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How Matt Dinniman used Gossip Girl to stop Dungeon Crawler Carl fans from spoiling themselves
Most fans don't read the copyright page, but if A Parade of Horribles readers did, Matt Dinniman at least tried to keep them safe from spoilers.
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If you’ve had a chance to read the latest Dungeon Crawler Carl book, A Parade of Horribles, you might have stumbled upon a little bit of trivia that author Matt Dinniman drops before you even get to the first page. And that is that he’s never seen a single episode of Gossip Girl. Truly, this is an outrage, but why would he share something so seemingly random? To help protect fans from potential spoilers that they legally had to put into the copyright page.
In the opening pages of Dungeon Crawler Carl Book 8: A Parade of Horribles, Matt Dinniman gives the usual statement that no part of the book can be used without permission, including training GenAI systems. However, in bold text, he adds the line “Also, stop reading these copyright thingies now if you don’t want to get spoiled. Seriously. It gives something away. Also, just FYI, I have never watched a single episode of Gossip Girl, which came out on September 19, 2007.”
That is a very strange thing to add to a page that most readers will barely glance at. The reason for that is that there is, indeed, a very mild spoiler for the ending of A Parade of Horribles. Nothing that gives big plot points away but which is related to a specific character’s story and growth. And, to protect fans from accidentally reading said spoiler, Matt Dinniman added a little more text to help hide it.
“There’s another paragraph after that,” Dinniman wrote in a reply on Reddit when a fan pointed out the Gossip Girl line. “I added the Gossip Girl thing to add more text and numbers to help obscure the next line.”
Princess Donut’s love of Gossip Girl is a big part of her character throughout the Dungeon Crawler Carl series, so fans might be surprised to find out the author has never seen it. But then, maybe he just made that bit up to help keep us all safe from spoilers.
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