The third installment of Carl's journey through the Dungeon World throws us into the fourth level (out of 16 [1]) and into a labyrinth of subways called "The Iron Tangle".
The boxer-shorts-wearing Anarchist Carl, an Icelandic clay-figure woman Katia, and his talking cat Princess Donut (now sporting stylish sunglasses), including their own velociraptor pet named Mongo, must solve the riddle of the Iron Tangle to... oh, I won't even try to summarize the story. It's all very wild and a massive spoiler if you aren't familiar with the previous two parts.
Actually, I found Anarchist’s Cookbook to be just mediocre. The greatest strength of the setting is that every book can be completely different; there is a lot of experimentation with scenarios, and the risk of boredom is low for now. However, this also carries the greatest risk: if the setting and premise of a Dungeon floor don't appeal to you, the whole book feels a bit "meh." And that’s exactly what happened to me in the subway labyrinth.
The world is so confusing that the author himself states in a foreword that one shouldn't even try to understand it – and I'm not sure if I find that exhausting. Without that narrative arc, the protagonists just move from scene to scene to see what happens. I also found the resolution at the end a bit underwhelming.
Additionally, Dinniman decided to remove one of the best characters from the story for a while – a character whose dramaturgical role is to provide background information to both the protagonist and the reader. This layer is missing for a large part of the story.
But – I'm complaining at a high level here. While it is the least interesting book for me so far, it was still anything but boring. Every now and then, there were very beautiful moments and ideas, and Dinniman knows how to incorporate common tropes from literature and pop culture.
It just simply wasn't as good as the previous two parts.
Fun fact: I didn't take the sleeve off the previous volume, so I was all the more surprised that the hardcover holds this little surprise... Cool!
