A Conventional Boy

<p><b>In <i>A Conventional Boy</i>, the fate of the world will depend on a roll of the dice... twenty-sided dice, that is.</b><br><br>In 1984, Derek Reilly was just another teenage nerd growing up in middle England. But his love of D&D caused him to fall afoul of the Laundry, a government agency tasked with suppressing supernatural threats. It turns out that sometimes ninth level wizard spells drawn on the back of your maths textbook can look suspiciously like <i>actual</i> magic...<br><br>Decades later, Derek is a long-term inmate at Camp Sunshine, a centre for deprogramming captured cultists. But Derek finally has reason to escape, and an escape plan to out into action: he wants to attend his first gaming convention. While Derek's D&D games were fictional, a game at the con really <i>is</i> a dread ritual designed to summon a great evil into our world, and it's up to Derek and his players to stop them.<br><br>The fate of the world may depend on the contents of Derek's dice bag.<br><br><b>The Laundry Files series follows an agency of British spies who deal with supernatural threats; they also have to deal with chronic underfunding, government ministers, rival agencies and worst of all, each other. Think <i>Slow Horses </i>crossed with the monsters from <i>Stranger Things, </i>this series is funny, nerdy, and a cult classic.</b><br><br>***Publishing ahead of the final Laundry Files novel (<i>The Regicide Report</i>), this new collection includes the never before published Laundry Files novel <i>A Conventional Boy</i> - inspired by the 1980s Satanic Panic - and two other short stories in this joyous celebration of all things Laundry Files.***<br><br>In this collection:<br>*A CONVENTIONAL BOY (53.3k words)<br>*DOWN ON THE FARM (12.7k words)<br>*OVERTIME (8.7k words)<br>also includes exclusive afterword from Charles Stross</p>