Total Party Kill

by Craig Francis Power

A raw, beautifully-composed collection exploring addiction, trauma, poverty, and the journey toward recovery and spirituality through the vernacular and iconography of the popular roleplaying game Dungeons & Dragons.


Total Party Kill (TPK): tabletop roleplaying slang for the situation of all characters dying in the same in-game encounter.


At turns nightmarish, hilarious, brutally honest, and heart-breaking, TPK maps an unforgettable course into the fantastic dark of back-alley dive-bars, demonic underworlds, various rock bottom floors, and a whole host of monsters, both imagined and frighteningly real.


TPK is a strange and deadly beast combining the imagery of Dungeons & Dragons with a real, life-or-death struggle for sobriety. Entirely unique in perspective and voice, the autobiographical speaker within changes fluidly between the poet, a variety of D&D characters, and combinations of both. The text within comprises a genre-bending quest where nothing—especially continued sobriety—is for certain. Operating less like traditional poetry and more like brief monologues or confessions—but still concentrating on metaphor, meter, and sound—TPK will appeal not only to lovers of the world’s bestselling roleplaying game, nor just to lovers of poetry, but for anyone whose life has been touched by addiction.

Genres: Poetry

120 pages, Paperback

Published October 18, 2024

Reviews

[Elijah Martin · Rating 5 out of 5]

Picked this one up at Breakwater Books Publishing in Saint John's.

A collection of poems about addiction, trauma and recovery told using DND lore and mechanics. I really liked it, it was very creative. My favorite poems were : The Forge of Fury, The Temple of Elemental Evil, The Keep on the Borderlands and The Hidden Shrine of Tamoachan.

[Phoenix · Rating 4 out of 5]

Review to come.

[Matthew Ledrew · Rating 5 out of 5]

Easily my favorite book of 2024, this book is a true testament to what a gifted writer can accomplish when they commit themselves not only to a concept or idea, but also to story, entertainment, craft and experience. Power takes the language of the Quest Narrative inherent to D&D and uses it to tell a nuanced story of alcoholism, struggle, and defeat. All while using the form of prosaic poetry!

Best compared to Anne Carson's "Autobiography of Red," this book also uses the language and trope of fantasy to tell a human story -- something many of Power's contemporaries miss the mark on.

This needs to be on every reading list, every must-buy list, and every gift list this year!

[Christian Sorrell · Rating 3 out of 5]

A really unique premise for a series of poems. At times, the combination works wonderfully, creating a dreamlike sort of magical realism blending AA meetings and sobering up with dungeon delving and misadventures. At other times though, the conceit holds the poems from going fully down their own path, from digging in as hard as they could without thinking of the other aspect. The concept is, as they say, a double-edged sword (pun, given the DnD-flavor, intended). My favorite pieces nailed the combination and were very unique and striking because of it, but several didn't connect or were required to hold a component of the other half when they'd have been better served without it. Still, an intriguing and worthwhile read!

[Rhi · Rating 3 out of 5]

2.5 stars

[Peter Darbyshire · Rating 5 out of 5]

I don’t even know how to describe Total Party Kill by Craig Francis Power. The cover says “poems” but it’s more a collection of dungeon crawls through the soul. TPK fuses Dungeons & Dragons adventures with addiction memoir with trauma chronicle with pop culture fever dream and the result is as brilliant as it is indescribable. A natural 20 of artistic accomplishment.