Summary
King Crow has made it through the first level of Toroth-Gol. After killing the world’s last giant, running afoul of pirates, and narrowly escaping a booby-trapped party store, he finds himself on a platform in the middle of the ocean, where he faces a new challenge…
WELCOME TO DUNGEON SCHOOL.
Review
Dungeon School is a fantastic sequel that improves on everything I enjoyed about the first novel. The relentless pace, witty humor, intriguing world, and endearing characters are perfect for readers looking for a quick and unique reading experience.
In this novel King Crow and companions continue through the current level of the Toroth-Gol prison. This time they must split up to attend different schools, where they can learn new skills and gain new abilities. Because of this we pretty much only spend time with King Crow and Jocko. Though we can’t forget about Spud and Perry, as well as a new vegetable companion we gain along the way. Despite this, the characters remain one of my favorite aspects of the series. We learn more about each of the characters, and Crow in particular receives a good deal of emotional development in this book that adds depth to him beyond being a talented athlete and ruthless competitor. Spud and Co. remain a great source of comic relief with surprising emotional depth, but never cease to make me smile. Before reading this series I never would have thought I would look forward to reading more about a group of sentient vegetable projectiles but here we are, and I couldn’t be happier about it.
The worldbuilding is another part of the novel that keeps me glued to the pages. Toroth-Gol is ostensibly a magical prison where convicts are sent to participate in an unwinnable game for the entertainment of an empire. But it has its own inhabitants, histories of internal wars, and myths, everything that you would expect from a real world, so I’m still not entirely sure what to make of it. The NPCs(?) inside it seem real enough, but can be killed and will come back when the next group of prisoners are sent in. They also have vague flashes of memory between “lives” so it seems they do go somewhere else in between. Even though what we do see of Toroth-Gol is extremely interesting and engaging, it is clear that there is much more to the place than even the characters know, and I can’t wait to keep unraveling its mysteries as the series progresses.
The writing itself is superb, the author keeps you constantly engaged, so that I hardly put the book down at all. It really is stunning how much character and world development the author is able to pack into relatively short novels. There is hardly a word wasted but at the same time it never feels rushed despite the fast pace. As I said in my review of the first novel, I wish that more books in this series were already out. With how addictive I find these characters and world, I would binge read this entire series all in a row if I could. As it stands I will have to be patient as the author continues working on the series, but I can’t recommend these books highly enough.