the whole series.

I think there's a spectrum, with overtly magic based fantasy at one end and hard SF (where the science is grounded in our current understanding) at the other. I don't see there's any way to draw a rigid line. I'd put this one somewhere around the center, maybe a bit towards fantasy on the spectrum.

There's a reason that all of the major SF awards include fantasy. It's just too hard to draw the line between them.

The phrase has two definitions, someone is trying to share their opinion on a book in a place they thought was relevant, the book is listed as Science Fiction on goodreads. It just comes off as gate keeping.

Sure, we can also just call it fiction as well because it’s words on a page that’s not historical. Same logic as space ships = science fiction. Being more descriptive is better.

Notice how your links even list a few of those as “fantasy” first?

I also didn’t tell them they couldn’t post here, so how on earth do you get gatekeeping from that? You are seriously upset about some information exchanged online?

It’s a fantasy with scifi aspects, it would be science fantasy before being purely “science fiction”.

Yes I covered that in another comment, but it’s more on the fantasy side of the spectrum than science fiction.

The rewards are clumped together, because separate there isn’t enough to warrant the spectacle or the “celebration”. They did try separating them, didn’t last long before they combined them again. It’s why they are separate categories and don’t compete against each other in that sense. It’s not the best sci-fi and fantasy book. There’s one of each.

The floors are quite different, which keeps it interesting. If'n you liked the first one, I'm reasonably confident that you'll like the rest.

I totally hear you. But the reason I disagree is that I think writers have a choice in how a death is supposed to strike the audience, and Dinniman is like a D&D GM who acts a lot tougher than he is.

George R.R. Martin is the real deal: he's a ruthless writer of huge stakes: Ned Stark's death is designed to be as distressing as possible. It's intended to leave the reader with the devestated feeling that the world is highly unjust; that the more honorable the character, the more danger they're in; that the reader should be in a constant state of concern that the characters they care about could at any moment not only die, but -- more importantly for fiction imo -- be rendered meaningless. He is disgraced in death, and it's deeply painful for the reader.

Conversely, Matt Dinniman is, imo, basically a softy. When good characters die, they leave a mark. Their friends mourn; they are honored and avenged; their lives leave indelible marks on the trajectory of the story. It's sad, but it's very sweet sorrow.

That might change in the later books, but so far, Dinniman has been very gentle on readers when it counts.

I don't know else of value you could be trying to communicate in /c/sciencefiction by saying "DCC is Fantasy, not science fiction." other than "This doesn't belong here"

Because it is…? I’m not going to report the post that it doesn’t belong, even though it probably doesn’t. It allows a discussion to be had so people can learn. Or that’s the hope.

How is providing information, “not adding value”? By that metric, what do you think you were adding but attempting to correct me incorrectly? The information you provided was proven wrong by your own source for that matter. You’re also off arguing about my point of Star Wars, not even the original. So go off mate.

Thanks. I decided to go ahead and read the second one now (I often read other things between books in a series).

The Locus awards have separate categories, but the Hugo awards do not, just best novel.

In other hobbies they call people like you gatekeepers.

For providing information to people who may not know better?

The fact that you're not hearing the condescension in your own comments is a real big red flag.

Just because you don’t like an answer or the informations someone is providing doesn’t mean that person is being condescending. I can’t defend my point? These are the takes by authors like Asimov and Pratchett, they’re the ones that created and defined these genres.

I agree and I’m not the biggest fan, but it does get much better if you can get through the first half of book 1.

DCC and Star Trek are no less science fiction than a time travel story or one that relies on time travel, faster than light travel, races of aliens that can change their shape, or humans that can change their gender at will.

I'm story you think you have drawn the one true line, but it speaks to a flaw in your character not a flaw in others.

They're writers not gods. Prachett was best friends with a rapist.

They’re fantasy with scifi aspects, I covered this already.

A scifi book about a detective is still a scifi before a detective novel, a detective novel with scifi aspects, is a detective novel first. These distinctions are important.

There’s a hierarchy, and a proper way books are presented( disagree if you want.

What relevance does someone friends have to the topic at hand?

Star Trek is just a space fantasy. Klingons are orcs, Vulcans are elves, teleporters are magic, phasers are wands, and telekinesis is spells. It’s how the stories are told and material within that dictates its genre, not a few aspects like “technology”. Technology has never meant “scifi” technology exists in regular fiction and even non-fiction too. Space ships are part of our current history, a story with it doesn’t become “sci-fi” just for that reason.

It’s a fantasy in a space setting. Not a scifi in xxx setting.

For “true” scifi the science and technology are supposed to be a believable extension of our universe, not some magical hand waving away fantasy mumbojumbo. So most of your suggestions fall into the fantasy aspect, most of those can only be explained by hand waving, there’s no basis on reality.

For FTL, it can be wormholes, instead of magic engines.