This Inevitable Ruin by Matt Dinniman – Review

Published: September 23, 2025

Publisher: Ace

Series: Dungeon Crawler Carl #7

Genre: Fantasy, LitRPG

Pages: 880 (Hardcover)

My Rating: 4.5 Stars

Synopsis:
The time has come! Book seven in the bestselling Dungeon Crawler Carl series is here!

They call it Faction Wars.

The ninth floor.

Nine armies, each led by rich and powerful aliens from across the galaxy. Each team has one objective: to capture and hold the castle at the very center of the battlefield. Strategy, alliances, pitched battles, and, of course, betrayal… It all makes for great fun and even greater television.

After all, none of these powerful aliens really die when they’re playing war.

Except this time. This time, winner takes all. Those who fall, stay in the ground.

As the AI continues its rapid decline, Carl and company take advantage of the chaos. For the first time ever, the crawlers are fighting back. They are now one of the nine teams. And this season, there’s a tenth army on the playing field. The NPCs, who are normally used as nothing but cannon fodder, have become fully self-aware and formed a team of their own.

For Donut and Katia, the stakes are even higher. Only one of them will be allowed to leave this level.

If they all want to survive, they’re going to need a little help from a veteran or two.

This is it.
This is what they’ve been fighting toward.
This is war.

This inevitable ruin.

---

This is officially my favorite installment of Dungeon Crawler Carl and I don’t think I can experience this series in any way other than audiobook now. Let me tell ya, the production quality is fantastic for the audio and it brings the story to a whole new level! By the way, I always include a print or ebook page count in my book details above because I prefer to list many pages a book is, even I listened to the audiobook.

This is the dungeon floor I’ve been anticipating for so many books now because this is Faction Wars! Since The Gate of the Feral Gods, where Carl and Donut acquired said Gate of the Feral Gods and proceeded to use it to dump a small ocean and all the accompanying toothy accoutrements, along with a city full of NPCs into Larrocos, I’ve been looking forward to this. They’ve been mucking about in all the carefully laid plans of their fellow Warlords and the dungeon AI is going feral at an astonishing rate, so This Inevitable Ruin is a shitshow of epic, unforgettable proportions. I can’t begin to describe the plot in any way other than “gloriously chaotic suffering” thanks to the myriad plotlines that are constantly shifting and well, it’s Faction Wars, so someone’s suffering is guaranteed. Rest assured, there is action galore, absolutely hilarious scenes, and some real tearjerker moments.

I don’t know how many books will ultimately be in the DCC series, but Matt Dinniman continues to blow me away with how the story seems to continually ramp up with each new installment. Despite coming in at nearly 900 pages I don’t think there was ever a dull moment. I particularly loved that so many new characters arrived thanks to the previous crawlers coming to help out the Princess Posse. At this point, the thing I must suspend disbelief on is that none of Carl’s team has asked HOW he knows all these previous crawlers and why they seem to have such a tight bond. I mean, he literally gives one of them a hug and sobs into her arms when he meets her! Obviously they know something is up, but nobody asks. Perhaps the Dungeon Anarchist’s  Cookbook will remain a secret after all.

This Inevitable Ruin is, as I said at the beginning, my favorite installment in the series thus far. I somewhat regret not picking up the audiobook format from the start, but if I ever do a re-read that’s the format I’ll pick! I could go on and on about particular things that happened that I loved, but I am loathe to throw in spoilers for such a fun book. It’s best if you just don’t know what to expect! I’m quite excited for the next book even though it likely won’t release until sometime in 2026.