1971: The Dice Man

Book Name: The Dice Man

Author: Luke Rhinehart

Genre: Novel

Year Published: 1971

I actually read the first few chapters of The Dice Man in high school as my friend was reading it & recommended it then. I found it pretty weird and skipped through bits of the book trying to find interesting quotes/sections rather than actually reading the novel. This time around, I read it from start to finish - all 500 odd pages of it! Not quite as long as A Game of Thrones, but still too long when it's not entirely captivating.

The Dice Man is basically about a guy called Luke Rhinehart who is not overly happy with his life and starts to use dice to randomise his activities and personality. (Note: the author's name is listed as Luke Rhinehart, as on the book cover, which is basically to add to the feeling of the book as a kind of diary or memoir. It is in fact a pen name for George Cockcroft.) Whilst some of his dice decisions are quite funny or interesting to read about, such as him changing personalities every 10 minutes at a party, or enabling the "Great Mental Hospital Escape" at times it seems a bit repetitive. As in, oh another scene in which Luke uses the dice as an excuse to seduce a woman.

At times I did think about the book as a sort of giant roleplaying game in which anything goes. I'm used to rolling dice for decision making in character, as well as determining whether my attacks hit someone or whether I'm good enough at diplomacy to persuade someone to let me stay in their inn for free etc. However, The Dice Man takes it to a whole new level where it's about rolling the dice for EVERYTHING from what to wear to whether you are happy or sad or angry to if you're going to rape your neighbour. Yeah, exactly...

Whilst I'm not sure I'd recommend this book to many people as it'd probably upset or annoy them with its content, I can't say it's not good. From time to time it becomes a little boring but then it picks up again and you can't wait to find out what on earth is going to happen to Luke next. I certainly wouldn't recommend trying the dice life full on either as you can imagine how the protagonist's life falls apart pretty quickly. However, occasional dice decisions are pretty common. For example, I'm using a d100 to decide the order I read the books for this blog. People roll dice or flip coins to decide where they will go for dinner/what to watch/who gets that really cool thing they both found at exactly the same time. For little things, it's fun to randomise outcomes. It's just a pretty bad idea when you're doing important things like deciding whether to quit your job.

Other Books I Considered: The Carpet People - Terry Pratchett; Fear & Loathing in Las Vegas - Hunter S. Thompson