Show Notes
Leaning into absolute high geekery this week – with Kyle Winkler’s novel of how family game night can go badly wrong!
The Ship of Death is about a cursed (and I mean CURSED!) tabletop role-playing game and the unlucky couple who choose to play it. Or, as Kyle describes it “Dark Jumanji.”
It prompts a conversation about games in life and fiction. Epistolary structure and found-fiction. We discuss his relationship with the bizarre, his love for mysteries without answers, we consider who is really responsible for the world-building in a story, and we pay a lot of respect to cosmic horror influences beyond Lovecraft.
It’s was a delight to record. Hope you enjoy listening.
Other books mentioned:
Grasshands (2024), by Kyle Winkler
Boris Says the Words (2022), by Kyle Winkler
The Nothing That Is (2020), by Kyle Winkler
Borne (2017), by Jeff VanderMeer
Zothique (1970), by Clarke Ashton Smith
The Dying Earth (1950), by Jack Vance
Enduring Love (1997), by Ian McEwan
Negative Space (2020), by B.R. Yeager
True Crime (2020), by Samantha Kolesnik
The House Next Door (1978), by Anne River Siddons
My Dark Places (1996), by James Ellroy
Penpal (2012), by Dathan Auerbach
Mockingbird (1980), by Paul Tevis
The Blacktongue Thief (2021), by Christopher Buehlman
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