The Elfish Gene: Dungeons, Dragons and Growing Up Strange by Mark Barrowcliffe

The Elfish Gene: Dungeons, Dragons and Growing Up Strange by Mark Barrowcliffe

My review

rating: 4 of 5 stars
The late 70s was a particularly grim time. Economic crisis, terrorism, unemployment, an unpopular labour government - is this all starting to sound familiar? What more natural response than to turn your back on the whole mess and escape into the world of fantasy? That is exactly what author Mark Barrowcliffe did when he discovered Dungeons and Dragons, and threw himself headlong into for most of his teenaged years.

In much the same way as Andrew Collins mirrored my life of late 60s and early 70s suburbia in 'Where did it all go right?', Barrowcliffe seems to have had the same experiences as me in the world of D&D. Obsessive collections of books, fanzines and lead figures, trips to games shops to spend carefully hoarded pocket money, games sessions spent in pedantic arguments about whether characters can run faster than monsters or some other badly phrased rule, and even dressing up in silver spray painted, knitted chain mail to run around the local woods doing live action role playing.

This book is almost painfully funny in places, although it is the humour of recognising acute embarrassment at the extreme lack of any social skills displayed by the typical D&D fan. Worth reading if you have ever shaken a D20 in anger, or if you haven't and always wondered what the spoddy kids were doing in the corner with the lead figures and the funny shaped dice.

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