297 – Kyle Winkler & Roll For Your “F**K You” Stats

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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