The Eye of the Bedlam Bride

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • Carl and Princess Donut journey into insanity in the wildly entertaining sixth book in the Dungeon Crawler Carl series—now with bonus material exclusive to this print edition!

Coast Guard vet Carl and his ex-girlfriend’s cat, Princess Donut, have survived longer and leveled up higher than anyone ever thought they could in the galaxy’s most popular reality show, but after the shocking conclusion of the seventh level, it’s now anyone’s game.

A pantheon of forgotten gods. An old grudge between a talk show host, an heiress, and the man they shattered along the way. A rapidly deteriorating AI system. An inconvenient tiara upon the head of a friend.

It is bedlam on the eighth floor.

The crawlers are given a new task: Find and capture six monsters, each of which will be turned into a card. The stronger, the deadlier, the better. At the end of the floor, the bad guys will also have decks, made of some of the most powerful cards available. So it’s crucial for crawlers to assemble the toughest squad possible. But, like always, there is a catch. There’s always a catch.

If Carl and Donut want a winning hand, they’ll have to capture the most lethal and terrifying monster of them all: Shi Maria. She was once married to a now-missing god. Her special attack is known to drive one insane. They call her the Bedlam Bride.

But even if Carl and Donut can capture her, they know all too well that just because someone has been captured, it doesn’t mean they have been tamed.

Welcome, Crawlers. Welcome to the eighth floor of the dungeon.

Matt Dinniman is a writer and artist from Gig Harbor, Washington. He is the author of the NYTs best-selling Dungeon Crawler Carl series along with several other books about the end of the world. He doesn't really hate Cocker Spaniels, and he plays bass in a metal band.

Praise for the Dungeon Crawler Carl series

“Fresh. Creative. Hilarious. I'm obsessed…Princess Donut is my queen.” – Actor, producer and New York Times bestselling author Felicia Day

"Dungeon Crawler Carl is legit awesome." – #1 New York Times bestselling author Brandon Sanderson

“A dangerously addicting tale of chaos and mayhem. I’m thoroughly hooked!” – #1 New York Times bestselling author Callie Hart

“Welcome to your newest obsession…the highly addictive, hilarious series continues to draw in new fans.” – USA Today

"This series has no goddamn business burying so much depth and emotion and complexity under its bawdy, gory surface, but it does so anyway. What a wild-ass and unexpected delight." – New York Times bestselling author Scott Lynch

“[A] comically cosmic adventure series…often laugh-out-loud funny…Grind your way to dungeon mastery alongside Carl and Princess Donut.” – The Wall Street Journal

"This is the book for anyone who ever wondered what it would be like to be a role player in a game with the best game master ever...Once you start, you won't put it down." - Patricia Briggs, #1 New York Times bestselling author of the Mercy Thompson series

“Dungeon Crawler Carl is the best start to a series I’ve read this year. I wish I’d tried it sooner.” – Will Wight, author of the Cradle series

"“When it came time to pick a race, Dinniman and Dungeon Crawler Carl decided he would continue to appear as a human, and that’s what this series has blossomed into, something profoundly and endearingly human.” – Slate

"If there's a better LitRPG than Dungeon Crawler Carl, I haven't read it." - Shirtaloon, author of He Who Fights Monsters

“Dungeon Crawler Carl is just one big smile all the way through. Put on your best pair of boxer shorts and sit back for a truly fun and enjoyable read.”—New York Times bestselling author Kevin J. Anderson

“To describe the Dungeon Crawler Carl series, and the first book in particular, one must blend the darkest, grittiest science fiction with the humour of Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. It mixes fun, whimsical absurdity, and serious, dark themes with dire consequences…it is so spectacularly good that I cannot recommend it highly enough.” - Grimdark Magazine

“Dinniman’s Douglas-Adams-but-playing-D&D romp was so much fun that I immediately went out and got the next two books…genuinely joyful.” – LitHub.com

The Eye of the Bedlam Bride by Matt Dinniman continues the wild, violent, funny, and emotionally charged journey of Carl and Princess Donut in the Dungeon Crawler Carl series. By this point in the story, Carl and Donut are no longer just trying to survive the dungeon—they have become some of the most dangerous and talked-about crawlers in the galaxy. But the higher they climb, the stranger and harsher the dungeon becomes. This book pushes them into one of the most unsettling and imaginative floors yet, where the rules of survival change again and the line between strategy, madness, and reality starts to blur.

The story opens after the shocking events of the previous floor, with Carl and Donut entering a new level that feels like a warped version of Earth before its destruction. The eighth floor is not a normal battlefield or fantasy setting. Instead, it resembles a pre-collapse world filled with eerie echoes of the past, memory-ghosts, and places that look familiar in a deeply unsettling way. This strange environment immediately changes the mood of the series. The danger is still there, but now the threat is not only physical. The dungeon begins to attack the mind, forcing crawlers to deal with fear, confusion, and the unstable nature of what is real.

On this floor, the game mechanics become even more important and more dangerous. Carl and the other crawlers are given a new task: capture powerful monsters and turn them into cards. These cards are then used in battles, making the floor feel like a mix of dungeon crawl, tactical combat, and monster-collecting strategy. The stronger and deadlier the monsters, the better the decks become. This creates intense pressure, because everyone wants to build the best possible team, and that means going after the most dangerous creatures available. Carl and Donut must think carefully, act quickly, and take enormous risks if they want to stay ahead of their enemies.

The central challenge of the book revolves around Shi Maria, the terrifying Bedlam Bride. She is one of the most feared beings in the dungeon, and her presence gives the book its title and its eerie emotional core. Shi Maria is not just strong; she is associated with madness, psychological damage, and a kind of power that can unbalance anyone who gets too close. She becomes a symbol of the floor’s larger themes: chaos, instability, and the danger of looking too directly at the horrors around you. Capturing her is not just a tactical goal. It becomes a test of Carl and Donut’s courage, judgment, and willingness to face something profoundly disturbing.

What makes this book stand out is how it blends action with deeper emotional and psychological material. The humor and absurdity that define the series are still present, but they now sit alongside real fear, trauma, and difficult choices. Carl is still Carl—blunt, stubborn, sarcastic, and determined—but he is also carrying more emotional weight than before. The longer he stays in the dungeon, the more he is forced to confront not just monsters, but the effects of endless violence and loss. Donut, meanwhile, remains sharp, proud, and entertaining, but she too is tested in new ways. Her identity, confidence, and sanity are all pushed to the limit as the floor becomes stranger and more hostile.

Another major part of the novel is the growing sense of resistance among the crawlers. The dungeon is not just a game anymore, and more people begin to see the system for what it is: cruel, exploitative, and deeply corrupt. Carl becomes more involved in underground efforts to challenge the powers controlling the crawl, which adds a political and rebellious layer to the story. This makes the book feel larger than one pair of characters fighting through a dungeon. It becomes part of a wider struggle against a system that treats suffering as entertainment. That conflict gives the book extra urgency and helps balance the comedy and chaos with real stakes.

The book also explores memory and identity in powerful ways. Because the floor itself is tied to Earth’s past, it forces characters to deal with echoes of who they were before the dungeon changed everything. That makes the story more personal. Carl and Donut are not just fighting for points or advancement; they are fighting to keep their sense of self intact in a world that keeps trying to strip it away. The dungeon’s surreal design makes this theme especially effective, because the familiar setting creates a constant sense of emotional unease. The characters are never fully at home, and that discomfort matters.

Despite all the darkness, the book still has the fast pace, sharp dialogue, and outrageous creativity that readers expect from the series. The action scenes are energetic and inventive, and the card-based battles add another layer of strategy and spectacle. The book continues to surprise readers with its weirdness, but it does so in a way that still feels controlled and purposeful. Every bizarre idea seems to serve both the plot and the emotional arc of the characters.

Overall, The Eye of the Bedlam Bride is a major turning point in the Dungeon Crawler Carl series. It is bigger, darker, and more psychological than many earlier entries, but it remains full of humor, character, and imagination. It takes Carl and Donut deeper into a dungeon that is no longer just trying to kill them. It is trying to break them, confuse them, and force them to become something else. The book succeeds because it keeps the series’ wild energy while also making the emotional stakes feel sharper than ever.