Synopsis:
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.
Review:
If you’re looking for originality in your genre fiction, you can’t miss The Ship of Death by Kyle Winkler. Presented as various bits of information from diary entries, game reports, emails, police reports, and more, Winkler still manages to present a clear narrative in this gripping horror novel.
If you grew up in the 90’s, Jumanji probably gripped you in how the game that Robin Williams’ character lived inside of for years came into our reality. While injury and death was on the table, the movie was for kids, so there was always a safety net to the action. Winkler takes that idea and adds a manic depravity to it all.
So in the book, our protagonists are Cole and Lorraine, a young married couple looking for a leg-up to buy their first house. Taking side gigs, they sign up to playtest a board game called The Ship of Death. Now…I’ll admit that I’m not a hardcore tabletop gamer. I enjoy them, but I’m always the one who comes in not knowing how to play and taking about two hours into the 10-hour game to even understand how the turns even work and what am I supposed to do with my actions. One of my good friends looped me into a game of Twilight Imperium one time and even after playing for an entire day I probably still couldn’t tell you how to play properly. So, when the style of play in The Ship of Death slowly reveals itself and you find that even what you dream is considered part of the game, I was definitely glad I wasn’t a part of Winkler’s story.
As an outside observer of the story, I wanted to shout at the lead characters what to do and how to do it many times, especially Cole’s wife Lorraine. Given the context of the game and what it was doing to the characters, their actions did feel consistent with what was happening, but I still felt a little frustrated at times.
So as chaotic as the book was with the various forms of written communication that wove the narrative together, the audiobook adds an extra layer to it all. There are four narrators, anchored by Wil Wheaton who basically handles Cole’s POV to the story. I know for some people Wheaton’s voice can be a turn-off, but I’ve been a fan of his voice-over work for a long time and him as one of the narrators was a big selling feature for me here.
If you’re looking for a spooky read for the spooky season, The Ship of Death by Kyle Winkler is definitely worth a look.
Thank you to HarperAudio for providing this audiobook for review consideration via NetGalley. All opinions are my own.
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