For those who are interested, I’m talking about fantasy novels on NPR.
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=101432349
Do give me an approval click if you like it!
Sorry if I’ve missed anyone’s comments but I’ve just had the mother of all spam blitzes, so I just deleted the lot rather than wade through adverts for unpleasant sex.
Mark
I met John Kovalic last night, he’s a really nice guy and very talented too. For those of you who don’t know him, I recommend you check out Dork Tower and Dr Blink – Superhero psychiatrist. Fantastic stuff.
Thanks for more positive comments. I am actually thinking of ammending the book slightly for the paperback version – pending conversations with my publishers. I think I may have overdone the negative side a little bit and am now enjoying my slow slide back in to the gaming community, so we’ll have to see.
Anyway, children howl, so must away.
Mark
Thanks again for the kind words of recent posts. They really mean a lot. Great to hear from older D&Ders. I played with a few and I wish I’d played with more. My friend Frank Burrow was 28 or so and a really inspirational and interesting DM. I remember some great games of Bushido with him.
Fantasy novel proceeding apace, have had my hero stabbed, near drowned and hanged so far, so all good. Although not quite sure he is the hero. It’s certainly different to writing romantic comedy, I’ll say that. My problem with comedies is making stuff happen – plot, in short. When I’m reflecting real life, I kind of think it’s a bit unrealistic to have a plot, even though I do strive – for the reader’s sake – to come up with one. In the fantasy world it’s much easier – heroic actions all seem to have consequences. What’s difficult is trying to keep the characters fresh and interesting without breaking the atmosphere of the world. I’m doing an early viking thing, so it would be boring to have the hero very brave, even though that’s how the sagas always portrayed them. THen you have to decide on dialogue – how much humour are you going to allow the characters, how much modern thought. Can they be in love? What does the Viking rather promiscuous moral code do to a love story? It’s good fun working these things out and the solutions sometimes drive the plot.
But here’s a question – does anyone know what a Viking kingdom looked like? How many farms? Anything like a village (I know about Hedby etc but towns were unusual at the beginning of the Viking period) Did the king live on a farm, or did he just have a hall near some farms? How many Jarls in an average kingdom?
These small questions are really important. It took me a while to find out that Vikings didn’t have oar benches and it was a swine finding out where they would put long things, such as spears, when travelling by ship.
Also trying to do a really good female character for this book. That would be a first for me, I have to say. I don’t think I’ve got women particularly well in some of my other writing.
Must avoid following stereotypes:
Plucky rogue with heart of gold
Ill-tempered Barbarian who dies for love
Mad wizard (natch)
Comedy short person
Cursed protagonist, who no one understands. I don’t think I’ve avoided that one, actually. Or the ill-tempered barbarian.
Reading Game of Thrones right now, which is great fun. The characters are drawn very big but, hey, that’s high fantasy for you.
Anyway, meeting John Kovalic soon for a drink, so that should be interesting. Unless I’ve managed to mess up the timing, which would not be unheard of.
Deep in New Year fitness blitz. Doubtless it will come to a resounding halt sometime around February when my body breaks down. I’ll look forward to the rest.
Yours from the typeface
Mark
For those of you who are interested in hearing my dulcet tones, I’m on NPR’s Only A Game programme talking about D&D.
As well as:
http://www.wpr.org/book/090111a.cfm
The interviews were a lot of fun and American interviewers, unlike their British counterparts, at least have read the book.
Thanks for your message, Mark. There were a few bits that ended up being cut, which is usual with any book. However, they normally end up in the bin for good reason. Also, some of the stuff I chopped out was for libel reasons – which makes them no more publishable on the net than it does in print! I’ll have a look, though, and see if there’s anything interesting. I’m not sure there really is, though.
Just getting back into physical fitness after three months off with a severely strained level of interest in exercise. Had fitness assessment at gym. They told me I was average. Average, have you seen average? Back to the grind, I fear.
Currently attempting to build up to 100 press ups – I ask myself the question ‘Am I 14 years old.’ The answer – in many ways ‘yes’.
Thanks Paul.
Well my career as a fantasy novelist will begin in 2010, when Gollancz publish my first book. I dont know if they want me to say what it’s called yet, so I’ll keep that under wraps. Learning some fascinating details, though. Danish viking longships had a shallower keel than their Norwegian cousins, apparently. One day, I will kill someone in a pub quiz with that fact.
If you’re interested in any of my work so far, I’ve written three novels – Girlfriend 44, Infidelity For First Time Fathers and Lucky Dog, all available in the States, in fact all probably available on ebay for around a cent, though I’d recommend going and buying one in a shop, naturally!
Thanks for your comments again.
M
Glad you enjoyed the book, Nick.
Yes, Billy’s born again status did depress me slightly. Thank God (or God shaped hole) that there is enough of his old personality left that you can tell him you think he’s completely nuts without him taking offence.
He did make me hoot on a couple of occasions – my favourite comment being ‘if I hadn’t taken all that acid I’d just have been more successful and happier, that’s all.’ I think he was joking but I also think there’s a lot of truth in what he said. Acid’s like bungee jumping – everyone should try it once but, if it becomes a hobby, you’re a twat, basically. (I’m talking about you, William Borroughs).
I wondered how that section seemed to US readers – religion being so much more central to American life than it is in Britain. I can remember seeing some American friends in Florida once and they were amazed that we didn’t go to church. They were more amazed when they discovered we didn’t even know anyone who went to church and that doing so would mark you out as a bit odd, certainly in London where I was working at the time.
Actually, having said that, I think that born again Christianity is a better lifestyle choice than ingesting large quantities of home made LSD, though it has the effect of rendering your conversation just as tedious.
Anyway, children call and I have to obey an instruction to ‘eat my porridge!’.
First – Dennis Sustare (the great druid) has replied to my blog! Wow, someone who is actually mentioned on the title page of Eldritch Wizardry. That’s incredible. I felt like a musician who hears that Elvis likes his work.
I loved Druids and was always trying to think of a way to make Faerie Fire more offensive. The nearest I got was doing it to a cowering, invisible fellow player who had left me to an ogre. That showed him.
Thanks for your response Dennis and I’m glad you enjoyed the book so much.
Thanks to everyone else too.
Sorry you found it shallow, Stephen. I’d be interested in what you meant by that – shallow in terms of the characters depicted (I’m bound to point out that other reviewers have said the reverse, like the tedious git I am) or shallow in terms of game description? (Lots of people have said that).
Not sure that RPGs are that close a fit to reality, Thomas. As I point out in the book, girls and Balrogs need to be approached differently. Just my opinion, you may know different. (cue fiery whip jokes).
Anyway, here’s my confession. It’s on me again – the urge. It started slowly during research for the book. Then I told myself I could just collect early D&D stuff. Then the idea that a little game wouldn’t hurt occurred to me. Now I have signed up to play a game next year, am looking at conventions and – inspired by the fact I’m writing a fantasy novel – I’ve decided to come up with an RPG of my own.
I’d love to do it as a computer thing but, unfortunately, technology is a stranger to me. Hence it’ll be paper and pen and…. Will announce as I do it. I will reveal it is set in the Viking age, features Seid magic, has a fun combat system (I hope) and will probably never see the light of day.
However, if there are any artists out there who fancy contributing a bit of work then I’d love to hear from them. Playtesting some time in the Autumn, I think (not one to do things by halves, I expect it might be quite detailed).
May you enjoy Psychic Crush with your Ego Whips. (One for the early psionics)
M
Sorry, I think I went a bit over the top on the last one. I just objected to being called severely dysfunctional.
I was, and am, dysfunctional, it’s just the ‘severely’ I objected to. I only mentioned the Texas whackos as examples of what I consider severely dysfunctional. I’d actually love to visit Texas and, in naming a few Lone Star lunatics, I was rather opening myself up to a list of their British equivalents, which would be a long one.
Anyway, thanks for your review and your reply.
I think – as I’ve said before – that there’s a difference in the way English and American people express themselves. I just thought I was poking gentle fun at myself, not crying about a terrible childhood. I didn’t have a terrible childhood, I was broadly happy, although I was a ridiculous idiot.
This review of The Elfish Gene , from Britain’s Daily Mail (huge selling middle class tabloid) is instructive.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/home/books/article-448903/Fantasy-life-teenage-dweeb.html
It says how refreshing it is that someone’s written a book about a happy childhood. It also says I ‘ponder on [my] wonderful good fortune’. He even comes away with a positive view of the effect D&D had on me.
It’s interesting, anyway, how people can take such different messages from the same text.
Yours from the Isle of Blastes and Fogges
M
Baby coming out of hospital today, thank God.
All better it seems, and I should start to have my life back.
Interesting reviews on Amazon, including this one:
 A Strange Case Indeed, December 9, 2008
Barrowcliffe, aka “Spaz,” never had it in his genes to be normal. It wasn’t going to happen. Long before he heard of D&D, he was a dysfunctional, anti-social kid bottoming out on the skids. His masochistic attraction to those who despised him would have led him to a group that “delighted in being cruel to other boys” regardless of whether D&D was involved or not. He blames his “wasted” years (pre-drugs anyway) on a game, of all things, when clearly it was a self inflicted wound received in an environment – industrial working class Midlands England – that gave the world the spectacle of soccer hooligans and punk as a dominant lifestyle. Without the game, it seems he would have spent his formative years sniffing glue and burning things. Later in life when he had a chance to be “normal”, he ditched his day job for a writing career. The author does not seem to be able to form a clear picture of what the “normal” life he says he holds in such high regard would actually be like. The gaming culture has always been a little different between the U.S. and U.K. Perhaps that explains some of the adolescent level sadism on display in “The Elfish Gene”. I regret that critics, i.e. outsiders, are hailing this book as the last word in memoirs about growing up in the early days of D&D. I see it instead as a painfully sad story about the life of an abject and exceptionally detached teenager. That the author blames his troubles on a game is like blaming a robbery on a jewelry store window display. It’s either a continuing delusion, or an apparently successful bit of “nerdsploitation.” It reinforces a negative stereotype by holding up a pathological case as a typical example. It may come as a shock that a large percentage of us who “grew up strange” in the early days of D&D had girlfriends, good hygiene, were decent at sports, knew how to communicate with adults, had other talents and interests, spent most of our time outdoors, enjoyed the game for the story telling and social fun aspects, knew not to take it seriously, thought LARP was the height of ridiculousness, and never had the slightest bit of trouble separating games or the occult from reality. No one we knew came close to being as detached or irritating as “Andy” or the author. In fact we were “strange” mostly because we had more well rounded lives than the so-called normal kids. The book is hilarious, unflinching, and you come away feeling sorry for anyone who’s ever lived in Coventry. For that I give it 2 stars. For those interested in an adult view of a severely disturbed boy, I recommend it. However, for anyone, especially someone who was not there, interested in a more general picture of growing up with D&D in the 70′s and 80′s, it really should be avoided. As a looking glass into the general case of adolescent fascination with D&D, “The Elfish Gene” is considerably out of focus. |
I have to say, I’m glad Alan found the book funny but I don’t recognise myself as an ‘anti-social kid bottoming out on the skids’. If I was bottoming out then I was top of my class at school, had lots of friends and a happy, supportive family and was winning writing prizes. I didn’t put that in the book because it seemed a bit big headed. I can’t really see myself as anti-social, either. I was uncool but is that antisocial? In fact, being antisocial would have been cool in the 1970s. I was crap at sport, though, so probably should have been shot for my own good.
I don’t really recognise these sporty, well adjusted sorts Alan seems to have met in his gaming. In my day I met more people who wore sandals with socks, smoked pipes and had their own pewter tankard in the pub at aged 19. I met some great people through D&D, and a few who were not so great. All I’ve done in the book is be honest.
I also wasn’t aware that I had that many troubles to blame on the game. Sure, sustained heavy drinking (that’s how I know I’m British) , a deep dislike of work but, hey, that’s just called being alive to reality where I live. I don’t regret that period of my life, I had a lot of fun.
When Alan says ‘it may come as a shock that ….’ and goes on to say that most gamers were very well-balanced, sporty ladies men, bloody right it comes as a shock. Have you ever been to a D&D convention, Al? It’s not Paris Pret a Porter week is it? How about a comics fair? Take a look around. I actually held back on including a few of the people I met because I thought they were too extreme. Rat, who ended up in a cult in Switzerland and one nameless other whose hobby was abusive phone calls and sitting outside the houses of the people who had bullied him at school sounding the horn on his car at 2am. I’m not saying everyone was like this, but a fair proportion were a bit off centre. It was actually part of the charm of the game to me. I like extraordinary people, even if they’re extraordinary in a rather odd way.
That said, things may have been different by the 1980s. In the 70s, D&D was a nerd-clique. By the 80s it was a mass-participation activity, so I guess a broader personality type may have been attracted. I’m not sure, though, that obsessives like myself were any more cool.
Anyway, I don’t comment normally on reviews but I did on this one, just because I found it interesting that someone had formed a view of me so far from the one I intended when writing the book. Who knows, Al could be right. Maybe I was severely disturbed. However, I have three words for a Texan accusing me of being severely disturbed: Henry Lee Lucas. Here’s two more: David Koresh.
I was a nerd. I’m proud to be a nerd. Embrace it, nerds, for you shall inherit the earth.
One last thing, Al. You wouldn’t have spent much time out of doors where I lived, not unless you wanted to go rusty, freeze or be stabbed.
This review is in twice because it won’t delete.
Oh well, that’s my nerd credentials burnt.
A Strange Case Indeed, December 9, 2008
Barrowcliffe, aka “Spaz,” never had it in his genes to be normal. It wasn’t going to happen. Long before he heard of D&D, he was a dysfunctional, anti-social kid bottoming out on the skids. His masochistic attraction to those who despised him would have led him to a group that “delighted in being cruel to other boys” regardless of whether D&D was involved or not. He blames his “wasted” years (pre-drugs anyway) on a game, of all things, when clearly it was a self inflicted wound received in an environment – industrial working class Midlands England – that gave the world the spectacle of soccer hooligans and punk as a dominant lifestyle. Without the game, it seems he would have spent his formative years sniffing glue and burning things. Later in life when he had a chance to be “normal”, he ditched his day job for a writing career. The author does not seem to be able to form a clear picture of what the “normal” life he says he holds in such high regard would actually be like. The gaming culture has always been a little different between the U.S. and U.K. Perhaps that explains some of the adolescent level sadism on display in “The Elfish Gene”. I regret that critics, i.e. outsiders, are hailing this book as the last word in memoirs about growing up in the early days of D&D. I see it instead as a painfully sad story about the life of an abject and exceptionally detached teenager. That the author blames his troubles on a game is like blaming a robbery on a jewelry store window display. It’s either a continuing delusion, or an apparently successful bit of “nerdsploitation.” It reinforces a negative stereotype by holding up a pathological case as a typical example. It may come as a shock that a large percentage of us who “grew up strange” in the early days of D&D had girlfriends, good hygiene, were decent at sports, knew how to communicate with adults, had other talents and interests, spent most of our time outdoors, enjoyed the game for the story telling and social fun aspects, knew not to take it seriously, thought LARP was the height of ridiculousness, and never had the slightest bit of trouble separating games or the occult from reality. No one we knew came close to being as detached or irritating as “Andy” or the author. In fact we were “strange” mostly because we had more well rounded lives than the so-called normal kids. The book is hilarious, unflinching, and you come away feeling sorry for anyone who’s ever lived in Coventry. For that I give it 2 stars. For those interested in an adult view of a severely disturbed boy, I recommend it. However, for anyone, especially someone who was not there, interested in a more general picture of growing up with D&D in the 70′s and 80′s, it really should be avoided. As a looking glass into the general case of adolescent fascination with D&D, “The Elfish Gene” is considerably out of focus.
|
More excuses for lack of blog – this time that the new baby has had meningitis and I’ve been back and forth to the hospital day and night.
It’s all OK now and the doctors think there is no long term damage but it was quite scary for a bit. He’s in hospital for the next two weeks receiving IV anti-biotics, but has basically recovered, so panic over.
Two bits of news – up to discuss my werewolf saga today with my new publishers, which should be fun.
Second, I’m on NPR in the States soon – I’ll post up the time.
More when combination of tiredness and work allows.
M
