Books Like Dungeon Crawler Carl: 8 Audiobook Series to Try Next

Dungeon Crawler Carl is a weird act to follow. The publisher's pitch for Matt Dinniman's series is "The apocalypse will be televised." Every building on Earth collapses into an 18-level dungeon that's also a galaxy-wide game show, and staying alive depends on followers, views, and killing monsters entertainingly. Carl goes in with his ex-girlfriend's cat, Princess Donut. This page is about what to queue up after that, and it's written audiobook-first: who's credited, how long Book 1 runs, how many books are out, and whether the series has an ending.

I picked these eight and built the comparison from Audible's catalog listings and the publishers' descriptions, checked October 19, 2026. None of it comes from fresh listening notes. So when I call something funny or dark, I'm reading the pitch, and a narrator's name is just the credit on the listing.

The regular DCC audiobooks are published by Audible Studios, and Jeff Hays narrates all of them. As of October 19, 2026, that's eight books and 159 hours 22 minutes in total, and the series isn't finished. Book 1 runs 13 hours 31 minutes. Audible also credits extra voices on three of the eight: Book 3 (The Critical Drinker), Book 6 (Patrick Warburton, Travis Baldree, and Annie Ellicott), and Book 7 (Travis Baldree). For reading order and editions, see the DCC series page.

On this page, "like DCC" means four things: humor and banter, Jeff Hays and how the audio is produced, game mechanics like levels and stats, and whether there's a finish line. They're sort keys, basically. I can't make a list without it turning into a table. A series can miss on three of them and still be the right next listen if the fourth is the one you care about, which is why the picks below are grouped by what you're after instead of ranked. If narrators are your main filter, there's a separate narrator guide.

Three of the picks credit Jeff Hays, who narrates every regular DCC book and has a profile page on this site. One of the three, Life Reset, is down in the finished-series section, since the ending is the better reason to pick it. That leaves two here.

Chrysalis credits Jeff Hays and Annie Ellicott on every book, and Ellicott is one of the extra voices on DCC Book 6. RinoZ's premise is about as ridiculous as Carl's: Anthony is reborn into the game-like world of Pangera as an ant, with Bite and Dig as his first skills. The blurb lists levels, stats, monster evolution, and "plenty of humor fitting for such a ludicrous premise." The goal is where it splits off. Anthony evolves and grows a colony, so it sounds closer to a strategy game than a game show. Start here if you'd miss the stat screens and the absurdity most.

Dungeon Lord puts the hero on the other side of the dungeon. He runs it. In Hugo Huesca's The Wraith's Haunt series, dark forces offer Edward Wright incredible power at a terrible cost, and he's swept into the world of Ivalis as a Dungeon Lord, the Dark's most powerful servant. Then he sets out to oppose the dark god Murmur. The publisher calls it a "horrifying LitRPG experience," so I'd expect more dread than gags. Book 1 credits Jeff Hays for narration, characters, and production supervision, and Annie Ellicott for two characters. At 9 hours 37 minutes, it's a small bet if you don't need the jokes.

Noobtown is my pick if the jokes kept you going, and this site files it under Comedy/LitRPG. Ryan Rimmel's Jim dies and is reborn into a world built like a video game, stuck in a new-player zone that fell out of use centuries ago, so the monsters don't go easy on noobs. His only help is a demon shrunk to the size of a plush animal that keeps him alive so it can kill him later. Johnathan McClain reads Book 1. The scale is smaller. It's one guy in a game world instead of a televised apocalypse, and the titles (The Mayor of Noobtown, then The Village of Noobtown) point toward running a town.

Shadeslinger is for anyone who thinks Princess Donut is half the fun. Its sidekick is Frank, "a ridiculously handsome talking axe" who knows the game's secrets, and on paper he's the closest thing to Donut on this list. In Book 1 of Kyle Kirrin's The Ripple System, corporate flameout Ned Altimer dives into the new VRMMO Earthblood Online with that axe and a three-day Head Start. When the Head Start ends, the other players hunt him for the axe, so he's on a clock. It's a VR game, not a real apocalypse. Travis Baldree reads Book 1 and is one of the extra voices on DCC Books 6 and 7.

DCC doesn't have an ending yet. As of October 19, 2026, two of these eight do.

Life Reset gets you Jeff Hays and an ending. Shemer Kuznits's New Era Online runs six books, and the publisher says the series "is now complete." Oren was a dominant player in the VR game NEO until he got trapped in a lowly goblin's body. He can't log out, and the game could fry his nervous system. That's game-world survival from a bad starting hand, same as Carl. From there he builds goblins into a force, with town-building, a monster clan, magical crafting, and a "mischievous AI" in the mix. Book 1 is long, at 24 hours 41 minutes. Pick it if you'd rather build a base than run a gauntlet.

The Perfect Run has the fewest books between you and an ending: three, all read by Eric Michael Summerer, and Book 3's publisher description calls it "the perfect conclusion to the Perfect Run saga." Ryan "Quicksave" Romano can create a save point and redo his life whenever he dies, so he save-scums through New Rome, trying every route from hero to villain for the perfect ending. What lines up with DCC is the eccentric lead and the comedy sitting on top of real danger. Superheroes and time loops replace the dungeon, and the publisher's pitch doesn't mention levels or stat screens. If stats were never the draw, it's the one I'd queue.

As of October 19, 2026, He Who Fights with Monsters has 13 books out and Defiance of the Fall has 17. Neither is finished. If you want to budget the hours before you commit, the series roadmap covers listening time for long series.

He Who Fights with Monsters, by Shirtaloon, starts with Jason, an office-supplies-store middle manager who wakes up in a world of magic and monsters where "it's hard to be good when all your powers are evil." Day one brings cannibals, cultists, wizards, and monsters, "but first, he's going to need pants." Going by the pitch, that's very DCC: an ordinary guy with game-like powers, and jokes parked right next to dark material. The difference is size. Book 1 alone runs 28 hours 56 minutes, and Heath Miller narrates it. That's a feature if you want one world to live in for a while.

Defiance of the Fall is DCC's System apocalypse with the laugh track turned off. Zac is alone in a forest when an unfeeling System introduces the whole planet to the multiverse, and he's stuck in the wilderness with deadly beasts and demons and only a hatchet. He has to get stronger and find his family. The blurb sells it as a LitRPG apocalypse merged with eastern cultivation and doesn't advertise any jokes. It's credited to TheFirstDefier with JF Brink, and Pavi Proczko narrates Book 1. This is the long-grind pick, for people whose favorite part of DCC was the System itself.

Two of these picks have more than one Book 1 listing on Audible, and DCC has a separate production of its own, so the publisher and date on a listing matter more than usual.

Noobtown is the messy one. The original Podium Audio recording of The Mayor of Noobtown came out August 13, 2019, read by Johnathan McClain, and runs 543 minutes (9 hours 3 minutes). Harper Voyager released a new edition on August 25, 2026, also read by McClain, at 482 minutes (8 hours 2 minutes), and that listing calls it an "enhanced audiobook." Audible also has a second Harper Voyager listing dated October 22, 2026, at 483 minutes. This site's Noobtown page and its numbers go by the original Podium recording.

Life Reset has two Book 1 listings. The current one is Soundbooth Theater's, dated November 20, 2025, at 1,481 minutes, and Audible still shows the original from October 16, 2017, at 1,480 minutes. With runtimes that close, go by the date, and check the credits on whichever one you pick.

DCC itself has a different kind of second option. Next to the regular Audible Studios books that Jeff Hays narrates, Soundbooth Theater sells a separate full-cast production called the Audio Immersion Tunnel. The DCC series page covers how it differs from the regular books.

If you're doing credit math on any of these, that's what the credit optimizer is for. And if none of the eight fit, the top picks page has the rest of the catalog.