The Economist: ‘All Carl wants to do is smoke his cigarette, but Princess Donut, his ex-girlfriend’s cat, has escaped. He reluctantly goes after the creature when—“slam”—his building, and the city beyond it, is flattened like “a massive tin can that had been crushed by a giant cosmic boot”. Carl is one of the few survivors left on Earth. Along with Princess Donut, he is forced into a dungeon to fight various monsters.’

And: ‘It sounds like the premise of a video game. But it is the introduction to “Dungeon Crawler Carl”, a book series by Matt Dinniman, which has sold over 2.7m copies in print.’

As well: ‘Gamified novels—known as literary role-playing games, or LitRPG—are going mainstream.’

Also: ‘Quantity has been trouncing quality. But readers looking for escapist thrills are often forgiving.’

Escapism and forgiveness go hand in hand. You escape, you forgive.

(a sf 2135)