How One Man Became a Cast of Dozens: Jeff Hays and the 'Dungeon Crawler Carl' Phenomenon

There's a running joke among fans of the Dungeon Crawler Carl audiobook series: Why didn’t the credits include a separate female narrator? The answer is deceptively simple—there isn’t one. The entire sprawling cast, from the perpetually unimpressed Princess Donut to the sardonic System AI, is the work of one man: Jeff Hays. And his vocal virtuosity has turned the LitRPG series into a listening phenomenon, clocking over 140 million hours on Audible and earning him a cult-like following that borders on disbelief.

Hays isn’t just a narrator; he’s a one-person repertory company, a vocal chameleon whose range has convinced even seasoned audiobook listeners that they must be hearing a full ensemble. UK TODAY recently crowned him this year’s “voice of the summer,” and for good reason. At a BookCon panel in April, he flipped between characters—from the growling, deadpan Carl to the haughty, British-accented Donut—with a fluidity that left the audience spellbound. “I never, ever predicted this level of success,” Hays admits. “This is an absurd scale that I still have trouble wrapping my mind around.”

The Voice Behind the Phenomenon

The partnership between Hays and author Matt Dinniman began long before the first dungeon door opened. The two met at an audiobook award ceremony in Kansas City and bonded over a shared love of gaming and storytelling. When Dinniman began writing Dungeon Crawler Carl, he knew exactly who should voice it. “He was also a gamer his whole life, so he understands the book really well,” Dinniman says. “He is just a super talented voice actor. He’s also a professional musician, and I think that helps a lot with audiobook narration because they understand cadence. And, you know, he’s crazy. So it fits well.”

Despite minimal formal acting training—just a few high school plays—Hays channeled his passion for reading and production into audiobook narration. He founded Soundbooth Theater, a company dedicated to producing full-cast, immersive audiobooks that blur the line between traditional narration and audio drama. “LitRPG has been a great genre for exercising my versatility and developing my instrument to take on more and more unique, diverse characters,” he says. When the first Dungeon Crawler Carl manuscript landed on his desk, he already had a resume full of similarly “depraved and messed up” books—a compliment, he clarifies—and felt fully prepared for the challenge.

How a LitRPG Audiobook Became a Cultural Touchstone

Literary role-playing games, or LitRPG, have long been a niche corner of science fiction and fantasy, but Dungeon Crawler Carl has exploded into the mainstream. The series follows Carl and his talking cat, Princess Donut, as they navigate a deadly, gamified dungeon on a reality TV show. The premise may sound absurd, but its blend of sharp humor, high-stakes action, and surprisingly emotional character beats has resonated with millions. According to Audible, audio “overindexes” heavily in this subgenre, and no series exemplifies that better than this one.

Fans regularly take to Reddit to express their awe of Hays’ performance. One user wrote that Hays “might have ruined audiobooks for me … NOTHING is quite as good.” Another admitted, “Jeff Hays is the first actor that actually forced me to learn who they are because they are so damn good.” Hays, in turn, takes the adulation in stride. “That was my goal from the beginning—I wanted people searching my name on Audible,” he says. He’s succeeded beyond measure: The series has spent weeks on bestseller lists, and tickets for his live panels at events like BookCon and San Diego Comic-Con are among the hottest in town.

Inside Jeff Hays’ Creative Process

With over 200 characters in the eight-book series, Hays relies on a unique method that blends improvisation with meticulous direction. “Timing and tone—it’s not explicitly there on the page,” he explains. “It requires that I am fully immersed in the scene myself. When I say ad lib, I’m not changing the words. I am improvising how the character would deliver the line in the moment.” He sees himself as both a director and casting director, maintaining a mental “troupe” of actors he channels for each role.

Carl himself began as a riff on actor Patrick Warburton—think the deep, deadpan delivery of Seinfeld’s Puddy—but the character has evolved over eight books into something entirely unique. “He’s got such a special place now in my heart and in my career,” Hays says. “That’s a voice that’s going to get retired once Dungeon Crawler Carl is finished. I don’t want other things so strongly associated with something that’s so ubiquitous.”

Princess Donut, meanwhile, required a different approach: an uppity British tone that could convey both feline superiority and genuine vulnerability. And the System AI—the dungeon’s omniscient, sadistic narrator—demanded a robotic, yet gleefully cruel cadence. Each voice must snap into place instantly, sometimes within the same sentence. Hays practices relentlessly, often recording multiple takes until the line feels alive.

The Business of Audiobook Narration: Royalty-Only Model

Most audiobook narrators are paid by the finished hour and never see a dime of royalties. Hays operates differently. Soundbooth Theater works on a royalty-only basis, meaning Hays earns a percentage of each sale. “I want to earn my royalties,” he says bluntly. This structure incentivizes him to produce the highest-quality work possible. He’s not just a voice—he’s a businessman, producer, and creative partner.

This approach has allowed him to experiment. For the crime novel The Bones at Point No Point, Hays traveled to the small town where the story is set to record ambient sound—the creak of a pier, the crash of waves—to anchor the listener in the setting. He’s also developing “Immersion Tunnel” editions of Dungeon Crawler Carl, which add sound effects, music, and episodic formatting for a completely new experience. “If we don’t take advantage of that, if we don’t own our medium, then what’s going to happen is the people in suits are going to make the decisions and audiobooks will never rise above a certain level of entertainment,” Hays warns. “Audiobooks are competing against all other media. Why would people listen to this audiobook when they could watch Netflix?”

The Future of Immersive Audio Storytelling

Hays’ vision is for audiobooks to become a full-fledged art form—a hybrid of radio drama, theater, and modern podcasting. His Soundbooth Theater is now piloting a new model where voice actors double as directors and producers, owning their work from script to final edit. This independence could reshape the industry, giving narrators more creative control and profit share.

For the ardent fans who have kept Dungeon Crawler Carl on bestseller lists, Hays continues to deliver surprises. The Immersion Tunnel versions promise to make the familiar feel fresh, rewarding repeat listeners with layers of sonic detail. And as the series approaches its conclusion, the stakes are higher than ever—both for Carl and for the man who gives him voice. Hays has already hinted that Carl’s voice will be retired, marking the end of an era. But with a growing reputation and a revolutionary business model, his next act could be even more audacious.

In a world where streaming platforms dominate our attention, Jeff Hays is proving that the human voice—in all its shifting, chameleonic glory—can still stop us in our tracks. One man, two hundred characters, and an audience that can’t believe their ears.

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