A Game Which Plays the Players: Dissolving Borders of Virtual Reality

Erebos – a mysterious computer game which is handed around from one student to another. The game has strict rules: Do not tell anybody that you know about the game, do not tell anybody that you are playing the game and do not tell anybody your nickname. Erebos seems to be an intelligent game which knows everything about its players, their fears, preferences and their desires. One day the sixteen years old Nick also starts to play the game. Quite soon the game turns out to be highly addictive, and even more so because there is apparently no way to stop the game when you want to – it’s the game itself that “decides” when it is time for a break… And Erebos starts to take over the players’ real lives, by assigning seemingly harmless and unconnected tasks to each player. But then Erebos tells Nick to do something illegal and when he doesn’t comply is thrown out of the game. Suspicious, he starts thinking what’s behind Erebos and decides to search for the person who holds all the strings. Emily, a friend from school helps him… strange things happen and the border between reality and virtual reality begins to disappear…


• #1 bestselling YA title in German over the past 10 years
• Winner of the German Youth Literature Award 2011
• Thrilling story about the manipulating aspect of virtual reality
• Exciting, terrifying and mysterious story
• Over 850.000 copies sold and translated into 34 languages
• Erebos 2 published in 2019 (#1 Spiegel Bestseller)

English sample translation available.