Dungeon Born | Basic information
Dungeon Born, written by Dakota Krout, is the first volume in the Divine Dungeon series. It falls firmly in the fantasy and LitRPG genres. Although for those familiar with Japanese forms of entertainment, I'd describe this series as a member of the Isekai (Parallel world) genre. Thus far it is comprised of a total of five installments. The most recent of which, titled Dungeon Eternium, was published in May of 2019. Each book in this series comes in at an average of about 100-110k words in length or 10-11 hours for the audio-book versions.
Apart from this "main" series of books, Dakota Krout has also written and co-written several other works in this same fictional universe. These include the Completionist Chronicles series, the Artorian's Archives series and the Wolfman Warlcok series, all of which follow their own adventurer and their individual stories of struggle, growth and survival.
Dungeon Born | Structure and Story
As I noted above, Dungeon Born is primarily a fantasy novel with an emphasis on a dungeon-crawler like story-line. It features multiple point-of-view characters throughout its length, although most of the book centers two main protagonists. One of these, Cal, narrates his perspective of events in the first person form and past tense, while Dale and the other minor characters POV's are presented in the same tense but third person from.
Story wise, a good chunk of the novel's early chapters are dedicated to Cal, his "rebirth" into this fictional world as living, breathing dungeon. With the support of a pink Wisp named Dani he begins to explore his new state of being, his powers and his surroundings. Once the basic world setting and rules are established, the plot finally kicks off. Dale and other characters get introduced, all of whom are adventurers seeking to grow rich from the newly discovered dungeon in the mountains. The rest of the novel then consists of a sort of race in arms and intellect between Cal and the adventurers braving his depths, as each side does their best to ascent the magical ranking system of this fictional world, at the expense of the other party. All the while hinting at a dark, shadowy player, who is set to shake the foundation of the world.
Dungeon Born | Sub-Genre
In terms of the most prominent sub-genres you can expect from this novel, I'd say that the action, drama and philosophical elements create a synergy which drives the majority of the story. Much of the plot is centred around the notion of "leveling up" as an adventurer, or dungeon in Cal's case. And as you'd respect, this is mainly achieved through defeating opponents in combat, outmanoeuvring them on the sociopolitical chessboard or by uncovering truths about one's self and the universe at large.
In a somewhat more supportive role you'll also find comedy, which brings the novel a bit of levity in the shape of comedic relief. There's also quite a bit of world-building going on throughout the book. But this mainly focuses around the fictional universe's unique magic system, since most of the novel's story is confined to a single location.
And here's a list of sub-genres you shouldn't expect to see on your read-through Dungeon Born.
Dungeon Born | Ratings and Conclusions
It's been about a year since I first read Dungeon Born after picking it up on a whim on an Audible 2 for 1 sale. In fact, I binged the rest of the series right afterwards.
Is Dungeon Born perfect? Of course, it isn't. Here and there you'll find a bit of clunky or cringy dialogue. My biggest gripe with the books is that the audio-book narrator, Vikas Adam, gets replaced replaced in the fifth volume of the series. Not that I have anything against Luke Daniels, the replacement narrator, I love him in the Frontlines series by Marko Kloss. But there's just something immersion breaking after a series you know suddenly looses its old "voice" and get's a new one. Although this doesn't really affect Dungeon Born itself, since the switch happens much later on in the series.
If you're considering picking up this novel, I definitely suggest that you do. Despite it using some of the usual fantasy tropes like elves, dwarfs and magic, Dakota Krout puts enough of a spin on these to make the novel feel fresh. And that's before I even mention him using the dungeon, an inanimate object, as the leading POV character and that in some sense he's bringing the Isekai genre into popular western literature. Its unique spiritual-magic system is also very well thought out and a blast to get to know. And a couple of times, it even managed to influence my own views of the world around me and myself.
Should you be interested in snagging a copy of Dungeon Born you can do so HERE. This and all the other links featured in this post are Amazon affiliate links, which may earn me a commission should you make a purchase through them. This is of course at no added cost to you, but it does help to support me and what I love to do. If you don't feel comfortable with this arrangement, feel free to circumnavigate the affiliate links by visiting Amazon's website independently.
Have any questions about this book or series? Drop me a comment at the bottom of this post or my YouTube video, and I'll do my best to answer it! Also, if you liked this review, consider sharing it with your book-loving friends!
Writing lessons
Similarly to the Bobiverse books, this novel can serve as a great reference as to how to handle single character oriented story lines. From how to fill the hole in storytelling left by the complete absence of dialogue, to the very simple workaround which avoids this problem altogether. You can also take note on how the author's slight tweaks to the usual fantasy tropes help her novel stand out from the crowd and even lead to unique developments in the story. For a more in-depth explanation of these and more, watch the video linked at the top of the page.
nice :)