Paperback of Elfish Gene now out in States. Very exciting, particularly since the marketing mob at Soho have come up with a brilliant trailer for the book. I didn’t even know there were book trailers before this. I grow old, I grow old, I shall… you know the rest. Here it is.
http://bookscreening.com/2009/10/07/the-elfish-gene-by-mark-barrowcliffe/
Do let me know what you think of this. Personally, I think it’s genius.
Werewolf novel is finally, finally finished. It’s nearly killed me. I got the copy edited version back and decided to take a scalpel to the text. Three weeks of micro-editing later, repostioning commas, asking ‘do I use the word “drop” or “fall” here, and it’s done. It’s the most intensive work I’ve ever done on a novel. There’s always the anxiety that you may have over-refined it, cut out some of the things that make it uniquely yours in favour of, say, absolute clarity. Also, you’re never finished this kind of thing. It drives you nuts and you wake screaming ‘if the vikings call a church a ‘temple’, can I then refer to it as a church in the third person?’ It hurts your nut.
Anyway, it’s out in the UK in 2010 under my pen name MD Lachlan. I tweet under that name too so do come and find me there, and I’m on facebook. The book’s called Wolfsangel and is a lot of gruesome, werewolfing, mythology-inspired fun.
Doing an Elfish Gene interview at 11 on Thursday morning on the Tom Dunne show. The book continues to have quite a life over here.
http://newstalk.ie/newstalk/programmes/32/tom-dunne.html
October 24th, 2009 at 3:42 am
Hey Mark, I’m an American who’s reading your book for the first time in paperback. I’ve come across this quote:
“”D&D is, I believe, something virtually unique and unprecedented in human history. It’s a story you can listen to at the same time as telling it. You can be surprised by the plot’s twists and turns, but you can surprise too. It’s more interactive than any other sort of narrative I can think of. If its subject matter were more serious then it would be considered a new art form, and it’s probably surprising that nothing beyond murder mystery dinners has ever been evolved from it. This is why D&D is so addictive when it’s played right. It’s like the best story you’ve ever read combined with the charge a good storyteller feels as he plays his audience.”
this is the part that interests me: “…it’s probably surprising that nothing beyond murder mystery dinners has ever been evolved from it.”
Have you been exposed to games like:
Grey Ranks (http://www.bullypulpitgames.com/games/index.php?game=grey_ranks)
Breaking the Ice (http://www.blackgreengames.com/bti.html)
Steal Away Jordan (http://stone-baby.com/?page_id=4)
and Dogs in the Vineyard (http://www.lumpley.com/dogs.html)
?
These are games that have “been evolved from it” along a literary bent, along with a host of others, in the last 10 years or so. Just wanted to give you a heads up.
November 1st, 2009 at 8:03 pm
Hans
Yes, I’ve come across Dogs in the Vineyard. I’ll have a look at the others. What I meant is that no major art form has come from it. RPGs have evolved but not broken into the mainstream as a new mode of art.
There again, you might consider LARP as, if not an artform, a major cultural phenomenon.
And, of course, computer games are huge - Second Life could be said to be an extension of RPGs.
Hope you’re enjoying the book.
Just to give you the heads up, I’ve got a fantasy novel coming out next year under the name MD Lachlan. It’s called Wolfsangel. So if you enjoyed Elfish Gene you might enjoy that. On the other hand, it’s incredibly different, so you might not!
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Wolfsangel-M-D-Lachlan/dp/0575089571/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1257120061&sr=8-2
Is the link.
Thanks for your message
Mark
January 18th, 2010 at 2:31 pm
Mark,
I’m just finishing Elfish Gene (a book my mother…of all people…bought for me Christmas of 2008). Aren’t mothers hopelessly understanding sometimes? Finally got around to reading it this fall. Call me a slacker.
Great read…particularly because of the following:
- We are pretty much the same age…44 (ish)
- I came into D&D about the same time. Parents bought me the basic set…I’d been finishing Tolkien, CS Lewis, Le Guin, other fantasy novels. I’m sure they had no idea what this would ultimately do to my high school grades. LOL
- I live in Wisconsin (still do) and I’m quite familiar with the Lake Geneva area where Gygax lived (rest in peace Gary!)
- Went through a lot of the same crap you did…hauling around the Silmarillian, dungeon maps, dice for several years as a teenager.
In college we played ICE rules (so I kept playing) and as an adult around (35 years old) I hooked up with another group playing D&D 3.0 and eventually 3.5 rules. We’ve been on hiatus for about a year, but I still really enjoy it. Very complex now, but I far prefer face to face over online, etc.
I’ll have to check out your other novels. Great writing. Funny and clever.
Take care!
-Jon