The Ship of Death: A Novel

“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

Horror Movie meets The Blair Witch Project in this supernatural chokehold of a book told entirely through found documents: the cursed story of an unwitting couple ensnared by a mysterious tabletop role-playing game, who are commanded, as the game’s intentions become clearer, to do the unthinkable.

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.