'Dungeon Crawler Carl’ by Matt Dinniman with Mallory Rubin | Jeselnik Book Club

Anthony is joined by The Ringer’s Mallory Rubin to discuss Matt Dinniman’s sci-fi fantasy novel ‘Dungeon Crawler Carl,’ the story of a man and a cat fighting to survive a deadly, alien-run game show. They compare their expectations and fears going into the book, break down the highs and lows of the reading experience, and discuss the kind of reader who should give the series a shot. Mallory also shares some ‘Dungeon Crawler Carl’–adjacent recommendations and gives Anthony a crash course in romantasy. 00:00 - Open01:05 - Introduction09:42 - Chapter 1: “You Have to Read ‘Dungeon Crawler Carl’”17:53 - Chapter 2: 'DCC' Expectations and Fears21:00 - Chapter 3: The Highs and Lows of the Reading Experience44:23 - Chapter 4: Who Should Read This Book and 'DCC'-Adjacent Recommendations1:03:18 - Chapter 5: Jeselnik Book Club Gauntlet1:10:17 - Acknowledgments: Mallory’s Gift and Romantasy Talk1:16:40 - To Be Continued: 'Elf Unwrapped' with Andy Richter Email me your thoughts and questions about our next book club selection, 'The Friend,' by November 24 at [email protected]. Join Jeselnik Book Club: https://anthonyjeselnik.com/the-jeselnik-book-club Save the Jeselnik Book Club audiobooks playlist: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/37i9dQZF1DXdm9jUEbwwfR?si=8c8f714014474a83 Tour dates: https://anthonyjeselnik.com/tour You can order 'The Friend' and all the Jeselnik Book Club picks through our Bookshop.org shop: https://bookshop.org/shop/anthonyjeselnik Website: https://www.anthonyjeselnik.com/the-jeselnik-book-clubShop the books: https://bookshop.org/shop/anthonyjeselnikFollow on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/anthonyjeselnikFollow on TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@anthonyjeselnik Host: Anthony JeselnikGuest: Mallory RubinSupervising Producer: Magdalena MunaoCreative Producer: Daniel ComerTechnical Director: Chris WohlersSet Design: Jonathan Ratliff and Gitu MehraEditor: Matt PevicSocial: Kelsey CarterAdditional Production Supervision: Jack Wilson Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

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• 0:50Anthony Jeselnik?

  Hey, everybody. Anthony Jeselnik here with another episode of Jeselnik Book Club. Listen, guys, I'm not a book snub. I try to do this show in order to get everyone to read something. And I like book snobs, though. Book snobs are kind of gatekeepers. They read heady stuff. I like to read a little bit of everything. I'll read like a heavy novel and then follow it up with some trash. And I think it's totally okay to call books trash. Sometimes you want trash. Sometimes you want to eat at, you know, a great sushi restaurant. Sometimes you want to eat at McDonald's. And that's okay. We're all foodies here.

• 1:38Anthony Jeselnik?

  And now I am joined by my new friend and co-host of the House of R podcast, the great, the wonderful Mallory Rubin. Mallory? Thank you.

• 1:49Speaker 04

  Thrill of my life to be here. What an absolute privilege.

• 1:51Anthony Jeselnik?

  You are the first Ringer staff member to be a guest on the show. You're like the canary in the coal mine.

• 1:57Speaker 04

  Oh, my God. I can't believe I beat CR. Chris Ryan would have been the Vegas favorite.

• 2:01Anthony Jeselnik?

  I keep hearing about CR.

• 2:03Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 2:03Anthony Jeselnik?

  Like, I've been at The Ringer for a month now. And I keep comparing it to, I think I talked to Joanna on your podcast.

• 2:10Speaker 04

  That's right.

• 2:10Anthony Jeselnik?

  About how it feels like I'm a kid at a new high school.

• 2:12Speaker 04

  Yes.

• 2:13Anthony Jeselnik?

  And after a couple more weeks, I really feel like I'm a kid at a new high school.

• 2:16Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 2:17Anthony Jeselnik?

  But the high school is 90210.

• 2:19Speaker 04

  Bill would be absolutely delighted that that is the false impression that we've given you. Obviously, when you were on House of R with Joanna, it was filled with, you know, jealous rage. It was wonderful to watch and listen to you two talk about books together. And, you know, you noted that you think we're all cool. And we're not. We're big nerds. And that's part of why this is such a delight, to be here to talk about the stories that we love. Because what better thing is there in the world than celebrating a fictional universe that brings you joy? Nothing. Nothing.

• 2:46Anthony Jeselnik?

  Sure. But you're the coolest version of nerds.

• 2:50Speaker 04

  I'll accept that.

• 2:50Anthony Jeselnik?

  You are like central casting nerds.

• 2:53Speaker 04

  Yeah, that's, yes.

• 2:53Anthony Jeselnik?

  Everyone's got really nice skin.

• 2:55Speaker 04

  Uh, check in at different times of the year. You know, across your first stint here and get back to us. You know, when the dry winds hit, like a Santa Ana period in LA. You know? Check in with us. Let us know. CR is cool.

• 3:09Anthony Jeselnik?

  I hear that.

• 3:10Speaker 04

  You're gonna love him. He's a special guy. I am just like absolutely over the moon that you're doing this show with us.

• 3:17Anthony Jeselnik?

  Thank you.

• 3:17Speaker 04

  I think the show is awesome. I'm so thrilled that it's gonna be weekly. And just to participate in it at all is an absolute delight.

• 3:24Anthony Jeselnik?

  I know you're a co-creator of The Ringer. If that is, that is a term?

• 3:29Speaker 04

  Uh, it's, yeah.

• 3:31Anthony Jeselnik?

  Founding, founding member?

• 3:33Speaker 04

  Yeah, I was at Grantland with Bill and been here since the word go.

• 3:37Anthony Jeselnik?

  You think I'm gonna love CR? Who do you think I'm gonna hate? Because I love Joanna.

• 3:41Speaker 04

  Well, Joanna's the best. She's, I mean, CR and Joe. It's a high bar. Who, who will you hate? Great question. Uh, Sean Finacy?

• 3:50Anthony Jeselnik?

  Okay.

• 3:50Speaker 04

  Probably. Yeah. You know, you guys are gonna, he's also one of my dearest friends and closest colleagues in the world. Brilliant guy. He's a cinephile. He loves books. But you guys are gonna, you're gonna have some conflict over the whole adaptation thing. You know, you've obviously spoken beautifully over the episodes about, sometimes you're like, I don't want to even know how the movie is. And so I think you and Sean will come to blows on a podcast.

• 4:13Anthony Jeselnik?

  I look forward to the conversation. I, now I just divide every movie person into, are you pro digger or anti digger? And so we'll see where he falls on that.

• 4:22Speaker 04

  You loved it, right?

• 4:23Anthony Jeselnik?

  I loved it.

• 4:23Speaker 04

  I haven't seen it yet. I'm, by the time this podcast airs, hopefully I will have. I'm looking forward to it.

• 4:28Anthony Jeselnik?

  Yeah.

• 4:29Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 4:29Anthony Jeselnik?

  But I am, I'm thrilled you came on the show. I put out a challenge to the entire Ringer staff when I joined up. And I said, listen, guys, if you want to challenge me with a book, if you want to say, hey, you know, let's read this together, I will do that for you. You know, I don't, I never want to talk negatively about a book I present to my Jeselnik Book Club members.

• 4:49Speaker 04

  Yeah, sure.

• 4:50Anthony Jeselnik?

  I want like positive vibes only. I'm trying to get people to read. But if like someone else brings me a book, then I can be like, this is not for me. And we can, we can discuss it. And like, no one really picked up that gauntlet. No one came to me. And then I was like, what about Dungeon Crawler Carl? Who would read Dungeon Crawler Carl by Matt Dinniman? I hope I'm saying that right. Saying authors' names is the bane of having a book club.

• 5:13Speaker 04

  It's stressful. It really is. This is interesting because, so we have the same copy here, but, you know, I read this on my Kindle. When I'm reading for work, I read on a Kindle so that I can highlight. I think this is a habit that we share. And the cover, different. These like kind of comic book-esque covers on the Kindle edition. So, you know, one of the many indicators of the vast undeniable popularity. Multiple covers already.

• 5:40Anthony Jeselnik?

  Yeah.

• 5:41Speaker 04

  Delighted to see Princess Donut here, though.

• 5:43Anthony Jeselnik?

  Yeah. They, different now? I mean, this is great. Oh, yeah, we got the same one.

• 5:48Speaker 04

  Wonderful.

• 5:49Anthony Jeselnik?

  Yeah, they gave us many copies and we said we'd discuss it. But yeah, thank you again for being here. You, it's a, it's an honor.

• 5:56Speaker 04

  For me.

• 5:57Anthony Jeselnik?

  It's an honor to have you come in so early and just say, yeah, I'll be here. Like, CR is like gonna come on, but there's no date set.

• 6:04Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 6:04Anthony Jeselnik?

  Joanna would have me on her turf. And that was high water, being on House of R. I was like, let me think of whatever sci-fi books I can give you.

• 6:12Speaker 04

  Be great.

• 6:12Anthony Jeselnik?

  And then I walk in and there's cloaks everywhere. And I'm like, what have I read that someone's wearing a cloak? I recommended Aetna by Paul Yoone about a dog.

• 6:21Speaker 04

  Yep.

• 6:22Anthony Jeselnik?

  Who comes back from war. And she, Joanna was like, and what about that as fantasy?

• 6:25Speaker 04

  Uh huh.

• 6:26Anthony Jeselnik?

  I was like, it's a dog, the main character's a dog.

• 6:28Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 6:29Anthony Jeselnik?

  Is that not enough?

• 6:30Speaker 04

  Uh, it's, I think your list was wonderful.

• 6:33Anthony Jeselnik?

  Thank you.

• 6:33Speaker 04

  Start to finish. I, Three Body Problem is a part of my life already. I had not read, I love Emily St. John Mandel, but I had not read Exit Party. So I'm excited to check that out. And similarly, like, I love the Cerulean Sea books, Under the Whispering Door, T.J. Klune, but I have not read We Burn So Bright. So you came in, no surprise, like the Miz, throw in 105 with the recommendations. The House of R listeners, we call them the Bad Babies. It's a Grogu reference, Star Wars. So I don't know if you'll, you'll allow it, but.

• 7:02Anthony Jeselnik?

  I will allow it. I don't understand it.

• 7:04Speaker 04

  The Bad, fair, fair. The Bad Babies, um, just the praise is not possible to contain for your appearance on House of R. They were delighted. They called it the crossover event of the century. I was already feeling very jealous and sad to have missed it. And that further fueled my, my FOMO. But, you know, it sounded like you and Joe left it in a kind of standing invite place, you know?

• 7:27Anthony Jeselnik?

  I would come back anytime. Because I feel bad.

• 7:28Speaker 04

  We're right across the hall.

• 7:29Anthony Jeselnik?

  I told her that I've never read, we're talking about adaptations, I've never read Lord of the Rings.

• 7:37Speaker 04

  No, shocking.

• 7:38Anthony Jeselnik?

  But no judgment. And the look on her face, I was like, oh, I messed up. I crossed the line.

• 7:42Speaker 04

  No, you did say back to back. I've watched Game of Thrones, but I've not read A Song of Ice and Fire.

• 7:48Anthony Jeselnik?

  Yes.

• 7:49Speaker 04

  And I read The Hobbit, but not Lord of the Rings. And I would say those are our sacred texts.

• 7:53Anthony Jeselnik?

  I read The Hobbit when I was a kid.

• 7:55Speaker 04

  Yeah, sure.

• 7:55Anthony Jeselnik?

  And then Lord of the Rings was too heavy for me at the time. But I don't read the Lord of the Rings because the movie was like one of the greatest movie going experiences of my life. And so I didn't want to mess with that.

• 8:06Speaker 04

  Flawless film.

• 8:07Anthony Jeselnik?

  It was like the opposite.

• 8:07Speaker 04

  25 years.

• 8:08Anthony Jeselnik?

  I was flustered. I know.

• 8:09Speaker 04

  Since fellowship. Can you believe it?

• 8:10Anthony Jeselnik?

  I can, because it was like right when I moved to LA.

• 8:13Speaker 04

  Okay.

• 8:13Anthony Jeselnik?

  I had a friend get me into a screening when it was coming out. So I remember like all of the bluster.

• 8:18Speaker 04

  Oh, my God. Well, it's never too late. This is one of my mantras when it comes to reading. Anybody who is not interested in a thing, that's fine. They shouldn't be pressured into it. But like, it's never too late to dip your toe into a fictional universe for the first time. This is something I genuinely believe. You know, podcasting, Joe and I on House of R, we cover nerd culture, right? So we cover fantasy, sci-fi, comic universes, et cetera. And that is a vast, vast, vast universe. And it's something that we both love. So we have a lot of genuine passion for, you know, many of the like seminal sacred texts already. But you definitionally can't have consumed it all, right? You can't have consumed even a fraction of it. And so part of the joy always is new discovery.

• 8:58Speaker 04

  But like, when something like Wheel of Time hit Amazon a few years ago, I felt this real wave of anxiety that I had just not read those books, which to many fantasy fans are really like a sacred text. And I have just, over the years, doing House of R, doing binge mode here at The Ringer before that, decided to embrace, like, it's okay to say out loud, I have not read this thing. Sometimes it's because I don't want to. And sometimes it's, I haven't gotten to it yet. Sometimes that's true with a movie or TV. I'm watching like Joe, Buffy the Vampire is her favorite show. I'd never seen it. That's like a pretty important influential thing for the stuff that we cover. I turned 40 years old this year. I could just be like, I missed it. It's too late. But I decided, is it?

• 9:39Speaker 04

  And it's been absolutely like fascinating to watch that through my, you know, increasingly washed, decrepit eyes, instead of through the eyes of a contemporary and a peer in high school and college. So, you know, it's never too late to like try something for the first time. Maybe a Song of Ice and Fire or Lord of the Rings recommendation won't come up when we're talking today. We'll see.

• 10:00Anthony Jeselnik?

  I'd be happy to. I love preaching, it's never too late to get, don't be intimidated by the number of books or how big things are, how old they are. I say like, don't be afraid to admit you haven't read something.

• 10:11Speaker 04

  Oh, of course.

• 10:12Anthony Jeselnik?

  It's totally okay. And don't be afraid to admit that you've forgotten something that you've read.

• 10:15Speaker 04

  It's impossible to retain anything.

• 10:17Anthony Jeselnik?

  You read the book and you're like, yeah, I can't tell you anything about Brothers Karamazov, but I loved it while I was reading it. Are you ready for chapter one?

• 10:23Speaker 04

  I am.

• 10:24Anthony Jeselnik?

  Let's get to chapter one.

• 10:28Anthony Jeselnik?

  Okay, Mal.

• 10:29Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 10:29Anthony Jeselnik?

  It's weird, Conny Mal now. I feel like we've got the officer for.

• 10:31Speaker 04

  We're already there. We bonded so quickly.

• 10:34Anthony Jeselnik?

  Now, I, one of my, I know about Dungeon Crawler Carl only because when I started like reviewing books and doing this book club.

• 10:41Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 10:41Anthony Jeselnik?

  Maybe in the lead up to it, just I would talk about books so much. In the comments, people would always say Dungeon Crawler Carl.

• 10:48Speaker 04

  Mm-hmm.

• 10:48Anthony Jeselnik?

  Please Dungeon Crawler Carl.

• 10:50Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 10:50Anthony Jeselnik?

  Was it similar for you having a, like a fantasy podcast?

• 10:54Speaker 04

  Yes, it is something that the House of Our listeners, viewers, have been really like imploring us to check out for some time now. We have an email inbox for the podcast and there have been a lot of recommendations for Dungeon Crawler Carl for quite a while now. But Joe and I have actually had the, the pleasure a couple of times this year to go out into the world and like interact. We went to San Diego Comic-Con. We did a House of Our event at Camden Yards. I'm from Baltimore. So we did an Oriole event, highlight of my life, other than being here with you today. Those are the two highlights of my life and they've both happened in a pretty like succinct span of time here, since I have nothing to look forward to.

• 11:30Anthony Jeselnik?

  It sounds like you have a lot of highlights of your life and a lot of sacred texts.

• 11:33Speaker 04

  Uh, you know, one of my dear friends, Dave, once in college, he said to me, "You're a buddy whore." I was like, "What do you mean?" He's like, "I thought it was special when you started to call me buddy and then I realized that you say that to everyone." And I said, "I just have an open heart. I got a lot of love to give and I'd like to receive some in turn. I don't know what to tell you," you know?

• 11:52Anthony Jeselnik?

  You think that when you call people buddy, they like that?

• 11:55Speaker 04

  Um, this was, you know, a couple of decades ago.

• 11:58Anthony Jeselnik?

  Okay.

• 11:59Speaker 04

  But I do still do it. I do still do it. I do, I do pal a lot. I say buddy, I say pal. Uh, what should I do instead? What, yeah, does this mean you don't want me to call you buddy? What should I call you?

• 12:10Anthony Jeselnik?

  I can handle buddy. I didn't realize you'd been calling me buddy.

• 12:12Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 12:13Anthony Jeselnik?

  Throughout this, uh, but that's, that's okay.

• 12:15Speaker 04

  Yeah, just to, when I'm talking to Dan, when I'm talking to, uh, Mags, you know, I'm saying like, "I can't wait to meet my buddy, Anthony, in person for the first time." And they, they probably thought that was pretty weird.

• 12:26Anthony Jeselnik?

  I think it's a thing you say when you don't know someone's name. "Hey buddy."

• 12:30Speaker 04

  I think you're right.

• 12:31Anthony Jeselnik?

  Hey champ.

• 12:31Speaker 04

  I think it is that. Champ, champ's a good one. Sport.

• 12:34Anthony Jeselnik?

  Mm-hmm.

• 12:34Speaker 04

  Hey, sport is a real like, "You mean nothing to me" or "You're my actual child," you know, one or the other.

• 12:39Anthony Jeselnik?

  I like going a little more like, "Hey Tucker," you know, like just to give him a different name and it sounds, it's too, too disarming. But you found that fans were, fans of yours were wanting you to read this?

• 12:48Speaker 04

  First of all, the cosplay was everywhere out in the world, right? The cosplay. People are dressing up like Carl. They're dressing up like Princess Donut. And that's one of the fun things about going to Comic-Con or going to these conventions is being able to like really feel in a palpable way when something has, the zeit, it has animated the zeitgeist in a way that's undeniable, right? And there are all sorts of ways, I think, to measure that with Dungeon Crawler Carl. You know, you can talk about the statistics for the number of copies sold. It's like 17 million, right? 140, 150 million audiobook hours. Like it's astronomical, right? It's a sensation, genuinely a sensation. But when you feel what it means to people, for me, that's always the most exciting thing. And it, it manifests in a couple of forms. It's when you feel that people have a connection to it and then they start to form a connection with each other

• 13:33Speaker 04

  because of the connection that each individual person has to the story. And that's just like a beautiful part of this. So seeing people dressed up like the characters from the book and then they would just say like, "You guys really, have you read it yet? You guys have to read it. I am an animal lover. I am a cat enthusiast." And so a lot of people specifically said to me like, "There's this character, Princess Donut, and she's gonna become an important part of your life and you just need to meet her. You need to let her in." So a lot of the pitching for me specifically was through the lens of, of the cat, of Princess Donut being like the, the co-lead, the co-op.

• 14:04Anthony Jeselnik?

  We've had a very different experience leading up to this book because a lot of my fans are straight up assholes.

• 14:11Speaker 04

  Uh-huh.

• 14:11Anthony Jeselnik?

  And I do not meet them in person. You know, if you, if you see me, I will give you my time, say hello, take pictures. But I, I'm, I stay out of the limelight. You, you won't catch me at Comic-Con or at conventions.

• 14:22Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 14:23Anthony Jeselnik?

  And so I would just see it in online comments sometimes. And I was like, "Oh, I didn't know what this is." And it comes from video game culture and I don't play video games either.

• 14:31Speaker 04

  Right.

• 14:32Anthony Jeselnik?

  But I think of it as a, I feel like when I hear about video games, it's usually something toxic. It's usually something like, a lot of misogyny, a lot of, uh, like in your space, in the fantasy space. It's strange because it's like these progressive stories.

• 14:48Speaker 04

  Sure.

• 14:49Anthony Jeselnik?

  But when I hear about it, it's like Star Wars cast a black person and everyone's mad. You know, it's like this, like the fanbases can be intolerant that I didn't, I didn't know what this was.

• 14:59Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 14:59Anthony Jeselnik?

  I didn't have people coming up and being like, "You gotta read it." But I was in a Barnes and Noble and they had like a rack of Dungeon Crawler Carl. And there were two employees on either side of it, asking everyone who walked in, "Do you have any questions about Dungeon Crawler Carl?" And I was like, "Oh, this seems like it might be more fun than bad," but I expected almost like a hate screed. Maybe it's just like from being in comedy and being.

• 15:20Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 15:21Anthony Jeselnik?

  I thought it was going to be a, um, I thought it was gonna be more of a like incel, like a, like a, like a fun novel for incels. I don't know why. I just didn't do any research and then found that after, you know, years of doing the book club or doing book stuff, people kept like asking me to read it, but they were nice. They were polite. No one was ever like, "Hey dickhead, read Dungeon Crawler Carl." It was like, "You gotta read it." Then I was like, "Oh, maybe I'm wrong. Let's see."

• 15:48Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 15:49Anthony Jeselnik?

  But that's funny. We had totally different experiences with the fans.

• 15:52Speaker 04

  So I would say like, what you are identifying is definitely undeniably a part of fandom culture more broadly, right? And I think that if, um, it, it, it does not surprise me that there are certainly people in the world who think that that is like an out, has an outsized portion of the discussion in gaming culture or nerd culture more broadly, because some of those things really are just horrific, right? And they, uh, they spark conversation that becomes like, generates headlines, narratives, right? But I think like anything else, it is a part of a larger whole and whether it is, um, gaming culture or like the lit RPG movement specifically, and that part of this was, was new to me.

• 16:33Speaker 04

  This is the first book I've read that is part of the, uh, role-playing game, like lit RPG trend. This boom that has like animated a new, uh, slice and subgenre of the, the, the publishing industry. I think there are tons and tons and tons of gamers who find a connection on the other side of that internet, internet connection, right? They boot up their headphone and their controller and they find a friend. They find some sort of escape that brings them comfort when they're having a hard day. So like anything else, like there's the good and the bad. And one of the things that I loved about, you know, I will, I will say this. I think certainly, and this is one of the, you know, missions of your pod, is like get dudes to read, right?

• 17:15Speaker 04

  So certainly a lot of the people who recommended the book to me were, were dudes, but not everyone. Like plenty of the people who came up to us in person and said, "You gotta check this out," were women. And I think that it just feels like a, uh, a slice of the fandom is a gaming, a passionate gaming fandom, but not everybody, right? I think that there's like a desire to just fall into a world. And the fact that there are eight books already, 10 intended. The series is gonna conclude next year and they've all come out in such rapid succession, like in the last handful of years, half a decade. It heightens. There's like a kind of exponential, uh, accelerant to that, right?

• 17:56Speaker 04

  I discovered something. Someone recommended it to me. I checked it out. It wasn't exactly what I thought it was gonna be. I thought it might be this. I thought it might have a certain tone or energy. Uh, and then there's like a joyful, surprising kind of sweetness to it and a real propulsion to the, the plot. And if you have the desire to continue from there, then you have thousands and thousands of pages waiting for you. So it can become so quickly this massive part of your life in a way that then leads to this deepening of the engagement and the, the passion for it. So it's a really cool phenomenon to kind of watch spring into life in real time.

• 18:32Anthony Jeselnik?

  Beautifully said and leads us perfectly into chapter two. What were your expectations and or fears? I feel like you had, you knew more going in than I did. I, I had no idea and I definitely had expectations and fears and I think we're gonna be, have different experiences here.

• 18:51Speaker 04

  I, I didn't know a ton about it. I knew that the main character was Carl. I knew that the second lead, or really the main character, was a cat named Princess Donut. And I knew that the story had a video game corollary, both in terms of like, if you like video games, you'll probably enjoy the, uh, structure and framework of this, but also that the plot itself had a, had a game-like quality, right? But I didn't really know anything beyond that. I didn't know the nature of the dystopian, apocalyptic, inciting incident. I didn't honestly even really know like what the Dungeon Crawler title referred to.

• 19:31Anthony Jeselnik?

  I thought it was a sex thing for a while.

• 19:33Speaker 04

  It still could be. We have, we've only read one book. We have seven to go.

• 19:37Anthony Jeselnik?

  I immediately went S and M, like, well, the first time I'm seeing just the comment, just like a lot of people that like, "Oh, it's a comedy."

• 19:42Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 19:43Anthony Jeselnik?

  It's like, "This is a funny thing. I thought sex right away." And then figured out, you know, from seeing the cover and stuff, it was more a video game type of thing.

• 19:50Speaker 04

  So we know that, you know, in terms of private spaces, like there are safe spaces, like the safe room, right? Private spaces, if you don't want them to see or hear, bathroom. Is that the only place people can fuck? The bathroom? Is that your takeaway? So I've been thinking about this a lot since reading this book. Otherwise, you're a porn star because they're streaming everything? This didn't.

• 20:08Anthony Jeselnik?

  You've been thinking about that a lot?

• 20:10Speaker 04

  Yes. Con- constantly. Because, you know, I think it's a story that invites that level of interrogation and intellectual rigor.

• 20:18Anthony Jeselnik?

  See, I know, once I got into the book, I, like, no one's having sex in this book.

• 20:23Speaker 04

  No, which is a shame.

• 20:24Anthony Jeselnik?

  Because I, this is a fascinating thing. On like a show like Big Brother.

• 20:28Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 20:28Anthony Jeselnik?

  Or Survivor. On Big Brother, people have sex.

• 20:31Speaker 04

  Yes.

• 20:31Anthony Jeselnik?

  Because they're safe in a house. On Survivor or like Naked and Afraid, you're like fighting for your life. So those cast members never sleep together.

• 20:39Speaker 04

  Right.

• 20:39Anthony Jeselnik?

  But on a show like, obviously Love Island or whatever, which I've never seen, but Big Brother, uh, people wanna, people wanna sleep together because they have all their needs met. So in Apocalypse, no one's getting laid.

• 20:49Speaker 04

  I just think that when the dungeon could collapse on you at any second, or the next grub, rat, boss, ball of swine, whatever the case may be, uh, is waiting around the bend. Rage elemental from level 93, you know, propelled up to floor two just to fuck with you.

• 21:12Speaker 04

  Get it, your kicks in while you can.

• 21:15Anthony Jeselnik?

  Wow, you really, you really know your game. You know ball, as they say.

• 21:20Speaker 04

  Thank you, thank you.

• 21:22Anthony Jeselnik?

  Because you're saying this and I'm like, oh yeah, I kind of remember that, like, I read it, you finished it last night, I finished it a couple of weeks ago. I think I was more hesitant to get into this book and I thought I would not like it.

• 21:34Speaker 04

  Okay.

• 21:34Anthony Jeselnik?

  I was like, I need to find positive things to say. And that leads us into, chapter three. Tell me the highs and lows of your reading experience, like, I assume you liked the book.

• 21:45Speaker 04

  I did, I really, I enjoyed it, yeah, I thought it was really fun, it had, you know, again, structurally in terms of the craft, I think it was, the pacing was really strong. Right, so it was easy to just, all of a sudden realize you're 25% in, you're halfway through. It moves really quickly and, you know, this book is 400 and change pages, as I understand it, the later installments get into the 700.

• 22:09Anthony Jeselnik?

  Really?

• 22:10Speaker 04

  Page mark, so they're, you know, they're girthy, they're chunky. But, they move, they move with a quickness, so that's the first thing.

• 22:20Anthony Jeselnik?

  And starts like, right away.

• 22:21Speaker 04

  Yes.

• 22:21Anthony Jeselnik?

  Like, he doesn't mess around at all.

• 22:23Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 22:24Anthony Jeselnik?

  It's like, let's get to this, in a, I think a perfect, a perfect beginning.

• 22:27Speaker 04

  Yeah, you don't even have an opportunity to, to wonder if you're gonna like it before it has begun. And that was actually something I had heard from people as well, like, I had a number of people say to me, you'll know by chapter three if you're in or out, and I think that's true. You really understand right away what the book is, how it's gonna function, what the tone is, obviously there's like, a deepening of the character set and, you know, there's an unfurling of, of the rules of the universe, right, this is always one of my things about like, a fantasy or a sci-fi story. The, the rules of the universe can be whatever the creator of that world wants to be, they just need to be specific and consistent inside of the world once it's crafted.

• 23:05Speaker 04

  And I thought that, that was, I would say, I will put that in both buckets of like, the highlight and low light for me, because I thought that it was well explained and well defined, you know, how the levels were gonna work and, the points were gonna be gained and, and the loot boxes and things of that nature. I found myself having a little bit of a, how much of this do I need to be retaining, like, what is in Carl's inventory, what is in Donut's inventory? Because I do think this is another compliment now. Much of what was established came back into play, right, and some of the things are still kind of like, lying in wait, lurking, and I feel pretty confident they'll come into play in the second or third installment, all of this talk about the ninth floor, I feel confident enough already one book in to know that like,

• 23:51Speaker 04

  that buildup will be rewarded.

• 23:54Speaker 04

  Mostly I just found the blend of humor and heart to be like, quite winning, and to your point about your concern, maybe the, the, the false sense of like, is this a book for, for incels?

• 24:07Speaker 04

  It's almost like the incel antidote, you know?

• 24:09Anthony Jeselnik?

  Totally, and I think in the, like, the first chapter, when he's talking about his ex cheating on him, he doesn't like, go, he doesn't like, call her a slut. You know, things that like, an incel would do, that I was like, okay, he's like, nicer, he, again, he like, he has a saving the cat moment, literally, right away. It makes you like him in a way that I'm like, oh, I don't want, I didn't want to follow someone who was an asshole, basically.

• 24:31Speaker 04

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 24:31Anthony Jeselnik?

  And then, like, a chapter later, he references incels. Like, he, I'm like, oh, they exist in real life and he looks down on them, so therefore this can't be an incel novel.

• 24:42Speaker 04

  Yes.

• 24:43Anthony Jeselnik?

  And then I like, relaxed, and was like, okay, let's go with this, but I did, I, I didn't think it was funny.

• 24:49Speaker 04

  Okay.

• 24:50Anthony Jeselnik?

  The only thing I laughed at, and the fact, the fact that he got me at this, like, yeah, I don't think I laughed out loud, but like, was like, okay, like, I'm, I get why this is a comedy.

• 24:58Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 24:58Anthony Jeselnik?

  Is the goddamn it, Donut, thing, like, as that went on.

• 25:02Speaker 04

  Yeah, it's good.

• 25:02Anthony Jeselnik?

  I was like, okay, I'm enjoying this, but whenever it was like, the announcer would say.

• 25:06Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 25:06Anthony Jeselnik?

  You know, this kind of, I, that wasn't my thing.

• 25:09Speaker 04

  Okay.

• 25:09Anthony Jeselnik?

  And I expected more of that.

• 25:11Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 25:11Anthony Jeselnik?

  But I thought it was like, if you don't like it, it didn't bother me.

• 25:14Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 25:14Anthony Jeselnik?

  Reading it, but I wasn't like, oh, this is the funniest thing, I could see the audiobook being more.

• 25:19Speaker 04

  Yes.

• 25:19Anthony Jeselnik?

  Like, that being a laugh out loud thing. And I don't think, like, for, for certain books, like, have you ever read Jack Handy's, The Stench of Honolulu?

• 25:27Speaker 04

  No.

• 25:28Anthony Jeselnik?

  It is a amazing book, like, Jack Handy of Deep Thoughts fame, he wrote a novel that's basically like, one deep thought after another, but with like, a plot. Where it's like, every sentence is a joke, and you read it and it's great, like, every sentence is like, a masterclass in joke writing. But if you get the audiobook, it's Jack Handy reading it, and it sounds like he's just doing deep thoughts for like, hours, and it's incredible, like, I laugh out loud listening to it when the book, that I know that's possible, so I could see that doing a lot of the heavy lifting, humor wise. But I found myself enjoying it more than I thought I would. Like, the video game moments, the big boss fights, I was a little like, okay, but he sped through them. The moments of heart, like, I like, I was surprised at how much I, like, liked the old people.

• 26:12Anthony Jeselnik?

  That he was like, I'm gonna stick around, and I'm like, of course you're going to, you know, help these people and stay there.

• 26:18Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 26:18Anthony Jeselnik?

  His interaction with Maestro, was I saying that right, on the, on the talk show, I liked that, like, he's just like, I'm gonna be a good guy in this horrible circumstance. When he would be upset every time the number went down. You know, from like, 13 million, I was like, okay, like, I, I'm surprised I like this about the book. But I do, the only thing I would even knock it for, because I'm like, this is good writing, like, really, this is great writing because it's easy to read and that is hard to do.

• 26:43Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 26:44Anthony Jeselnik?

  The, I was almost looking for him to leave a corner hanging on a card, the only thing I would knock him for, and like, that I would say, if I'm looking to nitpick this book.

• 26:53Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 26:54Anthony Jeselnik?

  Character descriptions.

• 26:56Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 26:56Anthony Jeselnik?

  When he's like, Mordecai looked like a Master Splinter from Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, I'm like, that's not allowed.

• 27:02Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 27:02Anthony Jeselnik?

  Like, you, you've gotta do a little more work, I know it's like, video game fans, pop culture fans, like, I never read Ready Player One, but I assume it's a lot of.

• 27:10Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 27:10Anthony Jeselnik?

  That, what I like to call, bazinga bullshit. But this was, for somebody who doesn't tolerate bazinga bullshit, I didn't find that much of it here.

• 27:18Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 27:18Anthony Jeselnik?

  That it was more original, it felt like, kind of, video game-ish, but I think even as somebody who doesn't play video games, I still enjoyed it.

• 27:26Speaker 04

  Yeah, that's interesting, I, I think on the character, the other characters in the description front, I would say that was also something that like, not even that I found myself longing for in real time as I was reading, but now that I've finished and I'm thinking about the book and, you know, I'm, I am, I do plan to continue on. I am eager to learn more things about the characters, and this is like, one of the delicate aspects of the calculus of a dystopian tale, right, is there's an urgency, there's urgent peril every minute, and so, frankly, some of the times when something would happen and Carl would find himself thinking back,

• 28:03Speaker 04

  yet again, about his mom, or his dad, I'm like, I would like to know more things about this person than that he has like, a fractured relationship with his parents. He likes to watch girl on girl porn, though, iconic insight from Donut there, when she's like, but you always are on your iPad watching those two ladies clean each other, because, you know, cats lick themselves to clean, just great stuff, very creative, wonderful.

• 28:27Anthony Jeselnik?

  Donut was maybe the funniest part of the book.

• 28:30Speaker 04

  That's great, yeah.

• 28:31Anthony Jeselnik?

  Who do you like more, Donut or Lion Cat?

• 28:34Speaker 04

  Oh, I love Lion Cat, I'm a big Saga fan.

• 28:36Anthony Jeselnik?

  Me too.

• 28:36Speaker 04

  So, I, but, you know, who, what an interesting question.

• 28:39Anthony Jeselnik?

  The only thing I would compare Princess Donut to, in terms of icons of the fantasy world, cats.

• 28:45Speaker 04

  Donut to me has, there's a, more of a similarity to Lion Cat in terms of the energy right away. You know, Donut is presented to us like, with a real, you know, and as I understand it, the author is a cat lover, so I hope, uh, hope he'll forgive this characterization, because this obviously wasn't the intent, but it's like, every now and then, and I love all animals, to be clear, I love dogs, I love all animals.

• 29:10Anthony Jeselnik?

  Okay.

• 29:12Speaker 04

  Characterization of a cat presented by Big Dog. You know, cats are sassy assholes, they're withholding, they think they're hot shit, and that is not my experience with cats, I think that the love of a, of a cat is the purest love known to man, and, so it was very rewarding to me to watch Donut open up, and you know, you get to the point where she's like, Carl, I lied, I lied when I said I didn't need you. Like, if you left me, I would be devastated, I felt that, it was really rewarding and wonderful, it was great.

• 29:41Anthony Jeselnik?

  But you think it's Big Dog making, behind one of like, the major cat characters since Master Margarita, to hit the scene. Uh, that's, I mean, a truly insane take, I like that you will say like, really thoughtful, like, interesting things, and then come out of nowhere.

• 29:57Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 29:58Anthony Jeselnik?

  With a haymaker of epic proportions.

• 30:01Speaker 04

  Yeah, and then I'm like, if you jerk off with the gauntlet on, does your dick actually explode? You know, because there was that one line, the warning in, in red, you know, bigger, redder, like, don't wear this while you jerk off.

• 30:11Anthony Jeselnik?

  A lot of the, like, the, the locker room humor, like, I didn't internalize it the way that you did.

• 30:17Speaker 04

  Uh, I, no encoding failures for me on that front, you know, absorbed it all.

• 30:22Anthony Jeselnik?

  It felt like, it was almost, those parts were narrated by like, you know, like, the, the fat kid at camp who was always making, uh, making jokes about skid marks, like, I just heard that voice, and was like, had it on in the background, didn't like, annoy me, but didn't, I wasn't tuning in either.

• 30:37Speaker 04

  Dick jokes and bathroom humor, um, both big parts of my life, on, on that humor front, I'm really interested, I was, I was eager to hear your take, so I'm interested to hear you say that that part of it, uh, didn't really work, like, the notification voice didn't really work for you, I mean. I found that that humor grew on me. Rather than it feeling stale and tired, the more I was exposed to it, the more I found myself chuckling at the jokes, even though they were fairly obvious. I did find it kind of funny, but I'm not a professional comedian and you are. So I frankly, don't think my opinion really matters.

• 31:13Anthony Jeselnik?

  It's hard for me to laugh out loud at a book. Rarely I'm reading something that's supposed to be funny. It just felt like reading the script for Deadpool 3 to me. And that's not a knock, it's just like, I'm like, I got, I get it. And I wasn't, again, I wasn't annoyed by it, which is a high bar. But I never, I never really laughed out loud at anything outside of Carl and Princess Donut's relationship. That made me laugh. And I also, I enjoyed, I think one of the darker relationships is the two cops he runs into. Like the husband and wife.

• 31:46Speaker 04

  Frank and Maggie.

• 31:46Anthony Jeselnik?

  And Frank and Maggie, yeah. But it's like this weird thing that I was like, okay, when that happened, I was like, okay, this is adult. Carl knows they're about to get ambushed. I like that he's aware in the situation and gets out of it. And then Carl and Maggie's story as it goes on, I'm like, this is batshit. It was like one of the few stories that I really wanted to continue and find out where that goes. Cause like this book, I never pick up a book one. You know what I mean? Like I thought this was going to be like Dungeon Crawler Carl. And then like it was so successful that he made a sequel. Not like, this is definitely going to be like a 10 book series from the jump. I should have known, but I rarely pick a book one knowing I'm going to have all this homework. But towards the end of it, once I realized, oh, they're only going to get down like three levels or whatever in this book.

• 32:31Anthony Jeselnik?

  They really start to set up, almost like a season finale for a 10 episode season is like, episode nine is where all the stuff happens.

• 32:39Speaker 04

  Yeah, of course.

• 32:39Anthony Jeselnik?

  And 10 is kind of table setting for the next season.

• 32:42Speaker 04

  Spinning forward.

• 32:43Anthony Jeselnik?

  That I was like, okay, like, let me just kind of get through this and see if I'm going to want to read a book two. That was like my test for this was would I want to read this? And I enjoyed reading this way more than I thought I would. And I read it like in between kind of doorstops, you know, in between heavy things I have to read or like to read for this show. But it's nice to pick up something like this and just kind of just let your eyes fall over it.

• 33:09Speaker 04

  Yeah, I mean, I think for me, like one of the great joys of reading kind of full stop is variance, right? You know, I, one of the conundrums that I always have is, and I feel this especially as I, as I age and enter like a real like existential crisis phase of my life, you know, confronting my imminent doom. I love to reread and re-watch things. I never tire of revisiting a story that means something to me. I always feel like I can find something new, but now I am always like measuring the trade off, you know? If I reread series X for the 90th time. And sometimes I do that for work, right?

• 33:48Speaker 04

  Because like I think Joanna and I both feel a, you know, a certain level of like a healthy pressure, I would say, to stay like really on top of our shit in the fictional universes that we're supposed to have a level of expertise in, right? So we are always rereading A Song of Ice and Fire when it's time to cover a Game of Thrones show, for example. And I love that, but I'm like, how many opportunities do I have to read something for the first time? And so I try to find that balance and I try to, I try to blend genre. You know, I read a lot of fantasy and sci-fi, like I said, but I read all sorts of other books as well. Something I'm really trying to do lately is like dip back into the classics. Just because I'm not in high school or college anymore, taking lit classes

• 34:31Speaker 04

  does not mean that it's too late to finally read Middlemarch.

• 34:34Anthony Jeselnik?

  I'll tell you something about the classics, they hold up.

• 34:36Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 34:37Anthony Jeselnik?

  You know, whenever I go back and read like, I read Pale Fire a couple of years ago. And I've been doing a thing where I keep up with like what's coming out week to week. So I'm always like, okay, I gotta get this done before the next one to have like, I just take pride in my top 10 list at the end of the year. But like two years ago, I read Pale Fire by Nabokov. And I was like, nothing I've read since has been as good as that. You know, but it's like, how do you, it's rare that I'll reread something, but for the book club, my picks, it's something I've read before once and loved. And rereading the second time, having to explain it to people, like having to kind of get it down is an enriching experience that I enjoy. But a lot of times I won't want to read something twice or see a movie twice. As I get older, I don't want to see movies twice.

• 35:19Speaker 04

  Why?

• 35:19Anthony Jeselnik?

  Because I love the experience of being in the theater and like loving it. That I know it can only be diminished. I think now with streaming and with on demand, that you people just watch things over and over again, they lose all value. That I like, like one battle after another, I loved.

• 35:37Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 35:37Anthony Jeselnik?

  And I was like, I'm going to leave it that there. So when I think about the movie, I'm like full of joy. If I watched it again, I think it would just be diminished in some way.

• 35:46Speaker 04

  Let me ask you a follow up question. If you go to a restaurant you love, you have an incredible meal, you're thinking about the meal. Is your impulse, I can't wait to have that meal again? Or I'd like to go back to the restaurant, but I'll definitely order something different because it couldn't possibly? Does that extend to other areas of your life or is it specific to consuming some sort of fictional text?

• 36:04Anthony Jeselnik?

  It's more fictional, like the restaurant metaphor I'll run with. Like I have my favorite restaurants and I'm happy to go back and get the same dish. And eventually I'm like, I never want to go here again. You know, maybe I'll come back like later on. With music, I'm like, I'm listening to the song over and over and then like I'm done with it forever. But I just, I'll be blown away reading something or watch, experiencing something for the first time.

• 36:27Speaker 04

  Right.

• 36:28Anthony Jeselnik?

  TV, I don't feel that way. TV, I'll watch an episode of something twice and.

• 36:32Speaker 04

  Lanterns.

• 36:33Anthony Jeselnik?

  Lanterns, yeah. Enjoy it. Did you think they stuck the landing?

• 36:36Speaker 04

  I did, I did. I needed it to be an emotional and thematically resonant finale, not a punch them out CGI fest. And that's what, you know, we got the thing that we needed.

• 36:46Anthony Jeselnik?

  Agreed.

• 36:47Speaker 04

  I love you, Junior. I love you, I love you too, Junior. I was fucking weeping.

• 36:52Anthony Jeselnik?

  Yeah, I mean, I wasn't not weeping, but I loved it and I hope they leave it there.

• 36:57Speaker 04

  Really? See, I'm a glutton. I want more, I want more, I need them to go back.

• 37:02Anthony Jeselnik?

  I think it was the perfect.

• 37:03Speaker 04

  It was great.

• 37:04Anthony Jeselnik?

  Perfect wrap up.

• 37:05Speaker 04

  It was very contained. So, okay, so like a book like Dungeon Crawler Carl then, in terms of the reread and something like a highlight, we both agree, you know, Frank and Maggie, that was really great. It was absolutely, I thought, chilling to get the daughter reveal, right? Event, that was.

• 37:22Anthony Jeselnik?

  I mean, it was, it kind of made me laugh in a way of like that manipulative. It was like a fridging of like, we have this daughter and they're showing the feed in a way, like the highlight feed in a way that you know is being manipulated, that you're like, you know, I don't know if they end up being good guys at the end, like.

• 37:37Speaker 04

  Yeah, right, sure.

• 37:39Anthony Jeselnik?

  Frank is not saying anything in a way that's like, oh, I bet they end up on the same side. Like there are just certain tropes that I see coming there.

• 37:46Speaker 04

  So in terms of the emotional manipulation of the reveal, the reason that it worked for me is because there's a meta aspect for us as readers where that is the intended experience for Carl, right? He's supposed to be horrified and blindsided and completely undone by having to confront the culpability of his hand in this death. And you know, like you were saying earlier, I really agree that one of the cool things about, the surprising and cool things about Carl as a character is he's like, fuck assholes, fuck bullies, right? Like I do feel actually like I need to not only stay and help the old people, but after the Bengals fan whips out his dick and pisses on the wall

• 38:28Speaker 04

  and they have to fight the rage elemental from level, who's a level 93? He's like, I will stay and do that for you to help you, even though I have reminder after reminder of how this is going to undo me. So you know, part of what can be really, I think there's this like question always of why do people seek out dystopian tales when they're inherently to a degree depressing and deflating? And I think there are a lot of different answers and reasons and mileage may vary person to person. But one of the reasons is because there's something like really affirming and heartening about seeing people find the capacity to persevere in a trying circumstance, right? And so Carl does that for himself, for Donut, but also for other people. To your like, will Frank end up being a good guy question?

• 39:10Speaker 04

  That's one of the things already, even though there are only a couple of scenes with Frank and Maggie, where I'm excited to see where it goes for the first time. But then to revisit those exchanges and look for the breadcrumbs that were there. Now, I don't know enough about Matt Zedman as an author to know. Which bucket he falls into, is he a, I map out my entire story and I know from minute one where every character arc is going, where every storyline is going, or is he a, uh, uh, the Tolkienian, like, I, a gardener, a George R. Martin gardener, I see and I, I tend my garden and I see where it goes and maybe I'll be able to finish my story and, you know, maybe I won't, I don't know, but.

• 39:47Anthony Jeselnik?

  I would think, I would guess the latter.

• 39:49Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 39:50Anthony Jeselnik?

  Maybe he stretched that a little bit to 10 books rather than like three or four.

• 39:54Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 39:54Anthony Jeselnik?

  Um, I'd love to, I would be interested to hear his, like, origin process for this whole thing.

• 40:00Speaker 04

  Self-published at first, which is interesting.

• 40:02Anthony Jeselnik?

  Ballsy enough to be like, this is book one of 10 is crazy. I also really liked the anti-corporate,

• 40:07Speaker 04

  uh, screed in this. Like, I, I don't think there's enough of that, like, if, if kids are reading or young people are reading a book,

• 40:14Anthony Jeselnik?

  I want there to be some anti-corporate bias in there, uh.

• 40:17Speaker 04

  For sure. Well, and so there's like, um, on that front, you know, we have the syndicate, right? We have the Bornt Corporation. We have the idea of the bloom, this, uh, totalitarian, nationalistic fascist regime. This is enough of a glimpse early to understand that there will be, I think, like a wider constellation of, people who are competing for power on a galactic scale. But then there were little, little glimpses in book one that did really make me, like Agatha was an interesting example of this. She's the, um, initially part of the, the meadow lark group. She's the, with the shopping cart, right? Gets very upset when Carl picks up the shopping cart and you're like, okay, what exactly is that? Because this is her, her whole

• 41:01Speaker 04

  sense of, of self comes from clutching that thing. And then we realize when Carl sees his inventory, that there's a connection to this other corporation, the items in there. And it's like, okay, I was suspicious of her pretty early, but that really heightens that. Is she working for them? Is she a plant?

• 41:17Anthony Jeselnik?

  Agatha for me was like seeing a famous person in like a too minor a role in like, in a story to be like, they're gonna end up being someone way more important than they are. That I was like, this is like, Carl has plot armor, like no one, you know, Princess Donut has plot armor. That I was wondering as I was reading it, like, is this going to hold up over the rest of the series? And I didn't know it was 10 books before you told me just now. I thought it was like three or four or something.

• 41:41Speaker 04

  Eight out already, two more to come, man.

• 41:42Anthony Jeselnik?

  That I'm like, is this gonna hold up? I doubt it. And then I heard from Ms. Kim, uh, my assistant today, that her friends have read it and they say that it gets almost better.

• 41:51Speaker 04

  Oh.

• 41:52Anthony Jeselnik?

  As it goes on, that it gets like deeper, more thoughtful.

• 41:54Speaker 04

  Well, that's exciting.

• 41:55Anthony Jeselnik?

  Oh, that's, that's very interesting. I haven't heard reviews of the new ones. I just know when they, when they drop, because they're in the New York Times bestseller list, or they, I see ads for them.

• 42:05Speaker 04

  That, without knowing any of the particulars of why people think they get better, it gives me hope because it makes me think that, you know, this is also always, and I, I love genre storytelling, but this is also a balance of how much is gonna be like fantastic, right? And how much is gonna be rooted in some sort of human experience? And, you know, it's fun definitely to come across all of the different, uh, amalgamations and hybrid creations and to have Carl think about like, why are they crafting these creatures to, to function in this way? And what sort of commentary is supposed to be on display here about earth and human life? And then those kind of, I thought, you know, pulls on the heartstrings a little bit moments where

• 42:46Speaker 04

  they, either there's some sort of enchantment news or a biscuit, or, or just through the course of battle, a little bit of the veil, the fog of the hold of the corporate entities is removed and they, and Carl realizes that the legion of dead littered across the dungeon, he's like, they didn't want to be here either, and they have some sort of life and this is tragic kind of for everyone, but I've gotta plow my way forward. You know, there's a tension there that I think is compelling. At the end of the day, the most interesting uh, moments are gonna be the ones where Carl is either thinking about the humanity that the creatures possess or engaging with other people. And I, I hope that that ratchets up a bit, whether that's Frank and, and Maggie is the kind, the looming specter of

• 43:28Speaker 04

  running into them and they have this, this new power, right? Like that they could just put in Carl's name and Donut's name and hunt them down. So there was a part of me that wondered if that would be kind of the final showdown of this book, actually. But I was happy that that wasn't the case because I like the idea of continuing to tease out them as an opposing force. And then maybe there's like a little surprise there, like you said.

• 43:52Anthony Jeselnik?

  I would get bored here and there, like you would playing a video game or watching someone play a video game. It's kind of what it felt like to me.

• 43:58Speaker 04

  Yeah, because of the repetitious nature of the.

• 44:01Anthony Jeselnik?

  Yeah, yeah, like the fights. And I'm like, I'm not really worried they're going to get hurt in a fight. I'm kind of like, when they're picking their pet to move forward with and they pick the, um, the velociraptor, I'm not like, I wonder, you know, you know, they're gonna pick the most entertaining option that they have that. I was just, like, like watching someone play a video game, I was along for the ride. And it's a well-done video game. I'm not in control of anything. But I was surprised that I liked watching the video game, but I was still watching a video game.

• 44:30Speaker 04

  Yeah. Are you a, do you game at all? Ever? Never?

• 44:32Anthony Jeselnik?

  No, not since Tetris, like not since Nintendo World Championships.

• 44:36Speaker 04

  Dude.

• 44:37Anthony Jeselnik?

  Yeah.

• 44:37Speaker 04

  Wow.

• 44:38Anthony Jeselnik?

  Yeah, way back.

• 44:39Speaker 04

  You can get a Nintendo now.

• 44:40Anthony Jeselnik?

  I know, I got one, uh, I got like, I got something when I like moved back to LA, like an Xbox or something.

• 44:46Speaker 04

  Oh, yeah.

• 44:47Anthony Jeselnik?

  And it just wasn't, like, there's too many buttons now. I'm old.

• 44:50Speaker 04

  There are a lot of, like, a lot of buttons on a P. I played Last of Us when I was covering it. Lot of buttons, but it was super cool to play. I loved it.

• 44:58Anthony Jeselnik?

  But now I just, I would rather be reading a book than doing almost anything.

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• 46:15Anthony Jeselnik?

  Else.

• 46:16Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 46:16Anthony Jeselnik?

  All right, let's get to chapter four. So we clearly are both on the same page of, uh, enjoying this book. I was, I was almost shockingly surprised at how much I liked it. Like, I would have said before, if my nephew was like gonna read this book, I'd be like, I don't know, but when I get something better, but I would be like, oh, read this.

• 46:37Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 46:37Anthony Jeselnik?

  And again, I think everyone should read whatever they can, whatever, if kids are reading this, it's like Harry Potter to me. Um, would you recommend this to everyone?

• 46:46Speaker 04

  I would recommend it to most people who are interested in checking it out.

• 46:50Anthony Jeselnik?

  Who'd you not recommend it to?

• 46:51Speaker 04

  Um, I mean, I don't know. I don't have a specific person or, or, or person with a type of interest in mine. I just think like it's, it's definitely specific, right? So I don't know if it's for everyone, but I think it's definitely for more people than think it is for them.

• 47:07Anthony Jeselnik?

  I mean, I think it's trash, but like, again, sometimes you want trash. They're like, oh, I've got a long flight, you know, I got this book, what do you think? I'm like, oh yeah, read that. You're like fly through it. Uh, it's fun enough.

• 47:19Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 47:19Anthony Jeselnik?

  Um, but I, like, my friend Greg Rosenthal, you know, I would, he would hate this shit so much.

• 47:23Speaker 04

  Would he?

• 47:24Anthony Jeselnik?

  Oh, yeah.

• 47:24Speaker 04

  Why?

• 47:25Anthony Jeselnik?

  I just, it, I mean, he's, I don't think he's played a video game besides like NBA 2K in his life.

• 47:30Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 47:30Anthony Jeselnik?

  Um.

• 47:31Speaker 04

  But what, he's a football guy, so what if you tell him that one of the old people had a Bengals hat on? And then he's just gonna start talking to you about Joe Burrow, you know, can he stay healthy? Can the Bengals O-line protect him?

• 47:40Anthony Jeselnik?

  That's not really Greg. That's not the Greg I know. You know, I, he would truly hate this in a way that I just know his taste, that I, there's some people that I'm like, it's not like, not everyone has to run out and go read this.

• 47:50Speaker 04

  Sure.

• 47:50Anthony Jeselnik?

  But if you're on the fence, like, go for it. It's harmless fun.

• 47:55Speaker 04

  Oh, for sure. Yeah. I recommended it to my husband, who is a, I would say an avid gamer. And, uh, he for a long time was like a voracious reader and has kind of been in a little bit of a reading lull. And so I recommended it to him because of the, the lit RPG element, but also I was like, I think this will get you going again on the reading front. And he's, he's tearing through it.

• 48:14Anthony Jeselnik?

  That's great. What's your pitch on people who think they, they wanna do the audiobook, but you think, hey, read the, read the text?

• 48:20Speaker 04

  No, I think pick whatever's right for you. I don't like to tell people how to read. For me, I, I have my preferences, right? But like, I have tried to, um, appreciate the fact that for so many people, audiobooks is like unlocked, uh, either a rekindling or a new relationship to, to books. I think that's great, right? And as I understand, I've not yet checked out the audiobook for, for Dungeon Crawler Carl, but as I understand it, it's sensational, like incredibly entertaining, like really great voice performance. So if people wanna do the audiobook, I think that's awesome. If you wanna read, uh, the, the, the, you know, the paper in your hand and feel it tactile, great. If you wanna read it on a Kindle, awesome.

• 49:01Speaker 04

  Graphic novel? Check it out. Like, do whatever you need to do to allow yourself to fall into the universe. I think that's fine.

• 49:06Anthony Jeselnik?

  What do you think about Seth MacFarlane adapting this?

• 49:09Speaker 04

  So I'm interested in the, I am very interested in the, in the adaptation. It's gonna be on Peacock.

• 49:17Speaker 04

  I have some questions. I have some questions. I am hopeful. Part of the reason that I was really eager to read it is because like I do when something is greenlit to be adapted as a film or show. I'm like, I gotta get on it because we're gonna cover this, right? We're gonna cover it on the pod and I need to be ready. I am so curious to see how they visually render Donut. I feel like the show is like it all hinges on that.

• 49:43Anthony Jeselnik?

  That does seem like the Garfield of it all, like it really like Calvin and Hobbes situation where if you fuck that up.

• 49:49Speaker 04

  It could be a disaster.

• 49:51Anthony Jeselnik?

  I gotta think they know that and it might be like a Sonic the Hedgehog situation where they release the footage and people are like, no.

• 49:57Speaker 04

  Right.

• 49:57Anthony Jeselnik?

  And they go back and get it right.

• 49:59Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 49:59Anthony Jeselnik?

  If you were gonna recommend, like I like anything that's a gateway, like a gateway drug to get people into reading. If someone's watching this podcast being like, oh, they're gonna talk about Dungeon Crawler Carl.

• 50:08Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 50:08Anthony Jeselnik?

  They're excited that we liked it.

• 50:09Speaker 04

  Yes.

• 50:10Anthony Jeselnik?

  What are some books you would recommend to them? I've got four here.

• 50:13Speaker 04

  Hit us.

• 50:14Anthony Jeselnik?

  For different reasons.

• 50:14Speaker 04

  Let's hear them.

• 50:15Anthony Jeselnik?

  Uh, so if you're into it for the video game of it all.

• 50:17Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 50:18Anthony Jeselnik?

  If you're just like, I love video games, video games are my life, but you want something a little deeper.

• 50:22Speaker 04

  I feel like we're gonna have the same number one here.

• 50:24Anthony Jeselnik?

  Really? Okay. I, I bet, I wouldn't be surprised too because I almost like asked our producer, Daniel, to like double check your list versus mine. He didn't say anything, but that doesn't mean that he is not wrong. Uh, so Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow.

• 50:38Speaker 04

  That's my number one.

• 50:39Anthony Jeselnik?

  By Gabriella Zevan.

• 50:40Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 50:40Anthony Jeselnik?

  If you like the, uh, just the video, straight up video game, but a great story. I think university beloved novel.

• 50:47Speaker 04

  One of the best recent, one of the best contemporary novels, period.

• 50:52Speaker 04

  This book, I was a mess reading this book, a mess. I think some of that is, uh, I would say I have an unhealthy relationship to my work and many of my closest friends in the world are my colleagues. And so it was.

• 51:05Anthony Jeselnik?

  I held it together, but I love stories about friendship that like, you know, life that spans a lifetime that I was, uh, I was very into it.

• 51:12Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 51:13Anthony Jeselnik?

  It was like a Cameron Crowe movie kind of thing.

• 51:15Speaker 04

  Great characters. It's, it's beautiful, gut wrenching, but beautiful.

• 51:18Anthony Jeselnik?

  What was your number two? So we don't.

• 51:20Speaker 04

  So I tried for all the recommendations to, to go through that lens of like a thing about this book. A reason, but it doesn't necessarily have to be all that similar other than that, right? So the video game was the reason for Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow. My next nomination, City of Thieves.

• 51:38Anthony Jeselnik?

  David Benioff?

• 51:39Speaker 04

  Benioff.

• 51:39Anthony Jeselnik?

  Amazing, amazing novel. That might be a future Jesselink Book Club 2027, uh, pick.

• 51:47Speaker 04

  It is stunning. This, uh, came out in 2008, really short, so it meets your criteria. Two fifty, two fifty eight, I think, two fifty, something like that. I had not read this. I had one, two for a while and it had come highly recommended by a number of people whose opinions I, I respect and admire. And I finally read it again, actually, when I was covering The Last of Us because it is one of the main influences on, on Neil Druckmann, the creator, Naughty Dog. Creator of the game, on the game. There's like, you can see the characters holding it in the game as an Easter egg. So the reason, the connection here is unlikely friendships, right? Lev and Colia, uh, and not just an unlikely friendship and an unlikely partnership, but specifically in a really trying circumstance.

• 52:30Speaker 04

  And the ability to find some sort of light in a like desperately dark time.

• 52:37Speaker 04

  The end of that book, I obviously we won't spoil the particulars, but it is, um, really soul shredding.

• 52:44Anthony Jeselnik?

  Yeah.

• 52:44Speaker 04

  It's great.

• 52:45Anthony Jeselnik?

  It's great. It's a banger.

• 52:46Speaker 04

  Really is.

• 52:47Anthony Jeselnik?

  An absolute banger. My number two was kind of thinking of the problem solving.

• 52:52Speaker 04

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 52:52Anthony Jeselnik?

  Of it all, and you might have this on your list too, is The Martian by Andy Weir.

• 52:56Speaker 04

  I have another Andy Weir.

• 52:57Anthony Jeselnik?

  I think if you love, if you love this, like the science fiction of it all.

• 53:00Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 53:00Anthony Jeselnik?

  But like kind of want something a little more grounded. A little more adult. Uh, I think The Martian by Andy Weir will get you, get you there.

• 53:08Speaker 04

  So.

• 53:08Anthony Jeselnik?

  I can't imagine reading, uh, Dungeon Crawler Carl, loving it and not loving The Martian.

• 53:13Speaker 04

  The Martian's fantastic. I do have an Andy Weir on my list. It is Project Hail Mary, which I know you have not read and you haven't seen the movie. And I know you, you, you said, you talked to Joe about this on, on House of R. You think that Rocky seems, and I quote, too cute. Like to talk this through with you for a minute here. I think The Martian is great. Project Hail Mary is god tier. It, it is fantastically good. It is one of my favorite reading experiences of the past decade. And some of that is because, and, and you and Joe actually also talked about this when you were talking about three body problem. Like when in a hard sci-fi story is the physics maybe a little bit, um, impenetrable or a barrier, does that matter, right? And like, I think that's something that really varies reader to reader.

• 53:57Speaker 04

  There definitely is like a lot of astrophysics in Project Hail Mary, but never in a way that I found, just like with The Martian. You know, off pit, off putting or like alienating in any way. It was actually kind of like fun to, you either let it wash over you or if you want to try to like learn a little bit as you're reading it, you can. But the main reason is a surprising bond with a non-human companion. If you liked the Carl Donut aspect of this book, the relationship between Rocky and Grace and Project Hail Mary is like a new template for how that can function. Now you, you mentioned on House of R that the dark forest theory is something that is really like stimulating and interesting to you. I agree. This is, we had Andy Weir on the pod and he actually cited that as like the antithesis of what he was trying to do in his.

• 54:41Speaker 04

  And I'm, I'm quoting him loosely here, but he described it as like Pollyanna-ish. You know, he wants to believe that and write stories that like, if you went out in space and you confronted a, an alien race. Maybe you could not only get along, but try to save the world. Now that for some people might be too saccharine or like a little too hopeful. I think that's totally valid. I would just tell you, it is really lovely, really great. The Rocky is, I think, an indelible character, genuinely indelible. He's an icon.

• 55:12Anthony Jeselnik?

  Sounds cute.

• 55:15Anthony Jeselnik?

  My third one is a book that I've like, I talked about this on your pod. I've talked about this on my pod a hundred times. I've had people send in bracelets, uh, about this book. I wrote a foreword for this book that I just turned in a couple of weeks ago. Chain Gang All Stars.

• 55:30Speaker 04

  Mm-hmm.

• 55:30Anthony Jeselnik?

  By Nana Kwame, Ajay Brenya. One day I'll be able to just rattle it off, but I always look down and I'm gonna get it wrong. Uh, one of my favorite books like of all time.

• 55:38Speaker 04

  I haven't read it.

• 55:39Anthony Jeselnik?

  Came out a couple of years ago. It is like, it's, you get the TV show, you get the, it's like a more adult version of The Dungeon Crawl. It is there, it's, it's like Running Man, Running Man-esque.

• 55:50Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 55:51Anthony Jeselnik?

  They're prisoners in like a near future. It's a part of a reality show. They're in like gangs they get put into and they're made to fight each other at certain times. And it is one of the most beautiful books ever. The violence is exquisitely written. The moments of peace are tense. There's mystery. It's a love story. And the ending, like he nails the ending harder than anyone's ever nailed an ending. I love, I just had to reread it to write this forward. And I was like, I love it even more a second time.

• 56:20Speaker 04

  This is the joy of rereading.

• 56:21Anthony Jeselnik?

  There are footnotes in, uh, Chain Gang All Stars that are true facts about the prison system. Like it is so much deeper that I think if you like Dungeon Crawler Carl, you want something a little deeper, a little more like Booker Prize shortlist.

• 56:33Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 56:34Anthony Jeselnik?

  Read, uh, Chain Gang All Stars. But again, it's, it feels weird to even recommend it on this list.

• 56:39Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 56:39Anthony Jeselnik?

  Because you could be like, hey, uh, you know, we read, um, Trad Wife or whatever the fuck that book is that's out now. Uh, what do you recommend reading after that? I would say Chain Gang All Stars by Nana Kwame Ajay Brenya.

• 56:52Speaker 04

  You, you mentioned Running Man. Would you all, would you, would you say like, you know, on the Stephen King front, Running Man or The Long Walk? Like some of those, I mean, obviously there's a lot of, on the comps front in terms of, uh, not just the dystopian, but like reality TV competition aspect of Dungeon Crawler Carl. There's a lot of like, you know, 15 million merits, that Black Mirror episode and then Squid Game and, and Battle Royale and, uh, Alison, Alison, uh, Borderlands and all that. But like certainly I think undeniably a little bit of the, the King Ian, Running Man, Long Walk, like the kind of early days. This is some sort of competition show in order to stay alive and everyone is watching. You fight to wait, like work your way through this. I mean, you know, on the classics front, I didn't have those on my list, but let's send people back. Why not?

• 57:36Anthony Jeselnik?

  Yeah. I think it depends on when, like, it's almost like a zombie stories that they've evolved and I like where the evolution has gone.

• 57:43Speaker 04

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 57:43Anthony Jeselnik?

  You know, that this, this newest version, like I, I, to me, Running Man is Arnold Schwarzenegger. I think that's the best version. I've read the book, seen the movie, seen the remake.

• 57:53Speaker 04

  Tough beat for Glenn Powell. That movie was not good, though I am the world's leading Lee Pace enthusiast.

• 57:59Anthony Jeselnik?

  I have friends involved. I had to go see it and it was, it was, uh, it was tough. But I think the long walk, the long walk, the book and the movie I thought was as good as it could possibly be. But I thought the book was, uh, was better.

• 58:12Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 58:12Anthony Jeselnik?

  For that one.

• 58:13Speaker 04

  Yeah, yeah, okay.

• 58:14Anthony Jeselnik?

  Do you have a last one?

• 58:15Speaker 04

  I have, I have a couple more quick ones, but yeah, um, let's see. Orbital? Have you read Orbital? Samantha Harvey. This, uh, won the Booker in 2024, came out in 2023. It's less than 200 pages. It is.

• 58:30Anthony Jeselnik?

  I have, I don't remember it.

• 58:31Speaker 04

  So the prose is just stunning and gorgeous. It's some of the, the best pure writing that I have come across recently. But the, the little bit of connective tissue to the, the text we're talking about today is, um, seeing and considering Earth and civilization through a new lens. That's my, that's my excuse here for, for pitching Orbital because that is, um, the story of six astronauts who are on the space station as it makes one, you know, orbit, right? So it's 24 hours, you're shifting a point of view and perspective in each chapter. And it's just a lot of like contemplation about our place in the universe and what is happening down there.

• 59:11Speaker 04

  And, you know, I wouldn't say that that's central, central to Dungeon Crawler Carl. It's a bit of a tongue twister. We haven't really talked about that. Dungeon Crawler Carl. I see the alliterative. Kevin.

• 59:25Anthony Jeselnik?

  Yeah, Dungeon Crawler Kevin.

• 59:26Speaker 04

  Crawler Kevin.

• 59:28Anthony Jeselnik?

  I think he wanted it to be hard on purpose.

• 59:31Speaker 04

  Yeah, not Tucker.

• 59:32Anthony Jeselnik?

  Dungeon Crawler Carl.

• 59:32Speaker 04

  Tucker is what you throw out instead of buddy when you don't know someone's name, but Dungeon Crawler Tucker wouldn't have worked.

• 59:37Anthony Jeselnik?

  Dungeon Crawler Tucker.

• 59:38Speaker 04

  No, no.

• 59:39Anthony Jeselnik?

  I kinda like it. I kinda like it.

• 59:41Speaker 04

  Maybe we'll meet a Tucker. I mean, you know, South of a million people left, but still other characters to me. So Orbital, I would throw out there. Uh, I have, I have a few more.

• 59:50Anthony Jeselnik?

  I got, I got one more.

• 59:51Speaker 04

  Hit me.

• 59:52Anthony Jeselnik?

  Uh, and this, and this is like totally like, let's get out of here, left field.

• 59:56Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 59:56Anthony Jeselnik?

  You like this, you enjoy this guy's adventures and you're like, this might be the first novel you've ever read. You know, and you want something like, you want a guy, just a hard ass going through life. And again, you're leveling up from Carl to more of a anti-hero, perhaps a villain himself.

• 1:00:12Speaker 04

  Okay.

• 1:00:12Anthony Jeselnik?

  I'm going The Hunter by Richard Stark from the Parker series. Have you ever read any, like, they made like a Striking Distance. Not Striking Distance, God, what's the name of the movie? Uh, with Lee Marvin. They remade it with Mel Gibson called Payback. And it's like a classic, you know, uh, robber villain. His, his girl and his best friend betray him, leave him for dead. He's not dead. He goes and gets revenge. And they made, this book was so successful, they made like a Parker series that was like 26 books. And they're all very fun. Uh, the first three, I think they're all around 250 pages. And the first three are like, it contains story that's great. And then it kind of spins off into almost the way Die Hard got more cartoonish.

• 1:00:54Anthony Jeselnik?

  There's one like set in a theme park where he's getting running from the mob and he goes, kills guys with like things in an abandoned theme park. That was, uh, great. But I think if you like this and you want something a little more serious.

• 1:01:05Speaker 04

  Okay.

• 1:01:05Anthony Jeselnik?

  You know, that I think The Hunter or any of the, in the, um, in the Parker series by Richard Stark would, uh, would float your boat.

• 1:01:11Speaker 04

  I love it. Um, these next ones are, are not necessarily like honoring the spirit of the exercise in terms of recommendations I'd make for other people. These are specifically, I'm using this opportunity to pitch you on a few things, if you'll allow it.

• 1:01:23Anthony Jeselnik?

  Miss Kim, take notes. Already, um, City of Thieves for next year's.

• 1:01:28Speaker 04

  That, that book rules.

• 1:01:30Anthony Jeselnik?

  It's great.

• 1:01:31Speaker 04

  This is how you lose the Time War. Are you familiar with this?

• 1:01:35Anthony Jeselnik?

  I've, I've heard the title.

• 1:01:36Speaker 04

  This is.

• 1:01:38Anthony Jeselnik?

  It's a great title.

• 1:01:38Speaker 04

  Oh my God. So this is from 2019. Harrowing to confront that that's more than half a decade ago at this point. My goodness. Uh, this is by Amal El-Matar and Max Gladstone. So it's a dual authorship and they traded chapters while writing this at a like writer's retreat and they each are writing one of the primary characters, red and blue. And it is a love story that plays across time. And the little bit of connective tissue here is just the idea of again, a story shared and discovering something about whether it is like a sprawling syndicate and conspiracy or some sort of like a vicious hellscape, finding a connection to somebody else,

• 1:02:21Speaker 04

  even if it didn't seem like a possible thing or something that was supposed to happen. And that allows you to rediscover like who you are and who you're meant to be. It is so, so beautiful. It, I, I would have to go off the dome here and I might fuck up the line a little bit, but it has my now, I think, favorite description of like what it feels like to fall in love with somebody. One of the characters writes to the, because they're writing letters.

• 1:02:48Speaker 04

  I want to show you every place I have loved. And I was just like, this is gobsmacking in what it says about wanting to spend your life with somebody. So check it out if you haven't.

• 1:02:59Anthony Jeselnik?

  The literal line or you paraphrasing?

• 1:03:01Speaker 04

  I think it's pretty close. I might be off by a word or two, but it's, check it out.

• 1:03:06Anthony Jeselnik?

  I want to show you every place I love.

• 1:03:07Speaker 04

  I want to show you every place that I have.

• 1:03:09Anthony Jeselnik?

  Gobsmacking.

• 1:03:10Speaker 04

  Because it's like, you wanna, you wanna share your life with somebody. I love this place. I want you to know why I loved it. What a beautiful insight.

• 1:03:16Anthony Jeselnik?

  I get it. Yeah.

• 1:03:19Speaker 04

  My buddy's not impressed. Tough one.

• 1:03:21Anthony Jeselnik?

  I, I mean, you wait until you discover Duran Duran. You are going to be blown away.

• 1:03:28Anthony Jeselnik?

  Mal, are you ready for chapter five?

• 1:03:31Speaker 04

  Is this where I could quickly ask you if you'll read some Thrones before them? Because I do think.

• 1:03:36Anthony Jeselnik?

  See, I would have said yes before, but now that it's this fucking brick wall you're running into, he's not finishing the books.

• 1:03:44Speaker 04

  Okay, but this, here's the thing. The Tales of Dunkin' Egg, the novellas that A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms are based on.

• 1:03:51Anthony Jeselnik?

  I'd, I would be more into that, uh, and I love the show.

• 1:03:55Speaker 04

  Three hour read for each of the novellas. You pick up the hedge knight, you spend an afternoon and much like Dungeon Crawler Carl, an unlikely pairing, you know, and the adventure is going to impact the fate of the world. So I think it's applicable for this exercise today. They're, I mean, it's, they're wonderful. They're so charming and delightful. And that could be your entryway. You don't have to worry if, if Winds of Winter or Dream of Spring are ever going to come out.

• 1:04:17Anthony Jeselnik?

  I enjoyed the show. Like I liked watching the show as a person who had not read the books. And I was like, this is how I'm going to consume this media. I like, you know, uh, The Tale of Night, whatever the fuck. I watched House of Dragon.

• 1:04:28Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:04:29Anthony Jeselnik?

  Even though I'm like always like, every time it ends, I'm like, I don't know who anybody is or what's going on.

• 1:04:33Speaker 04

  Sure.

• 1:04:33Anthony Jeselnik?

  But I still kind of just like sitting in that world for an hour.

• 1:04:36Speaker 04

  They all have the same name, the same hair color and they fuck each other. So.

• 1:04:39Anthony Jeselnik?

  Like the one, the main girl, the main woman from House of Dragon is at, in the end of Digger and it like blew me away.

• 1:04:44Speaker 04

  Renira, yeah.

• 1:04:45Anthony Jeselnik?

  Who is this? I know that person. And then went home and Googled it and was like, okay, yeah. Now are you, which, which, um,

• 1:04:54Anthony Jeselnik?

  drag, Game of Thrones book would you recommend?

• 1:04:57Speaker 04

  Well, I think you should read, just start, do, uh, do the hedge knight, you know?

• 1:05:02Anthony Jeselnik?

  Okay. I would do, I would do that for you to repay this favor of yours of being on my show. Would you do one, maybe two more things for me?

• 1:05:10Speaker 04

  Of course.

• 1:05:11Anthony Jeselnik?

  Would you enter chapter five, the JBC Gauntlet?

• 1:05:15Speaker 04

  I'd be delighted.

• 1:05:16Anthony Jeselnik?

  Great.

• 1:05:18Anthony Jeselnik?

  I'm going to give you just an opinion, not necessarily my opinion, just kind of tell me agree or disagree.

• 1:05:23Speaker 04

  Okay.

• 1:05:24Anthony Jeselnik?

  It's too late to close the barn door on AI use in literature.

• 1:05:33Speaker 04

  Disagree. Too late, like it, it, it, it has to be.

• 1:05:38Anthony Jeselnik?

  I think it's like steroids in sports or performance enhancing drugs that like, I think we should police it and do what we can. But there's always going to be someone who's doing it. In France, it's like the, all the rage, they want like labels on books that say, we guarantee this is made by a human. I think that's, I think that's over. Uh, it's going to be in there, but I think it's always going to be noticeable and bad. It doesn't scare me, but I think it's like trying to be like, this will never happen.

• 1:06:04Speaker 04

  Yeah, I think it is, it's, it's, uh, maybe requires a, a level of, um, desperate hope to think that we could fend it off. But I like to believe that it's still possible.

• 1:06:14Anthony Jeselnik?

  I, I would like to as well. I just, I, I don't think so. Um, what would you rather have with you during the apocalypse? A dog or a cat?

• 1:06:22Speaker 04

  A cat. Easy. No question.

• 1:06:25Anthony Jeselnik?

  Is this talking cat or is this, is this just straight up cat?

• 1:06:28Speaker 04

  So here's the thing about cats. You don't, while it's great to hear Donut, uh, speak in sentences and wear a tiara and all that. You don't need a cat to actually be able to speak English to you in order to understand what a cat is saying. It's like the way that when R2-D2 beeps and boops, like I know what he means. The way that a cow, a, a cat can emote the different tone and intonation and the meow, the look, the expression. Like I can have full conversations with a cat and I know exactly what's happening.

• 1:06:55Anthony Jeselnik?

  But the cat's not charming people who want to kill you in the apocalypse. Like, do you want?

• 1:06:59Speaker 04

  Well, the charisma level, I mean, the charisma level, you know, is it about the, the, the English sentence structure? Or is it about just something innate to the experience of, of sharing a space with a cat?

• 1:07:11Anthony Jeselnik?

  I would think, I would want my dog, but I would probably like, I don't know if he'd get me killed right away. You know, much like a Mongo. But I think, I just love videos now. My favorite cat videos are videos of cats fighting snakes. Have you seen these?

• 1:07:26Speaker 04

  No, that sounds scary.

• 1:07:27Anthony Jeselnik?

  No, because cats are so much faster that it's always like, almost like the cat's a bully. Like the snake kind of comes up and the cat's always just like, and then bam, and just plays with it. That you're never afraid for the cat. I swear to God.

• 1:07:41Speaker 04

  Okay, I, I do get a lot of videos on Instagram of, of a cat, you know, scooping a fish out of the ocean.

• 1:07:48Anthony Jeselnik?

  Sure.

• 1:07:49Speaker 04

  Which maybe is part of the same strain of, of video.

• 1:07:52Anthony Jeselnik?

  Cat versus snake is, is great and you will, as a cat fan, you will love it. It's my favorite genre of cat video.

• 1:07:58Speaker 04

  Okay, I'll check it out. My Instagram algorithm is like 80% cat videos, so I'm surprised this hasn't made its way to me.

• 1:08:02Anthony Jeselnik?

  I would, I was getting a lot of dog videos and now with AI, I don't trust them anymore.

• 1:08:06Speaker 04

  Oh, sure.

• 1:08:06Anthony Jeselnik?

  It's like the dog choosing its owner. You're like, get out of here.

• 1:08:09Speaker 04

  This is so cute. This is so sweet. Is this real?

• 1:08:11Anthony Jeselnik?

  Exactly.

• 1:08:12Speaker 04

  Look at the color of this hummingbird's wings. Can this possibly be real? Yeah.

• 1:08:16Anthony Jeselnik?

  You can love a character and still think they need to die.

• 1:08:19Speaker 04

  Oh, of course. Absolutely. Agree.

• 1:08:22Anthony Jeselnik?

  Yeah.

• 1:08:22Speaker 04

  Yes. Not only can you, I think that's part of the thrill of forming an attachment. And then you find yourself like complicit in knowing that a certain outcome is right for the story, even though it's going to hurt.

• 1:08:36Anthony Jeselnik?

  Absolutely. I love characters. Uh, I love characters. I couldn't agree more. Uh, having a dragon does not make you interesting.

• 1:08:47Speaker 04

  I'll agree. Yeah, it doesn't make you interesting. The dragon's always gonna be interesting. The rider, not necessarily.

• 1:08:52Anthony Jeselnik?

  I think having a dragon, like, tell me about the dragon. How'd you get the dragon? That's two things I wanna ask you.

• 1:08:57Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:08:57Anthony Jeselnik?

  Like, I think it makes you interesting. Maybe I read less of these kinda books than you do.

• 1:09:01Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:09:01Anthony Jeselnik?

  If someone has a dragon, I'm like, you're cool. You can come.

• 1:09:05Speaker 04

  I, I love dragons. I love dire wolves. I love all sorts of magical creatures. So you're not into, you have not dipped a toe into the romanticy waters yet, is that right?

• 1:09:13Anthony Jeselnik?

  No.

• 1:09:13Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:09:15Anthony Jeselnik?

  And I don't think I ever will.

• 1:09:17Speaker 04

  You should. You should. Give it a try. I'm actually quite new to it.

• 1:09:20Anthony Jeselnik?

  My TBR pile is too insane for me to like fuck around with romanticy. I would have to be locked in a room with a copy of it and like nothing else to do.

• 1:09:28Speaker 04

  Well, that sounds, that sounds like one of the tropes inside of a romanticy novel. You're locked in a room with just one other thing and nothing to do, right? You're, you're ready already. The Empyrean series, Rebecca Yarrow, so you're familiar, is like the craze, Fourth Wing?

• 1:09:40Anthony Jeselnik?

  No.

• 1:09:41Speaker 04

  Oh my god. So this is like, they're the most popular books in decades. And the ri, it's a dragon riding college. And the, the riders can hear, you know, they can communicate like telepathically with their, their dragons. They can carry on conversations, but also the dragons can have a mating bond with each other. So sometimes the riders fall in love with each other, but they don't know if they're horny because they're sensing that their dragons wanna fuck. This is true.

• 1:10:10Anthony Jeselnik?

  That's the, that's the main plot of the thing?

• 1:10:12Speaker 04

  Nope. Nope. It's just an added bonus. That, that's there. Yeah.

• 1:10:15Anthony Jeselnik?

  Last one, naming your football team after a poem is performative reading adjacent.

• 1:10:21Speaker 04

  I mean, this is rude.

• 1:10:23Anthony Jeselnik?

  That was, that was all, that was all Daniel.

• 1:10:25Speaker 04

  I know. I looked right at Comer. That's rude.

• 1:10:27Anthony Jeselnik?

  And I don't have beef. I'm a Steelers fan, but growing up Baltimore was where I, my family vacationed. They did not have the team yet. So I never, I didn't grow up with a rivalry. I can appreciate Baltimore.

• 1:10:37Speaker 04

  Uh, I...

• 1:10:43Speaker 04

  It's hard for me to talk to a Steelers fan.

• 1:10:48Anthony Jeselnik?

  I mean, there are some obnoxious ones. I'll, I'll grant you that.

• 1:10:51Speaker 04

  One of my dear friends and, and colleagues, actually, works at The Ringer, Ben Glickman, dear friend. We've known each other for decades and he's from Pittsburgh. And I almost didn't go to his wedding because it was in Pittsburgh. And then I went, and let me tell you, beautiful city. Loved, gorgeous.

• 1:11:04Anthony Jeselnik?

  You, every once in a while, you'll be like, normal, normal, normal, and then batshit crazy. Uh, but I love it. I love it. I like the name, the Ravens.

• 1:11:13Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:11:13Anthony Jeselnik?

  I think it's one of the best things about, about that team.

• 1:11:17Speaker 04

  Also, you have, obviously, you've got the Edgar Allan Poe connection. You know, they have three Raven mascots, Edgar Allan and Poe. Delightful, wonderful stuff. Maybe that falls to you into the Rocky too cute bucket. I don't know. I think it's delightful.

• 1:11:28Anthony Jeselnik?

  NFL mascots are different, you know. We've got Steely McBeam and everyone loves him.

• 1:11:32Speaker 04

  The Oriole bird, right? So it's like Baltimore Orioles and the Baltimore Ravens. It's perfect. Come on. It was wonderful.

• 1:11:40Anthony Jeselnik?

  I like, I like the Ravens. I like Baltimore more than, you know, Cleveland or Cincinnati.

• 1:11:45Speaker 04

  Well.

• 1:11:45Anthony Jeselnik?

  I like them all. I like the whole AFC North. When I'm on tour, I always enjoy a show in any of those three cities. And I like crabs a lot, so Baltimore.

• 1:11:52Speaker 04

  Steamed crabs, crab cake.

• 1:11:54Anthony Jeselnik?

  Steams.

• 1:11:54Speaker 04

  Crab soup.

• 1:11:55Anthony Jeselnik?

  I like steamed crabs with the, with the black, with the Old Bay and the newspaper.

• 1:12:00Speaker 04

  Oh, you're, you're legit. Okay.

• 1:12:02Anthony Jeselnik?

  I love it.

• 1:12:02Speaker 04

  Fantastic.

• 1:12:03Anthony Jeselnik?

  Well, thank you for playing, uh, the JBC Gauntlet. You have survived it now. I've got a hard out at 8:00 PM, so we're gonna wrap this up with the acknowledgements. Where, uh, we decided when we started this podcast, you're like, you're the first guest in our second month of being on. Again, thank you for being here. I hope the other Ringer staff members see this episode and see what can be possible with the collaboration on Just Like Book Club, uh, coming forward. I think we, we had a good time. I think we gelled.

• 1:12:35Speaker 04

  I had a great time.

• 1:12:36Anthony Jeselnik?

  People, people online were almost like just shy of writing like fanfiction about us getting together on a podcast. So I hope we delivered what they expected. Maybe, maybe surprised them a little bit.

• 1:12:47Speaker 04

  I had a wonderful time. For me, this was just a sensational experience. I want to, to that note about the, the wider Ringer universe, I want the list of people lining up to ask to be on the pod to be long enough that you feel properly respected and honored, as you should, but not so long that I have to wait too long to come back.

• 1:13:06Anthony Jeselnik?

  You're welcome back anytime. You're, you get like a free pass because you like broke the seal. I feel like I'm feared here right now and I wanna keep that going for as long as I can.

• 1:13:15Speaker 04

  There's a mystique. Yeah. Yeah.

• 1:13:17Anthony Jeselnik?

  But I, we, I have demanded that every, every guest bring me a gift as tribute to put on the bookshelf behind me. Everyone's been happy to do this, for the most part. Let's see what...

• 1:13:29Anthony Jeselnik?

  This is part of it, is... Okay, this is a Game of Thrones dragon egg.

• 1:13:36Speaker 04

  Drogon, the dragon. Yeah, dragon egg. It's a little bigger than I, I thought it was gonna be, but you know, you can use it as a paperweight, you can use it as a bookend. It just looks cool. I think it has that kind of like masculine color scheme that you're going for here. You can't really talk about books at The Ringer without having some sort of little Thrones Easter egg on the bookshelf here. And you just said that you think people are more interesting if they have a dragon, so like...

• 1:13:56Anthony Jeselnik?

  So this is not a specific, I definitely... This is the best. When I saw, like, when you brought this in and put it next to my chair so you wouldn't have to get up, I saw, is this taped together? Can I open it?

• 1:14:06Speaker 04

  I just...

• 1:14:09Anthony Jeselnik?

  I can just pull it?

• 1:14:11Speaker 04

  It was supposed to be pre-opened, was it not? There we go.

• 1:14:14Anthony Jeselnik?

  This is cool. This is the best Game of Thrones. I was wondering what it would be, which character it would be based on.

• 1:14:22Speaker 04

  Yeah, Drogon, Danny's dragon. There you go.

• 1:14:24Anthony Jeselnik?

  Okay.

• 1:14:25Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:14:25Anthony Jeselnik?

  Awesome.

• 1:14:26Speaker 04

  Look at that. What do you think?

• 1:14:27Anthony Jeselnik?

  I feel like such a, like, I feel like I'm in like an astronaut suit trying to put together a satellite, even though I just have a mic in front of me and it's a two-piece system here. But I think this is great. This is my favorite gift so far. I've gotten books and stuff that goes on the shelf, but nothing that, that says like, hey, I will rule this place one day.

• 1:14:44Speaker 04

  Yeah, exactly.

• 1:14:45Anthony Jeselnik?

  You know.

• 1:14:45Speaker 04

  You deserve to be treated like royalty. And if you have some sort of prophetic dream and you put that into the fire, perhaps you will birth a dragon. You will emerge from the fire nude. That's canon.

• 1:14:59Anthony Jeselnik?

  Of course.

• 1:15:00Speaker 04

  But as long as you're okay with that, I think you should consider it.

• 1:15:04Anthony Jeselnik?

  Has anyone done a podcast naked in here before?

• 1:15:10Speaker 04

  That's a great question. Probably. Probably. Do you guys wipe down these chairs before we start recording?

• 1:15:15Anthony Jeselnik?

  After. As soon as you get up. All right, now it's time for, actually, no, we, we're still in acknowledgements. Uh, you suggested a book for me to read.

• 1:15:27Anthony Jeselnik?

  What would we, if you, when you come back, what would, not if you come back, when you come back?

• 1:15:31Speaker 04

  Downgraded really quickly from, I can come back whenever I want to, if I come back, tough one.

• 1:15:36Anthony Jeselnik?

  I would love, I would love to have you back, but what, I feel like this was my challenge that you accepted. What would you want to read? And I don't wanna read, it's like when someone's like, let's watch a movie together and they pick something they've seen 100 times. Don't do that to me.

• 1:15:49Speaker 04

  Okay.

• 1:15:49Anthony Jeselnik?

  Give me something like, hey, this is fresh. I've been thinking about this.

• 1:15:56Speaker 04

  I just, have you ever read anything by Alex E. Harrow?

• 1:16:00Anthony Jeselnik?

  I'm not sure.

• 1:16:01Speaker 04

  She just won the Hugo for, uh, I just read this book, The Everlasting. And it, it was wonderful. She is a gorgeous stylist. Her prose is really, really lovely. And she does, the first book of hers that I read was The Once and Future Witches. She does something really cool where she takes fables and classic story tropes and then puts her spin on them. So The, The Everlasting is, uh, a bit Arthurian legend retold and a bit Brienne of Tarth from Thrones retold. That was really, really, really wonderful. I loved that. That was a recent read. Something from, she has a, a new short story collection coming out, so that could be something that we could do.

• 1:16:43Anthony Jeselnik?

  Short stories are tough to like recare. There's just so many of them.

• 1:16:46Speaker 04

  True. True.

• 1:16:48Anthony Jeselnik?

  Stick into a story. Maybe it's just Dungeon Crawler Carl Part Two.

• 1:16:51Speaker 04

  Well, should we do, there's a new Ishiguro coming out in the, in the spring. I mean, Never Let Me Go is one of my favorite books ever. We can do that.

• 1:16:59Anthony Jeselnik?

  Never Let Me Go and Remains of the Day are my two favorite, and I haven't been able to get into anything else. I've tried.

• 1:17:05Speaker 04

  I liked, I liked Clara on the Sun quite a bit. I'm quite nervous about the movie. It doesn't seem like tonally correct to me. But new one coming out, is that an excuse to do Never Let Me Go? Revisit that? I haven't, I haven't revisited that in so long.

• 1:17:17Anthony Jeselnik?

  I only read it once and it was like, oh shit, but I would totally do that. Let's, let's plan it.

• 1:17:22Speaker 04

  We, we also could do some romanticy.

• 1:17:25Anthony Jeselnik?

  You know what? I would do that. I would, for sure, you could make me read a romanticy and I could be honest.

• 1:17:30Speaker 04

  Yeah, absolutely. Safe space.

• 1:17:32Anthony Jeselnik?

  I'll like it more. Like, I'm shocked at how much I liked Dungeon Crawler Carl. When I expected just to be like, okay, let me, let me trash this.

• 1:17:39Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:17:39Anthony Jeselnik?

  But again, I don't, I want everyone to read whatever they want. Read your romanticy, whatever. I'm trying to kind of make you look ahead and step up your game a little bit. But I don't think there's any stepping up from this. It's just like, it's fun to read that, fun to listen to the audiobook, and hopefully it makes you wanna read more.

• 1:17:55Speaker 04

  Maybe we do a classic?

• 1:17:56Anthony Jeselnik?

  Happy to do a classic as well.

• 1:17:58Speaker 04

  You said on House of R, you're excited for the Blade Runner show that's coming out, 2099. So am I. We could revisit some Philip K. Dick. That would be fun.

• 1:18:05Anthony Jeselnik?

  Sure.

• 1:18:05Speaker 04

  I mean, I'm down for anything, man.

• 1:18:07Anthony Jeselnik?

  Pitch, pitch away and, uh, and I'm into it. Um, but yeah, anytime you wanna come on, anytime you wanna have me on House of R.

• 1:18:14Speaker 04

  Standing invite.

• 1:18:14Anthony Jeselnik?

  I would love to. I would love to come by. We'll be, this'll be like a, we're gonna make all the other pods jealous of our relationship.

• 1:18:21Speaker 04

  Yeah. I think the connection's gonna be undeniable. Undeniable.

• 1:18:24Anthony Jeselnik?

  Well, Molly Rubin, thank you for coming on, being the first of The Ringer to, to come on the pod.

• 1:18:28Speaker 04

  Thank you.

• 1:18:29Anthony Jeselnik?

  Thank you for being a founding member, a creative director, and coming on the pod. I appreciate it. Uh, and now it's time for To Be Continued, where I just tell you what's on the next week's episode. Next week, we've got Andy Richter has written a book called Elf Unwrapped about the making of the movie Elf. And I'm gonna talk to him about that. Uh, he co-wrote it with Aaron Caro. And I'm gonna find out who did more work.

• 1:18:52Anthony Jeselnik?

  See you next time. And remember, TV is bad, movies are bad. Give me something else that's bad.

• 1:19:00Speaker 04

  The Steelers, bad?

• 1:19:01Anthony Jeselnik?

  You can't, can't do that to me. You can't, you can't kill me with my own knife.

• 1:19:05Speaker 04

  Okay, let's agree. The Bengals and the Browns are bad.

• 1:19:09Anthony Jeselnik?

  The Browns are actually pretty good, like more than, I can say Aaron Rodgers is bad.

• 1:19:13Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:19:13Anthony Jeselnik?

  Without me, okay. Aaron Rodgers is bad, books are good, read your books. See you next time.