A Conventional Boy

"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"--

Charles Stross is the author of the bestselling Merchant Princes series, the Laundry Files series, and several stand-alone novels including Glasshouse, Accelerando, and Saturn's Children. He has won three Hugo Awards, including one for the Laundry Files novella "Equoid," published on Tor.com. Born and raised in Leeds, England, he lives with his spouse in Edinburgh, Scotland, in a flat that is slightly older than the state of Texas.