Fourth floor, and Carl lands in the Iron Tangle, a subway system built to be impossible to navigate. It is the first time the dungeon itself is the antagonist rather than the things living in it.
This is also where the balance the series gets praised for locks in. The jokes keep landing and the emotional hits start arriving without warning, often inside the same chapter.
Three books in, the pattern was clear enough. The comedy is the delivery mechanism rather than the point of the thing.
Read September 2025.
