Discount Dan cover art

Discount Dan

Discount Dan’s Backroom Bargains, Book 1

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Discount Dan

By: James Hunter
Narrated by: Steve Campbell
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Summary

Noclip in, no way out ...

All Dan wants is to find a way home. He'd settle for a beer, a bite to eat, and a place to sleep off his hangover.

But, in an endless, ever-changing dungeon cobbled together from twisted carnivals, abandoned shopping malls, janky laundromats, and condemned insane asylums, getting a bit of shut-eye is harder than it sounds.

Dan has accidentally "Noclipped" into the Backrooms—a bizarro, extra-dimensional Alice-in-Wonderland world, overrun with horrific nightmare creatures known as the Dwellers. No one ever gets out. Hell, forget about leaving, if Dan wants to survive the week, he's going to need to harness the strange game-like magic of the Backrooms, make some very sketchy allies, and carve out a little safe haven to call his own.

And he's going to need to do it fast because Dan is being hunted. The Flayed Monarch of the 999th floor has marked him for death and no one walks away from the Skinless Court with their hide intact ...

“The book is a f***ing delight. I enjoyed the absolute hell out of it and think it's an excellent use of pop culture to make something fun and horrific and awesome.” (Eric Ugland, author of the Good Guys and Bad Guys series)

“Buckle up, buttercup! James Hunter takes you on a balls-to-the-wall adventure that's as insane as it is awesome.” (Jez Cajiao, author of the Arise and Rise of Mankind series)

"Discount Dan is a fun, fast-paced read with awesome game mechanics, surprising humor, and a brutal adventure you won’t want to put down!" (Dakota Krout, author of Completionist Chronicles, Full Murder Hobo, and The Divine Dungeon)

©2024 James A. Hunter (P)2025 Audible, Inc.
Absurdist Dark Humour Fantasy Genre Fiction Horror Humorous Literature & Fiction
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A great start with a lot of DCC and some elements from other good series, but it became a slog pretty soon. I went from "Yeah I'm gonna spend a credit for the second book" in the first half to "How much longer?" in the last 2 hours of the book.
My recommendation is to try it out if it's on sale or gets added to Plus Catalogue.

Started out well, but its mid overall

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This has that DCC feeling. tossed into the backrooms completely unaware of his surroundings and well out of his depth. Dan scrambles to make use of what little he has and continue to move forward only to plunge into more insane scenarios and near death experiences.

A New Genre is being born

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Decent, but it also reminds me why DCC is so good. This feels... like a B grade version of Dungeon Crawler Carl meets BuyMort. It's unique enough, but obviously inspired by ... and not quite as good.

Story revolves around a dude portalled to 'the backrooms' which are like an alternate dimension of earth where there are monsters and earth items have great power. a foam sword might literally be an ultra-weapon, for example. it's a good concept! and I enjoyed the world building.

I guess my biggest issue is that the writing is lazy. Like it's a first pass with no effort put in to make it better. This isn't a 'beautiful' read. Jokes often feel forced. We're constantly reminded the dude is a veteran, like the author wasn't sure if they'd said this before. And cliches abound. It was loud enough to wake the dead. It hit like a sledgehammer. Happy as a clam
etc.

On the upside, the setting is unique, and it's not a 1:1 copy of DCC. This has most of the good points then adds its own flavour. The offsider is funny, and well voiced. and when jokes do land, they work well (I'm looking at you, Twilight references!)

I won't be continuing this series. but I understand it will appeal to others.

B Grade action

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Too much descriptive first person action from the hero, and not enough character development to make me care about what happens to him.

Did not enjoy this story

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honestly I was ready to not like this series. I came from DCC and really all I wanted was more DCC. After the first 10 minutes though I got over it and started enjoying this series for what it is. There are initial parallels, however you will forget about them pretty quickly and just start enjoying the story and characters.

excellent

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