• The Butcher's Masquerade

  • Dungeon Crawler Carl, Book 5
  • By: Matt Dinniman
  • Narrated by: Jeff Hays
  • Length: 23 hrs and 33 mins
  • 4.9 out of 5 stars (11,757 ratings)

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The Butcher's Masquerade  By  cover art

The Butcher's Masquerade

By: Matt Dinniman
Narrated by: Jeff Hays
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Publisher's summary

Attention. Attention. The gates are down. The hunters are loose.

Run, run, run.

A lush jungle teeming with danger. Savage dinosaurs seeking blood. A fallen princess intent on vengeance. A mysterious, end-of-floor celebration for the top crawlers, dubbed “The Butcher’s Masquerade”.

The sixth floor. The Hunting Grounds.

As the remaining crawlers battle for their lives, a new, terrible threat looms. Outside, tourists are finally allowed to enter the game, and they are here and ready to hunt. Among them is Vrah, a famed and veteran hunter, intent on collecting the biggest trophy of her career.

But their prey is far from harmless, and this season they are fighting back.

Dungeon Crawler Carl and Princess Donut return in book five of the acclaimed LitRPG series.

©2022 Dandy House (P)2022 Soundbooth Theater

Featured Article: Level up with 25+ awesome litRPGs


LitRPG means Literary Role Playing Game. Simply put, it’s the book version of watching someone play a video game, usually one that’s set up like an MMO (massively multiplayer online) RPG. It’s a blend of sci-fi and fantasy, depending on how it comes to be that our main character ends up living inside a virtual reality. the point of LitRPG is not how we get there, but that we get to be in this virtual reality period, living life as a badass video-game character. Beat the grind and submerse yourself in these addictive LitRPGs.

What listeners say about The Butcher's Masquerade

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  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars

Perhaps the best plotted SF series ever written

As a long-time fantasy and science fiction reader, I try to read everything good. Most good series have a good core but various poor parts that get glossed over. For example, LotR -- great movie trilogy. The stuff not in the movie, not quite as good.

Dungeon Crawler Carl is the highest quality SF&F series I've read. Other genres have better books, such as North by Shackleton or Memoirs by Grant, these have real life insanity that's hard to compete with. Even Carl hasn't matched Shackleton's level of insane plans yet. But the series isn't done yet. Every chapter, every arc, often every sentence has a later payoff. I've gone back and forth through the series five times now, picking up on more and more throwaway moments that ended up being important later. I listened to all of Jeff Hays' cold reads for this book. Matt Dinniman is a master of set-up and payoff. I was there as Matt book five sent Jeff into two minute laugh breakdown.

Meanwhile, great characters, constant menace, fun dialog, great combat, crunchy leveling details, absolutely everything good in a litRPG series.

Jeff Hays is at his best here. As mentioned, I followed the cold read for this, but he's upped the quality even more in the post.

But if you've gotten this far, you already know all this. This is a good series. But it's not a stand-alone. Start with Book 1. Each book is getting better and better, but there is considerable world building (and destruction).

Highly recommended. You'd need to dig into the most bizarre and well-written History tomes to find anything better.

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34 people found this helpful

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    5 out of 5 stars
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Wow

I have been listening to this every day at work and wow! I have not enjoyed work this much ever. This has been my favorite book in the series so far!! Good job to everyone involved!!




goat scream🐐

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    5 out of 5 stars
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Outstanding Writing Craft

Yes, this series is hilarious and full of silliness and gore and creativity. However, one thing I have yet to mention is the adept writing. Matt Dinniman has an outstanding ability to weave truly emotional scenes into his stories. I just finished listening to chapter 47 (no spoilers here) and have to admit to a bit of throat tightening. I rarely feel truly touched by writing, but this scene got me. Kudos, Matt Dinniman, for sneaking in some truly touching moments into an otherwise wonderfully funny series.

Jeff Hays is always awesome! While I also enjoy his work when the SBT crew joins in, particularly Annie Ellicot, I prefer his solo performances like in this series. It allows us to truly appreciate his masterful voice work and the range of his voices and accents. He is simply amazing!

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7 people found this helpful

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The Best

Dungeon Crawler Carl is hands down the best LitRPG on the market. The Butcher's Masquerade lives up to every expectation and was more than worth the wait. Matt Dinniman is a character development and story structure genius. In this series, you even care deeply about the side characters.

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6 people found this helpful

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    5 out of 5 stars
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Da** It Donut!

Amazing continuation of the series. Ups and downs. There was even a talent show.

I found myself hanging on to every word. The effects were awesome. Jeff Hays does a great job bringing Matt's story alive.

Book 6 can't come soon enough.

And remember crawlers. Kill, Kill, Kill.

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Keep it going!

I don’t want to post any spoilers so I’ll be brief: I loved this book, I’ve already listened to it 3 times. I can’t wait for the next one. Definitely worth your hard earned credit!

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killed it!

I'm living for this series. it's just fun and fresh, and has found a really nice groove. Donut is a perfect counterpart to Carl. don't listen to that other guy's bad review, she's great wouldn't change a thing!

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Laugh out loud funny.

The sound booth production in awesome. Prepotente’s shrieks make it worth it! Be sure to purchase the book and read along so Matt can feed his dog.

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Money back

My own fault for not listening to a sample beforehand. I did look for which one the series, but didn’t see it in the description. Turns out it was predominantly displayed on the cover art.

Anyway, not my cup of tea. Seems like it was well performed and could be entertaining, if you like sci-fi stories about gaming. I did like Ready Player One, but not so much Two. I didn’t like this either. Again, not my preference. I do like sci-fi - guess not all of it, though.

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Goddammit Donut

Dinniman and Hays continue to bring the laughs throughout this level's crawl. cannot wait for the next installment!

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