''Hobgoblin'' is a 1981 horror novel by American writer John Coyne about Scott Gardiner, a teenaged boy who becomes obsessed with ''Hobgoblin'', a fantasy roleplaying game based on Irish mythology, as his life in the game and in reality slowly blend.

Description

Like the contemporaneously-published ''

Mazes and Monsters ''Mazes and Monsters'' (also known as ''Rona Jaffe's Mazes and Monsters'') is a 1982 American made-for-television film directed by Steven Hilliard Stern about a group of college students and their interest in a fictitious role-playing game (RPG) ...

'' by Rona Jaffe, this is a species of

problem novel The social novel, also known as the social problem (or social protest) novel, is a "work of fiction in which a prevailing social problem, such as gender, race, or class prejudice, is dramatized through its effect on the characters of a novel". More ...

(although not aimed at young adult readers) by an established writer, which treats the playing of roleplaying games as indicative of deep neurotic needs. In both books, the protagonist is (or at least appears to be) suffering from schizophrenia (or some analogous condition); in both books, the attainment of mature adulthood is accompanied by the abandonment of role-playing games.

Context and reception

Like the Jaffe book, ''Hobgoblin'' was published at the height of '' Dungeons & Dragons popularity and soon after the intense media coverage of the Egbert

steam tunnel incident James Dallas Egbert III (October 29, 1962 – August 16, 1980) was a student at Michigan State University who disappeared from his dormitory room on August 15, 1979. The disappearance was widely reported in the press, and his participation in t ...

( urban myths wherein roleplaying gamers enacting live action role-playing games perish, often in the utility tunnels below their university campuses). In a 2015 interview after the novel was reprinted by Dover Books, Coyne flatly stated that while he had read about Egbert, the case had no influence in his writing the book. Coyne said that he had become intrigued by ''Dungeons & Dragons'' after a nephew had become an avid player, and he became interested. "I saw in D&D, and the whole idea of such games, a way to move my story telling in a new direction. What if characters in a fantasy game became characters in real life? That idea intrigued me and to understand this whole world, I began to play the game so I could write ''Hobgoblin''." The ''

Kirkus Reviews ''Kirkus Reviews'' (or ''Kirkus Media'') is an American book review magazine founded in 1933 by Virginia Kirkus (1893–1980). The magazine is headquartered in New York City. ''Kirkus Reviews'' confers the annual Kirkus Prize to authors of fic ...

'' review seems to miss the Egbert connection entirely, unlike the ''Dragon Magazine'' review, dismissing the work as "Skin-deep horror--but better-crafted and less lurid than previous Coynage.""'Hobgoblin' by John Coyne" 'Kirkus Reviews' November 25, 1981
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References

1981 American novels American horror novels {{1980s-horror-novel-stub