I recently tried to describe to someone what this series is about. It went something like this:

A guy named Carl was tossed into an intergalactic level-based game show after the end of the world, along with his ex-girlfriend's cat, whose name is Princess Donut. Together with other survivors of the apocalypse—initiated by an alien syndicate with profit interests—the two are now fighting their way through multiple stages. They battle things like meth-dealing llamas or KraKarens—which are octopuses with Karen haircuts.

In these dungeons, there is also collectible loot, so Carl's gear keeps getting better. The only thing he doesn't get is pants, because his boxers are already highly powerful, and the system's AI apparently doesn't want him wearing any. At the same time, the cat Princess Donut is gifted with human intelligence, gains the ability to speak, and becomes a magical cat who absolutely hates Cocker Spaniels. This cat, however, has a pet of her own, which initially looks like a chicken but later turns out to be a full-grown Velociraptor and is named Mongo.

Along the way, they meet many other crawlers who now partly possess forms of intergalactic races, specializations, or combat classes: A shepherdess including her flock of sheep, an Icelandic Valkyrie, or a borderline girl named Lucia with two psychotic Rottweilers. Or a bunch of lawyers who all somehow happen to be archers.

Furthermore, their social media manager Zev—a fish-like alien whom I picture as Klaus from American Dad—constantly makes them appear on strange talk shows and conduct interviews to keep their viewership entertained, as the whole thing is basically broadcast as an interstellar Twitch stream. Complete with sponsorships and recap episodes.

And here I have omitted about 98% of the events so far.

I still think my initial description holds up: Ready Player One meets Discworld. Lots of pop culture references to shows, movies, and games, as well as mechanics you usually only see in video games. Time and again, there are achievements and quests, new loot and rewards—and in this meanwhile sixth book, Carl has transformed from a nobody in boxer shorts into an absolute power fantasy. Just like in a video game ^[1]. And it works.

As for the book itself—I liked it better than its predecessor. A thrilling jungle world, plenty of WTF moments. In between, there was even a vampire T-Rex with a magic wand and a ballerina dress named Big Tina ^[2]—which pretty much says it all.

The 700 (!!) pages were a quick read, and I will probably jump straight into the next installment.