It’s definitely pulp, but is it fiction? McLuhan would have a heart attack. Am I listening to a game? Am I playing a book? Dinniman bizarrely splices a traditional narrative with literal video game interfaces. While entertaining, it feels like cheating because it borrows the dopamine loops of a different medium rather than offering literary depth.

But underneath the veneer of juvenile humor, the crawler's world is bleak. The tiny fraction of surviving humans are enslaved in an AI dungeon and subjected to a panopticon. Its follows, favorites, and patronage system are depressing and nihilistic, especially against the backdrop of naked profit-seeking corporations and a sprinkling of bigotry (Did you really have to name the NPC rat Mordecai? Do your research, man)

Despite everything, it's a genuinely fun ten hour joke. And Jeff Hays' narration is excellent.