Narrated by: Jonathan Sleep
Series: Caverns and Creatures

Recommendation
These books should only be listened to if you have already listened to and liked the Critical Failures books.

Honestly they’re a bit of a hit & miss.  Some are very funny but some are just very bland.

If you’re not a fan of the series, then you’re wasting your time with these books… you won’t enjoy them.
If you ARE a fan, then there are definitely a lot of funny things in them.  But not all stories are great.

Background Plot
The books follow the original gang,
Cooper – the half-Orc barbarian, possessing much of the brute strength for the group but having a ‘low charisma score’ meaning he will always say the wrong thing, and be disgusting even if he doesn’t mean it
Tim – the short little alcoholic gnome & a Rogue, being stealthy and apparently more intelligent,
Dave – the dwarf and cleric with the ability to heal, and
Julian – the Elf wizard and sorcerer with his high diplomacy score and ability to summon ‘mounts’ ie. horses to ride, but usually ends up summoning them as cannon fodder, sacrificing them instead of being attacked themselves.

The 4 of them have been sucked into a fantasy role-playing dice game because they pissed-off the ‘cavern master’ of the game, Mordred.  They now have to survive in this strange world as the characters that they chose in the game with whatever powers or deficiencies those characters may possess, with the aim of eventually getting back to the real world.

Structure
Each book is separated into 6 short stories, each is about a mini adventure that the gang finds themselves in, fighting monsters, escaping from some weird creatures, finding passage to a new place, etc.

Of course shenanigans ensue as Cooper (with his low charisma score, & way below average intelligence) often causing the majority of the problems.

Supposedly they’re mean to run parallel to the Critical Failures books, however from what I’ve heard so far… they don’t really seem to do that.

These books are more stand-alone books that can be listened to in any order.  2d6 does not build on D6, nor does 4d6 build on any of the others.

In the series, whatever items the characters pick up, they can then use them in their journey afterwards, characters are added, and developed.  But this?

This is simply just the original 4 characters going on individual quests, taking jobs, trying to survive the world and the situations they’ve found themselves in.

I originally thought that each book slots in after each series book, making D6 = book 1.5 in the series, 2d6 = book 2.5 in the series, but this just isn’t true.

That being said these parallel books do follow after the very 1st book, so there’s a couple of things mentioned in that that is crucial, but it’s nothing you can’t pick up as you go along.

I ended up listening to 3d6 and 4d6 straight after Critical Failures book 4, and nothing was changed.

Memorable Quotes & Descriptions
D6
-‘The other peacock let out a scrawk and then it’s neck plopped forward like a limp dick.’

-Dave – “What if this cleric wants to lead us to a room with a bunch of other clerics and they just want to rape us?
Or worse, what if they want to talk about their religion?”

-‘Dave was snoring like a motherfucker’

-One of the Guards – “The hermit, he’s madder than a bag of squirrels”

-(After Tim insults the King’s guard)
Cooper (to King’s guard) – “I’m sorry, he’s my son and he’s a retard.”
(speaking to Tim) “If you do that again Billy, I’ll knock that extra chromosome right out of you”

Julian is still summoning horses just as cannon fodder.

2d6
-‘Cooper let out a fart that sounded too wet to be just a fart.’

-Julian (to Tim) – “Your plan is so fucking stupid it might just be the stupidest plan I’ve ever heard.
If you plan was a person…it’d be riding the short bus to school.”

-‘Unlike most of the horses that Julian habitually murdered….this one had some fight in it.’

-‘Dave’s eyes went big and round, as if he just caught his grandparents fucking.’

-‘No matter what universe you’re from, there’s nothing funnier than an angry midget.’

3d6
Honestly this book was a bit meh.
I listened to it, however it was more miss, than hit.
In fact, I didn’t even take any notes, nothing really stood out as being particularly funny

4d6
Robert Bevan definitely brought the comedy back for this book.
Below are the quotes that stood out, but the stories were just insane. Funny but insane.

– ‘Ragnar’s short tale of incest murder and cannibalism threw any chance of Julian’s erection out the window.’

-“Stop”, said Cooper to the bird,

‘Of course the stupid bird didn’t understand English, he only understood whatever bullshit they spoke in England.’

Talking about some fish monsters that are holding them captive.
-‘Cooper was tempted to punch one, just to break up the monotony of their flopping footsteps.’

‘The fish monster cocked its fish fist back preparing to punch, Cooper slid under him to avoid the punch and cocked the fish monster right in its fish balls, but there were no balls, or was this a fish chick? Was he now just fisting a fish chick?’

Talking about a fish monster that Cooper has got hostage.
-Tim – “Can you just hurry up and kill this one so we can be on our way?”
Cooper – “I’m not going to kill this one. Can’t we just tie it up or something?”
Tim – “What are we going to tie it with? Our dicks?”
Cooper – “Certainly not yours, you tiny dick motherfucker.”

As Cooper punches the head of the fish monster and lets the head drop into the water.
–Cooper – “He’ll be ok right? On the count of him being Albanian?”
Julian – “Wait, what?”
Tim – “Amphibian.”

French sounding cup in Beauty & the Beast like story.
-You killed crack baby!

French accent for the character- Waxoff is fantastic.

-There’s a seriously hilarious description of misunderstanding in a story where the group is hired to kill some zombies terrorizing the city’s garbage disposal area.
Wights = zombie like creatures more deadly and vicious
The gang meet the self-proclaimed leader of the ‘Wights’ who introduces himself as ‘Grand Wizard of the Wights’
Julian, “Really man? Not cool.”
Grand Wizard, “..and my Wights will bite you and give you Wight power!”
Julian, “Aww man.”

On-The-Whole Recommendation
If you’re listening to the Critical Failures series, then this is a great addition.

However, if you’re not and you’re just wondering what this series is all about, and perhaps just want a laugh, know that these D6, 2d6, 3d6, 4d6 books are very light hearted, you don’t have to get invested in any of the ongoing story and you can listen in any order that you want.

Know that the genre = pure Fantasy.   If you don’t like fantasy, then you’re probably not going to enjoy this.

That being said, if what you think of fantasy is ‘Lord of the Rings’ , know that I really didn’t like that, but I really enjoyed these books.

I would recommend skipping 3d6 from these books, but other than that, it’s worth a listen.

Here’s the listening time for all 4 books + the chapter headings

Click on each title to be taken to the audible.com page where you can listen to samples of each of the books.

©2016 Robert Bevan (P)2017 Robert Bevan

D6 length – 7 hrs 10 mins

“Cave of the Kobolds”
“Zombie Attack!”
“Orcs, Bears, and Assholes”
“Shipfaced”
“Dungeon Crawl”
“The Creep on the Borderlands”

2d6 length – 6 hrs 32 mins
“Nymph-O-Maniacs”
“Buzzkill”
“Cooper’s Christmas Carol”
“Sticky White Mess”
“Clerical Error”
“Cornholed”

3d6 length – 7 hrs 1 min

“House of Madness”
“Naga Please”
“Elf Inflicted”
“The Land Before Tim”
“A Fistful of Gold Pieces”
“The Minotard”

4d6 length – 6 hrs 36 mins
Djinngle Bells”
“Genital Harpies”
“The Unwashed Asses”
“B.Oar Guests”
“Wight Trash”
“Probing the Annis”


Get a free trial of audible with 2 free books, listen to books like this for free, & then if you want….just quit before 30 days & you get to keep everything… sounds like a pretty good deal to me.