Jeff Hays Audiobooks: Where to Go After Dungeon Crawler Carl
Jeff Hays audiobooks after Dungeon Crawler Carl: Chrysalis, Life Reset, Dungeon Lord and Mimic and Me, with Audible lengths and co-narrators, Oct 2026.
9 min readBy LevelUpShelf EditorialLast reviewed
TL;DR: Try Chrysalis next: he and Annie Ellicott read seven books, and books 1 to 3 come as one bundle. Life Reset (6 books) and Dungeon Lord (5) are Soundbooth Theater productions where he leads too. In Mimic and Me he shares the billing with Ryan H. Reid and Dorrie Sacks.
Jeff Hays audiobooks start, for most listeners, with Dungeon Crawler Carl: he reads all eight books. If you finished those and want more of his voice, there are four other LitRPG series where he is a lead or co-lead on Audible, plus a few one-offs. This guide lists them with Audible lengths, co-narrators and ratings, all checked October 11, 2026, and says which one to try first.
Key Takeaways
- Five series, 30 audiobooks, 563 hours 3 minutes with Jeff Hays credited on every title, by our sum of Audible's lengths.
- Dungeon Crawler Carl is the biggest: 8 books, 159 hours 22 minutes, and 71,361 ratings on book 1.
- Annie Ellicott is his most frequent partner: she shares Chrysalis, Dungeon Lord and most of Life Reset.
- He runs Soundbooth Theater: its team page calls him "Founder & CEO", and Soundbooth publishes three of the five series on Audible.
- Search counts: 332 Audible results under his name, 79 with the keyword LitRPG.
Overview: who Jeff Hays is
Soundbooth Theater's team page sums him up in one line: "Jeff Hays is the narrator of Dungeon Crawler Carl, a producer and narrator of more than 400 audiobooks, and Founder & CEO of Soundbooth Theater." His own site is shorter: "My name is Jeff Hays, and I am a voice artist." Audible's narrator search for his name returned 332 results on October 11, 2026, and 79 with the keyword LitRPG; both counts include bundles such as Chrysalis, Books 1-3.
His DCC role is moving to the screen too. Variety reported on July 23, 2026 that he "has been cast as the voice of Princess Donut on the Peacock TV adaptation." Our Jeff Hays narrator page lists every series we track with his name on it.
Listeners rate him highly. In an r/litrpg thread asking what could top DCC on audio, u/Plum_Parrot wrote: "As much as it pains me to say it, Jeff Hays is just really hard to beat. He elevates the stories he reads." (comment, December 30, 2025).
As much as it pains me to say it, Jeff Hays is just really hard to beat. He elevates the stories he reads.
Every Jeff Hays LitRPG Series We Checked
These five series have Jeff Hays credited on every audiobook. Lengths are summed from each book's Audible page; book 1 ratings are Audible's. All checked October 11, 2026.
| Series (author) | Audiobooks | Total length | Book 1 length | Book 1 on Audible | Co-narrators | Audio publisher |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Dungeon Crawler Carl (Matt Dinniman) | 8 | 159 h 22 m | 13 h 31 m | 4.84 (71,361) | guests on books 3, 6, 7 | Audible Studios |
| Chrysalis (RinoZ) | 7 | 133 h 3 m | 17 h 18 m | 4.72 (1,958) | Annie Ellicott | Aethon Audio |
| Life Reset (Shemer Kuznits) | 6 | 108 h 17 m | 24 h 41 m | 4.68 (12,597) | Annie Ellicott, Laurie Catherine Winkel (books 2 to 6) | Soundbooth Theater |
| The Wraith's Haunt / Dungeon Lord (Hugo Huesca) | 5 | 93 h 10 m | 9 h 37 m | 4.5 (7,270) | Annie Ellicott, others on books 4 and 5 | Soundbooth Theater |
| Mimic and Me (Cassius Lange, Ryan Tang) | 4 | 69 h 11 m | 16 h 57 m | 4.47 (2,827) | Ryan H. Reid, Dorrie Sacks | Soundbooth Theater |
| Total | 30 | 563 h 3 m |
At two hours a day, that is about 282 days of listening.
Cover: Audible product page (Audible Studios)
Dungeon Crawler Carl: The One Everyone Starts With
He reads all eight Dungeon Crawler Carl audiobooks, from Dungeon Crawler Carl (13 hours 31 minutes, January 28, 2021) to A Parade of Horribles (20 hours 27 minutes, May 12, 2026). Audible lists guest voices on three of them:
- Book 3, The Dungeon Anarchist's Cookbook: Jeff Hays and The Critical Drinker.
- Book 6, The Eye of the Bedlam Bride: Jeff Hays, Patrick Warburton, Travis Baldree and Annie Ellicott.
- Book 7, This Inevitable Ruin: Jeff Hays and Travis Baldree.
Book 8 already has 4.92 from 30,744 ratings, as of October 11, 2026. For the Soundbooth full-cast versions and every guest by book, see our Dungeon Crawler Carl audiobook guide. He also co-narrates Matt Dinniman's non-DCC novel Operation Bounce House with Travis Baldree (10 hours 48 minutes).
GODEEPER: Travis Baldree is the other voice in DCC books 6 and 7, and reads four LitRPG series alone. Travis Baldree audiobooks: where to start →
Where to Go After Dungeon Crawler Carl
Pick by how much of his voice you want and how long a first book you can take.
1. Chrysalis, for the closest match. Seven audiobooks, 133 hours 3 minutes, every one read by Jeff Hays and Annie Ellicott, and books 1 to 3 are sold together as one 54-hour title. Soundbooth's own 2023 team post names it next to DCC as one of "our most popular series". We found no book 8 audiobook on Audible when we checked; our Chrysalis reading order covers the gap.
2. Life Reset, for the most-rated alternative. Book 1 of Shemer Kuznits's New Era Online series has 12,597 Audible ratings, the most of any non-DCC title here, and he reads it alone; Annie Ellicott and Laurie Catherine Winkel join from book 2. Audible's current editions of books 1 to 3 are dated November 20, 2025, and books 4 to 6 came out in 2020 and 2021.
3. Dungeon Lord, for a short first book. Hugo Huesca's Dungeon Lord books, which Audible groups as The Wraith's Haunt series, open with a 9 hour 37 minute book read by Jeff Hays and Annie Ellicott. Readers named it in 22 comments in the threads behind our dungeon core books list, but the list left it out because its blurb casts the hero as a Dungeon Lord, not the dungeon itself.
4. Mimic and Me, for an ensemble. Ryan H. Reid is listed first and Dorrie Sacks also reads; Jeff Hays is on all four books. u/noiplaybass put the appeal this way: "Sound booth theater is almost always a guaranteed good audio experience, and the Mimic is voiced by Jeff Hays, who is just fantastic." (comment, July 26, 2026).
Cover: Audible product page (Soundbooth Theater)
Cover: Audible product page (Soundbooth Theater)
Analysis: what his LitRPG catalog has in common
Three patterns run through the five series.
Soundbooth is the common thread. Soundbooth Theater is the Audible publisher for Life Reset, Dungeon Lord and Mimic and Me; Chrysalis lists "Aethon Audio, Soundbooth Theater" on most of its books; of the five, only Dungeon Crawler Carl is filed under Audible Studios.
The casts grow over time. Dungeon Lord book 1 lists two narrators; book 5, Nightmare Kingdom (29 hours 58 minutes, August 29, 2024), lists six. Everybody Loves Large Chests, another Soundbooth series he leads, goes from Jeff Hays alone on book 2 to a cast of nine names on book 9. We checked 11 of its 13 Audible titles (two pages would not load), so it is not in our totals.
One-offs worth knowing. A Summoner Awakens: Origins, a deck-building LitRPG by Kerberos, is read by him alone (16 hours 10 minutes, 4.76 from 1,127 ratings). Matt Dinniman's Kaiju Battlefield Surgeon lists him as narrator on Soundbooth's own app, which shows one season of 12 items; we did not find it on Audible. And Dinosaur Dungeon, on our dungeon core list, is read by Annie Ellicott and Jeff Hays.
Cover: Audible product page (Soundbooth Theater)
What Listeners Say
Most comments are some version of "if you want more Jeff Hays". u/EJoule: "If you need more Jeff Hays, I'd recommend Crysalis on audible (first 3 books are only $8)." (comment, September 21, 2026). Prices change, so check the bundle's current price yourself.
Some listeners think his best work is outside DCC. u/BadmiralHarryKim: "Personally, I think Jeff Hays gives his best performance in the Everybody Loves Large Chest series (seriously it's his masterpiece) but DCC is a much better work overall so Hays' performance doesn't do as much heavy lifting." (comment, December 30, 2025).
Some listeners measure him against Andrea Parsneau, who reads The Wandering Inn and Azarinth Healer; one called her "like the female version of Jeff Hays". Our Andrea Parsneau audiobooks guide covers her LitRPG series the same way.
Cover: Audible product page (Aethon Audio, Soundbooth Theater)
Our take
Based on the facts above, Chrysalis is the natural next listen after Dungeon Crawler Carl: same lead voice, Annie Ellicott from DCC book 6 alongside him on every book, and a bundle that covers the first three. Life Reset is the safer bet by rating count, and Dungeon Lord is the quickest to try. Mimic and Me is the one to pick if you want him as part of a larger cast rather than the lead. Between the five series there are about 563 hours of Jeff Hays to get through before you run out.
How we checked this
On October 11, 2026 we ran Audible's narrator search for Jeff Hays (with and without the keyword LitRPG) and read the Audible product data (narrators, length, date, publisher, rating) for every book in Chrysalis, Life Reset, The Wraith's Haunt, Mimic and Me and 11 Everybody Loves Large Chests titles, plus DCC books 1 and 8, A Summoner Awakens and Riftside. DCC books 2 to 7 come from the source table of our DCC audiobook guide, checked October 10. We read Soundbooth Theater's team page, its 2023 team post and its Kaiju Battlefield Surgeon pages, his own site, and Variety's report. Totals and day counts are our own arithmetic. Reddit quotes were copied from thread data saved on October 10, 2026. A site-agent then compared every number with our source table before publication.
Related Reading
- Dungeon Crawler Carl reading order: all 8 books with print and audio dates.
- Best LitRPG audiobooks: 12 series ranked by listener comments.
- Books like Dungeon Crawler Carl: what DCC readers name most.
- All audiobook guides
Frequently Asked Questions
What LitRPG audiobooks does Jeff Hays narrate besides Dungeon Crawler Carl? Chrysalis, Life Reset, Dungeon Lord and Mimic and Me are the biggest.
Which Jeff Hays audiobook should I listen to after Dungeon Crawler Carl? Chrysalis, read with Annie Ellicott.
Is Jeff Hays part of Soundbooth Theater? Yes, its founder and CEO, per Soundbooth's team page.
How many audiobooks has Jeff Hays narrated? Audible's narrator search returned 332 results on October 11, 2026.
Does Jeff Hays voice Princess Donut in the Dungeon Crawler Carl TV show? Yes, per Variety's July 23, 2026 report.
Is Kaiju Battlefield Surgeon a Jeff Hays audiobook? Yes, on Soundbooth's app; we did not find it on Audible.
References
- Soundbooth Theater: Jeff Hays
- Jeff Hays: official site
- Audible: narrator search, Jeff Hays
- Audible: Dungeon Crawler Carl series
- Audible: Chrysalis series
- Audible: Life Reset (New Era Online 1)
- Audible: Dungeon Lord (The Wraith's Haunt 1)
- Audible: Dungeon Lord: Nightmare Kingdom
- Audible: Mimic and Me
- Audible: A Summoner Awakens: Origins
- Soundbooth: Kaiju Battlefield Surgeon
- Soundbooth Theater: Meet the team, Jeff Hays
- Variety: Princess Donut casting
About the author
The LevelUpShelf desk
The LevelUpShelf desk reads the store pages and the reader threads so you can pick book 1 with the numbers in front of you. Every count is dated and linked.
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About this article
LevelUpShelf is independent: no ads, no sponsored posts, and nobody pays to be on a list. Some store links are affiliate links: we may earn a commission if you buy through one, and it never decides what we list (affiliate links). Book counts, release dates, audiobook lengths and ratings are snapshots from the date we checked them; publishers and stores change listings, so check the store page before you buy. Recommendations come from cited reader discussions, not from reading we claim to have done. Articles are researched and written with AI tools, and every fact is checked against its source before publishing. See how the desk works and how we use AI.