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A Conventional Boy

Pages
384
Published
2025
Language
English

Synopsis

In 1984, Derek Reilly was just another spotty teenage dungeon master growing up in middle England. But then a secret government agency tasked with suppressing magical intrusions received a tip-off – and one midnight raid later, his life was turned upside down by the Satanic D&D Panic. Decades later Derek, now middle-aged and institutionalized, is a long-term inmate at Camp Sunshine, a center for deprogramming captured Elder God cultists. He’s considered safe enough to edit the camp newsletter, and he even has postal privileges – which he uses to run a play-by-mail game. After 25 years, Derek finally has reason to escape: a nearby D&D convention. While Derek’s D&D games were full of fictional elder gods and world-ending threats, a LARP game at the con is a dread ritual designed to summon a great evil into our world, and it’s up to Derek and his players to stop them. The fate of the world may depend on the contents of Derek’s magic dice bag.

About the author

Charles Stross's avatar
Charles StrossScience Fiction · Fictionb. 1964

Charles Stross (born 18 October 1964 in Leeds, England) is a British writer of science fiction and fantasy, now based in Edinburgh, Scotland. He worked as a pharmacist, software developer and technology journalist before becoming a full-time writer in 2000. He is best known for the Laundry Files series of Lovecraftian spy novels and the Merchant Princes series, alongside standalone novels such as Accelerando and Glasshouse. His fiction has won three Hugo Awards, plus Locus Awards for Best Novel and Best Novella, and has been nominated for the Hugo a further twelve times.

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