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The Ship of Death

by Kyle Winkler

A tabletop game documented from the outside in

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AlbakiReads Editorial

A tabletop game documented from the outside in

Cole and Lorraine test board games for extra income, but a mysterious role-playing game begins to occupy both their home and their thoughts. The novel’s central tension comes from the widening gap between play and reality, with the couple drawn into a demand involving a stranger’s soul. Its form is part of the premise: game reports, emails, forum posts, journals, and police reports assemble the story as a collection of found documents. That structure places the reader among the fragments, tracing how the game’s reach expands through records of everyday life.

Good fit for readers who enjoy

  • Readers interested in found-document fiction told through varied records and correspondence.
  • Fans of cosmic horror and stories where games blur into reality.
  • Readers curious about tabletop role-playing games as a source of fictional horror.

Themes

Games and realityPossessionFound documentsCosmic horror

Based on publisher information and book metadata.

Book overview

"Mind f*cking melting." --BENJAMIN PERCY

"Cosmically creepy as hell. A nightmarish experience." --DAN CHAON

"Every turn of the page is a creepy as f*ck critical success D20 roll. Winkler warmed my nerd heart while draining its blood." -- SEQUOIA NAGAMATSU

The dice roll. Darkness answers.

House of Leaves meets Jumanji in this brilliantly original and twisted novel composed entirely of found documents, following an unwitting couple ensnared by a sinister tabletop role-playing game

Cole and Lorraine playtest board games for some extra cash as they save up to buy a home. But after a series of bizarre coincidences, and signing a strange NDA, the couple finds on their porch a mysterious indie developer's tabletop role-playing game called The Ship of Death. The game relies heavily on the players' imaginations, and takes up an ever-growing amount of space: in their kitchen, and in their minds. As its true sinister nature becomes clearer, and its forces capture more in its web, the boundary between the game and reality begins to dissolve. . . and the pair are instructed to possess a stranger's soul.

Told entirely through game reports, emails, game forum posts, personal journals, and police reports, reading The Ship of Death feels like a dangerous dice roll. It's a sleep-stealing, possession-inducing work of intense, intelligent found cosmic horror that announces Kyle Winkler as a spectacular voice in the genre.

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