Paperbacks from Hell: The Twisted History of '70s and '80s Horror Fiction

by Grady Hendrix

In 1979, Egbert disappeared from his dorm room at Michigan State University and was traced to the steam tunnels that ran beneath the campus. There the trail went cold. His parents hired private investigator and tireless self-promoter William Dear to look into the case. Dear knew that Egbert played Dungeons and Dragons, and he heard that some of the Michigan State students LARPed in the steam tunnels (LARP stands for live-action role-playing, a type of game in which costumed players interact in character.) Dear knew absolutely zilch about D&D, so he told a reporter that the game might have had something to do with the disappearance. That was all the press needed to declare Egbert a victim of a D&D game “gone wrong,” igniting a media maelstrom. It turns out the only monster in this book is ill-informed writing. Credit 57 Egbert showed up six months later living in Louisiana under an assumed name, but by then Dear’s colorful version of events had taken hold and two relevant books were already on their way to market.