The Jungle Book meets D&D

About The Dungeon Book

A young girl is left to die in a wizard’s dungeon but finds a new home with the monsters around her in this humorous and heartfelt standalone epic fantasy from acclaimed author Gareth Hanrahan.

Enter a world of dungeons and dragons, magic and manticores, and goblins and gargoyles …

Bait doesn’t remember a time before the dungeon. Before the dragon stole her from her cot. She doesn’t know what her name was before she was handed over to the monstrous denizens of the dungeon beneath the sorcerer’s tower. Luckily for Bait, they decided not to eat her. And so she grew up in the dark—the goblins her adopted family, a vengeful minotaur her protector, a sentient skull her tutor, and a blob of corridor slime her main source of nutrition.

But the labyrinthine dungeon, with its haunted halls, buried temples and forgotten magics, draws treasure hunters like moths to flame. And as the outside world starts to intrude, Bait will learn what it means to be monstrous and she will have to decide where she truly belongs.

The Dungeon Book

If you only read one dungeon book this year, let it be this one….then follow it up with The Bone Door by Frances White and The Only Way Out Is Up by Django Wexler. Gareth Hanrahan, author of The Dungeon Book, is a specialist when it comes to dungeons. As a tabletop role playing game developer, he is well acquainted with dungeons and monsters, motives and storytelling.

The Dungeon Book (as told by Cornelius the skull) follows the adolecence of Bait, a young human girl “found” in the dungeon. Cornelius and a few other monsters are tasked with keeping the human alive. There are of course shenanigans, and hidden motives, a council (not dissimilar to Elrond’s) with lots of talking, and a story being told…but to whom?

I love how Hanrahan writes. Each sentence is fun (but not cumbersome) to read. The writing doesn’t get in the way of the story though! Cornelius is at turns sarcastic, serious, and quick to point out the obvious: he has no legs and therefore cannot walk himself. Comedy in a book about dungeons and sacraficial humans is a necessity. But again, like the style of his writing, Hanrahan does not let the comedic nature of Cornelius detract from the larger plot.

Each part of the dungeon and world above feels inhabited. That is to say the world-building is on point. Shocker when the guy writing is also the person who wrote The One Ring TTRPG.

Go grab the book. It is fun and sweet.

You can find Gareth Hanrahan on his website GarethHanrahan.com and on Instagram @mytholder2