Youth of Horrors, 31 Oct 2008
As a 30-something male who spent a good deal of my teen years playing wargames and role-playing games, I'm squarely within the target audience for this "growing up geeky" memoir by English novelist Barrowcliffe. However, much as I desperately wanted to revel in the trials and tribulations of his '70s Coventry youth, I just wasn't ever able to connect with them. It's kind of obvious to say, but when a memoir doesn't work for me, it's because I'm not really enjoying the company of the author.

My problem lay in the combination of his obsession with D&D and his total social ineptitude. Don't get me wrong, I'm fully aware of the obsessions of youth and had my own ones, however that never really turned me into the complete idiot that is Barrowcliffe at ages 12-15. (To be fair, he repeatedly admits with hindsight that he was an exceedingly annoying and foolish kid -- but that doesn't make his antics any less cringeworthy.) Maybe the problem is that he only had one obsession, whereas all my gamer friends have multiple obsessions, ranging from sports to music to cars to politics to art, etc. By this standard we were more "well-rounded" than Barrowcliffe and his cohort, even though we were still generally social outcasts. The difference was that we generally didn't worry too much about it, and made plenty of good friends through other interests. So my experience with gaming kind of contradicts one of the book's main themes, which is that "normal" kids don't play RPGs and engage in imaginative play.

It's also somewhat illuminating to me that he basically ditches D&D after reinventing himself as a heavy metal fan, and immerses himself in a different social space. None of the gamers I know ever really stopped gaming by choice. For us, there was never any problem gaming on Friday night, going to a punk show with a girl on Saturday, and playing football on Sunday. It wasn't until we reached our 30s and had more career and family commitments that we had to let go of RPGs, simply because it was impossible to schedule regular 8-hour gaming sessions.

And for all his elaborations on how D&D dominated his life, Barrowcliffe rarely succeeds at explaining what makes it so compelling. Quite the opposite, his descriptions of gaming sessions sound utterly awful. Then again, I didn't start playing until I was in my late teens, and the overall tenor was a whole lot more mature than the chaotic, backstabbing sessions described in this book. Some of the gaming stuff he describes is amusing, but mostly it's just kind of sad. In the end, I guess the book is perfectly fine as a memoir, I just had a very hard time relating it to my own D&D experiences. Certainly there are some funny anecdotes, interesting stuff about the early days of RPGing, some quite good stuff about coming of age in England in the '70s, as well as a rather heartbreaking story of friendship lost. But mainly, the book just made me wish that one of my old gang of gamers could find the time to DM a cool mid-level campaign for us.

Outstanding...., 21 Oct 2008
I'm incredibly picky about books. I used to review for SFX and Interzone, and I'm always aware that I can be ferocious with anything I find less than outstanding. Occasionally, I can even muster a snarl when I'm negotiating my way through a real stinker. However, I'm even more hesitant when it comes to reviewing a book I actually like. I continually have to ask the question: is this book truly a brilliant piece of work, or is it just particularly tailored to my own tastes? Well, the latter is certainly true of The Elfish Gene by Mark Barrowcliffe...but it's pretty amazing, too. My favourite thing about Elfish Gene is that, excluding the undeniable talent of the author, it could have been written by just about any of the kids I grew up with. Hell, I could have written it, myself - though I tend to gloss over the effect gaming has had on my life, so it wouldn't have been anywhere near as balanced and as honest as this undoubtedly is. Mark Barrowcliffe is immediately likeable, to the point where anyone who spent their teenage years immersed in D&D will genuinely have to stop themselves from hunting him down on the net and confessing, in a heartfelt sob, how delighted they are to see written evidence that they weren't alone. This book isn't just for gamers, though: it's a warm, funny and moving story ABOUT gamers. These are people all around you...the curious kids you grew up with who wandered around staring distractedly at the clouds and always seemed to take four or five minutes to answer relatively simple questions about the weather and what they were having for dinner. As adults, most of them move around you, now, albeit not shouting about their hobby from the rooftops. I write fantasy books for a living, so I might be an obvious gamer - but the others around the various tables I sit each week include a motorbike dealer, a principal consultant for an insurance broker, a museum education director, a customs' officer and a railway engineer. We're all around you....and this book contains everything you need to know about the people they were growing up. I absolutely loved it, and am personally devastated that it's over. Highly, highly recommended.

I'm incredibly picky about books. I used to review for SFX and Interzone, and I'm always aware that I can be ferocious with anything I find less than outstanding. Occasionally, I can even muster a snarl when I'm negotiating my way through a real stinker. However, I'm even more hesitant when it comes to reviewing a book I actually like. I continually have to ask the question: is this book truly a brilliant piece of work, or is it just particularly tailored to my own tastes? Well, the latter is certainly true of The Elfish Gene by Mark Barrowcliffe...but it's pretty amazing, too. Before I delve any deeper, here's a brief synopsis:



In the summer 1976, twelve-year-old Mark Barrowcliffe had a chance to be normal. He blew it. While other teenagers were being coolly rebellious, Mark--and 20 million other boys in the 1970s and 80s--chose to spend his entire adolescence pretending to be a wizard or a warrior, an evil priest or a dwarf. He had discovered Dungeons & Dragons, and his life would never be the same. No longer would he have to settle for being Mark Barrowcliffe, an ordinary awkward teenager from working-class Coventry, England; he could be Alf the Elf, Foghat the Gnome, or Effilc Worrab, an elven warrior with the head of a mule.Armed only with pen, paper and some funny-shaped dice, this lost generation gave themselves up to the craze of fantasy role-playing games and everything that went with it--from heavy metal to magic mushrooms to believing that your bike is a horse named Shadowfax. Spat at by bullies, laughed at by girls, now they rule the world. They were the geeks, the fantasy wargamers, and this is their story.


My favourite thing about Elfish Gene is that, excluding the undeniable talent of the author, it could have been written by just about any of the kids I grew up with. Hell, I could have written it, myself - though I tend to gloss over the effect gaming has had on my life, so it wouldn't have been anywhere near as balanced and as honest as this undoubtedly is. Mark Barrowcliffe is immediately likeable, to the point where anyone who spent their teenage years immersed in D&D will genuinely have to stop themselves from hunting him down on the net and confessing, in a heartfelt sob, how delighted they are to see written evidence that they weren't alone. This book isn't just for gamers, though: it's a warm, funny and moving story ABOUT gamers. These are people all around you...the curious kids you grew up with who wandered around staring distractedly at the clouds and always seemed to take four or five minutes to answer relatively simple questions about the weather and what they were having for dinner. As adults, most of them move around you, now, albeit not shouting about their hobby from the rooftops. I write fantasy books for a living, so I might be an obvious gamer - but the others around the various tables I sit each week include a motorbike dealer, a principal consultant for an insurance broker, a museum education director, a customs' officer and a railway engineer. We're all around you....and this book contains everything you need to know about the people we were growing up. I absolutely loved it, and am personally devastated that it's over. Highly, highly recommended.



Teenage Monsters, 08 Aug 2008
There is a fundamental problem with the idea behind this book. If you played D&D in the early years, you can probably remember what it was like, so reading the book will feel all too familiar. If you've never played, you probably don't care enough to pick the book up in the first place. So the question is, can Barrowcliffe's writing transcend this problem and deliver a book worth reading?

The answer is, just about. There are some sections of the book that deal with the game's minutiae that won't interest anybody but ardent fans (who will probably be mentally noting all the mistakes and omissions) but there are also lots of great chapters that deal with the trials and tribulations of the geeky adolescent.

Barrowcliffe is refreshingly honest with himself and the reader about how horrible he was as a teenager and also describes well, the crushing insecurities and cravings for acceptance, that most of us felt as we grew up. I don't remember D&D being quite as anarchic as the author describes but I can certainly identify with the obsessive characters portrayed on the pages of 'The Elfish Gene'. There are also some delightful set-pieces; every man has stories of crazy plans they attempted, which to their teenage minds seemed perfectly sensible and Barrowcliffe outlines his in hilarious fashion.

If you have ever roleplayed, you will recognise some of yourself in this book and will certainly enjoy most of it. The nostalgia trip is worth the cover price alone. If you haven't, you will probably still enjoy reading 'The Elfish Gene', but be prepared to wade through the odd chunk of text dealing with elves, wizards and oddly shaped dice.


Very funny, yet rather sad, 23 Jun 2008
I really enjoyed the book, very well written and thought provoking. I also spent much of my teenage years roleplaying, and continue to do so, and I certainly recognised the teenage boy behaviour that made the whole growing up experience fairly painful.
He evokes the time very well, and many of his descriptions of gaming took me right back. As with any creative endeavour, how much fun it will be depends on who you do it with, and the end of his friendship with Billy is achingly sad.
I'm sorry that the tribulations of his teenage years alienated him from what can be a fantastic hobby.



A brilliant evocation of spotty adolescence, 13 May 2008
This book is laugh out loud funny, especially if you've played any form of Role playing game.

For some reason D&D largely passed me by, I played a bit of traveller & MERP at Uni but never really got heavily into it, however I was right in the middle of the nerdy computer/sci-fi/fantasy world.

Mark Barrowcliffe brilliantly evokes adolescense with its strange obsessions, malfunctioning body parts and crippling social anxiety.

Where I would disagree with him is his analysis - he claims D&D ruined his teenage years, whereas I rather suspect he would have a had a pretty ropey time, D&D or not. I certainly did. He says he was never bored whilst a teenager which seems like a pretty good deal to me. Also D&D honed his narrative skills - a novelist's bread and butter, surely.

However if you ignore the analysis, and the rather depressing Coda this is an excellent read and very funny, too.

Youth of Horrors, 31 Oct 2008
As a 30-something male who spent a good deal of my teen years playing wargames and role-playing games, I'm squarely within the target audience for this "growing up geeky" memoir by English novelist Barrowcliffe. However, much as I desperately wanted to revel in the trials and tribulations of his '70s Coventry youth, I just wasn't ever able to connect with them. It's kind of obvious to say, but when a memoir doesn't work for me, it's because I'm not really enjoying the company of the author.

My problem lay in the combination of his obsession with D&D and his total social ineptitude. Don't get me wrong, I'm fully aware of the obsessions of youth and had my own ones, however that never really turned me into the complete idiot that is Barrowcliffe at ages 12-15. (To be fair, he repeatedly admits with hindsight that he was an exceedingly annoying and foolish kid -- but that doesn't make his antics any less cringeworthy.) Maybe the problem is that he only had one obsession, whereas all my gamer friends have multiple obsessions, ranging from sports to music to cars to politics to art, etc. By this standard we were more "well-rounded" than Barrowcliffe and his cohort, even though we were still generally social outcasts. The difference was that we generally didn't worry too much about it, and made plenty of good friends through other interests. So my experience with gaming kind of contradicts one of the book's main themes, which is that "normal" kids don't play RPGs and engage in imaginative play.

It's also somewhat illuminating to me that he basically ditches D&D after reinventing himself as a heavy metal fan, and immerses himself in a different social space. None of the gamers I know ever really stopped gaming by choice. For us, there was never any problem gaming on Friday night, going to a punk show with a girl on Saturday, and playing football on Sunday. It wasn't until we reached our 30s and had more career and family commitments that we had to let go of RPGs, simply because it was impossible to schedule regular 8-hour gaming sessions.

And for all his elaborations on how D&D dominated his life, Barrowcliffe rarely succeeds at explaining what makes it so compelling. Quite the opposite, his descriptions of gaming sessions sound utterly awful. Then again, I didn't start playing until I was in my late teens, and the overall tenor was a whole lot more mature than the chaotic, backstabbing sessions described in this book. Some of the gaming stuff he describes is amusing, but mostly it's just kind of sad. In the end, I guess the book is perfectly fine as a memoir, I just had a very hard time relating it to my own D&D experiences. Certainly there are some funny anecdotes, interesting stuff about the early days of RPGing, some quite good stuff about coming of age in England in the '70s, as well as a rather heartbreaking story of friendship lost. But mainly, the book just made me wish that one of my old gang of gamers could find the time to DM a cool mid-level campaign for us.

Outstanding...., 21 Oct 2008
I'm incredibly picky about books. I used to review for SFX and Interzone, and I'm always aware that I can be ferocious with anything I find less than outstanding. Occasionally, I can even muster a snarl when I'm negotiating my way through a real stinker. However, I'm even more hesitant when it comes to reviewing a book I actually like. I continually have to ask the question: is this book truly a brilliant piece of work, or is it just particularly tailored to my own tastes? Well, the latter is certainly true of The Elfish Gene by Mark Barrowcliffe...but it's pretty amazing, too. My favourite thing about Elfish Gene is that, excluding the undeniable talent of the author, it could have been written by just about any of the kids I grew up with. Hell, I could have written it, myself - though I tend to gloss over the effect gaming has had on my life, so it wouldn't have been anywhere near as balanced and as honest as this undoubtedly is. Mark Barrowcliffe is immediately likeable, to the point where anyone who spent their teenage years immersed in D&D will genuinely have to stop themselves from hunting him down on the net and confessing, in a heartfelt sob, how delighted they are to see written evidence that they weren't alone. This book isn't just for gamers, though: it's a warm, funny and moving story ABOUT gamers. These are people all around you...the curious kids you grew up with who wandered around staring distractedly at the clouds and always seemed to take four or five minutes to answer relatively simple questions about the weather and what they were having for dinner. As adults, most of them move around you, now, albeit not shouting about their hobby from the rooftops. I write fantasy books for a living, so I might be an obvious gamer - but the others around the various tables I sit each week include a motorbike dealer, a principal consultant for an insurance broker, a museum education director, a customs' officer and a railway engineer. We're all around you....and this book contains everything you need to know about the people they were growing up. I absolutely loved it, and am personally devastated that it's over. Highly, highly recommended.

I'm incredibly picky about books. I used to review for SFX and Interzone, and I'm always aware that I can be ferocious with anything I find less than outstanding. Occasionally, I can even muster a snarl when I'm negotiating my way through a real stinker. However, I'm even more hesitant when it comes to reviewing a book I actually like. I continually have to ask the question: is this book truly a brilliant piece of work, or is it just particularly tailored to my own tastes? Well, the latter is certainly true of The Elfish Gene by Mark Barrowcliffe...but it's pretty amazing, too. Before I delve any deeper, here's a brief synopsis:



In the summer 1976, twelve-year-old Mark Barrowcliffe had a chance to be normal. He blew it. While other teenagers were being coolly rebellious, Mark--and 20 million other boys in the 1970s and 80s--chose to spend his entire adolescence pretending to be a wizard or a warrior, an evil priest or a dwarf. He had discovered Dungeons & Dragons, and his life would never be the same. No longer would he have to settle for being Mark Barrowcliffe, an ordinary awkward teenager from working-class Coventry, England; he could be Alf the Elf, Foghat the Gnome, or Effilc Worrab, an elven warrior with the head of a mule.Armed only with pen, paper and some funny-shaped dice, this lost generation gave themselves up to the craze of fantasy role-playing games and everything that went with it--from heavy metal to magic mushrooms to believing that your bike is a horse named Shadowfax. Spat at by bullies, laughed at by girls, now they rule the world. They were the geeks, the fantasy wargamers, and this is their story.


My favourite thing about Elfish Gene is that, excluding the undeniable talent of the author, it could have been written by just about any of the kids I grew up with. Hell, I could have written it, myself - though I tend to gloss over the effect gaming has had on my life, so it wouldn't have been anywhere near as balanced and as honest as this undoubtedly is. Mark Barrowcliffe is immediately likeable, to the point where anyone who spent their teenage years immersed in D&D will genuinely have to stop themselves from hunting him down on the net and confessing, in a heartfelt sob, how delighted they are to see written evidence that they weren't alone. This book isn't just for gamers, though: it's a warm, funny and moving story ABOUT gamers. These are people all around you...the curious kids you grew up with who wandered around staring distractedly at the clouds and always seemed to take four or five minutes to answer relatively simple questions about the weather and what they were having for dinner. As adults, most of them move around you, now, albeit not shouting about their hobby from the rooftops. I write fantasy books for a living, so I might be an obvious gamer - but the others around the various tables I sit each week include a motorbike dealer, a principal consultant for an insurance broker, a museum education director, a customs' officer and a railway engineer. We're all around you....and this book contains everything you need to know about the people we were growing up. I absolutely loved it, and am personally devastated that it's over. Highly, highly recommended.



Teenage Monsters, 08 Aug 2008
There is a fundamental problem with the idea behind this book. If you played D&D in the early years, you can probably remember what it was like, so reading the book will feel all too familiar. If you've never played, you probably don't care enough to pick the book up in the first place. So the question is, can Barrowcliffe's writing transcend this problem and deliver a book worth reading?

The answer is, just about. There are some sections of the book that deal with the game's minutiae that won't interest anybody but ardent fans (who will probably be mentally noting all the mistakes and omissions) but there are also lots of great chapters that deal with the trials and tribulations of the geeky adolescent.

Barrowcliffe is refreshingly honest with himself and the reader about how horrible he was as a teenager and also describes well, the crushing insecurities and cravings for acceptance, that most of us felt as we grew up. I don't remember D&D being quite as anarchic as the author describes but I can certainly identify with the obsessive characters portrayed on the pages of 'The Elfish Gene'. There are also some delightful set-pieces; every man has stories of crazy plans they attempted, which to their teenage minds seemed perfectly sensible and Barrowcliffe outlines his in hilarious fashion.

If you have ever roleplayed, you will recognise some of yourself in this book and will certainly enjoy most of it. The nostalgia trip is worth the cover price alone. If you haven't, you will probably still enjoy reading 'The Elfish Gene', but be prepared to wade through the odd chunk of text dealing with elves, wizards and oddly shaped dice.


Very funny, yet rather sad, 23 Jun 2008
I really enjoyed the book, very well written and thought provoking. I also spent much of my teenage years roleplaying, and continue to do so, and I certainly recognised the teenage boy behaviour that made the whole growing up experience fairly painful.
He evokes the time very well, and many of his descriptions of gaming took me right back. As with any creative endeavour, how much fun it will be depends on who you do it with, and the end of his friendship with Billy is achingly sad.
I'm sorry that the tribulations of his teenage years alienated him from what can be a fantastic hobby.



A brilliant evocation of spotty adolescence, 13 May 2008
This book is laugh out loud funny, especially if you've played any form of Role playing game.

For some reason D&D largely passed me by, I played a bit of traveller & MERP at Uni but never really got heavily into it, however I was right in the middle of the nerdy computer/sci-fi/fantasy world.

Mark Barrowcliffe brilliantly evokes adolescense with its strange obsessions, malfunctioning body parts and crippling social anxiety.

Where I would disagree with him is his analysis - he claims D&D ruined his teenage years, whereas I rather suspect he would have a had a pretty ropey time, D&D or not. I certainly did. He says he was never bored whilst a teenager which seems like a pretty good deal to me. Also D&D honed his narrative skills - a novelist's bread and butter, surely.

However if you ignore the analysis, and the rather depressing Coda this is an excellent read and very funny, too.

Rubbish, 20 Oct 2008
I thought it would be funny and heartfelt - not a ego driven ramble... let's just be thankful that all those women escaped!!

Not great, 02 Sep 2008
I really expected a lot from this book, but Mark Barrowcliffe comes across as extremely smug, and without many redeeming features. Given the subject material, this should have been a 'laugh out loud' page-turner. It isn't. To be fair though, there are a few amusing anecdotes.
Don't bother with this...read something by Matt Dunn instead. Or Colin Butts.

Funny and moving, 07 Jul 2008
I loved 'The Elfish Gene' - Barrowcliffe's memoir about playing Dungeons and Dragons - and was keen to see what he'd write about next. 'Mr Wrong' focuses soley on his love life...in great detail. It's funny, insightful and moving. The author does marvellous jokes and manages to create sympathy for himself and the women he has known (and I mean known in the Biblical sense). Definitely worth getting.

Youth of Horrors, 31 Oct 2008
As a 30-something male who spent a good deal of my teen years playing wargames and role-playing games, I'm squarely within the target audience for this "growing up geeky" memoir by English novelist Barrowcliffe. However, much as I desperately wanted to revel in the trials and tribulations of his '70s Coventry youth, I just wasn't ever able to connect with them. It's kind of obvious to say, but when a memoir doesn't work for me, it's because I'm not really enjoying the company of the author.

My problem lay in the combination of his obsession with D&D and his total social ineptitude. Don't get me wrong, I'm fully aware of the obsessions of youth and had my own ones, however that never really turned me into the complete idiot that is Barrowcliffe at ages 12-15. (To be fair, he repeatedly admits with hindsight that he was an exceedingly annoying and foolish kid -- but that doesn't make his antics any less cringeworthy.) Maybe the problem is that he only had one obsession, whereas all my gamer friends have multiple obsessions, ranging from sports to music to cars to politics to art, etc. By this standard we were more "well-rounded" than Barrowcliffe and his cohort, even though we were still generally social outcasts. The difference was that we generally didn't worry too much about it, and made plenty of good friends through other interests. So my experience with gaming kind of contradicts one of the book's main themes, which is that "normal" kids don't play RPGs and engage in imaginative play.

It's also somewhat illuminating to me that he basically ditches D&D after reinventing himself as a heavy metal fan, and immerses himself in a different social space. None of the gamers I know ever really stopped gaming by choice. For us, there was never any problem gaming on Friday night, going to a punk show with a girl on Saturday, and playing football on Sunday. It wasn't until we reached our 30s and had more career and family commitments that we had to let go of RPGs, simply because it was impossible to schedule regular 8-hour gaming sessions.

And for all his elaborations on how D&D dominated his life, Barrowcliffe rarely succeeds at explaining what makes it so compelling. Quite the opposite, his descriptions of gaming sessions sound utterly awful. Then again, I didn't start playing until I was in my late teens, and the overall tenor was a whole lot more mature than the chaotic, backstabbing sessions described in this book. Some of the gaming stuff he describes is amusing, but mostly it's just kind of sad. In the end, I guess the book is perfectly fine as a memoir, I just had a very hard time relating it to my own D&D experiences. Certainly there are some funny anecdotes, interesting stuff about the early days of RPGing, some quite good stuff about coming of age in England in the '70s, as well as a rather heartbreaking story of friendship lost. But mainly, the book just made me wish that one of my old gang of gamers could find the time to DM a cool mid-level campaign for us.

Outstanding...., 21 Oct 2008
I'm incredibly picky about books. I used to review for SFX and Interzone, and I'm always aware that I can be ferocious with anything I find less than outstanding. Occasionally, I can even muster a snarl when I'm negotiating my way through a real stinker. However, I'm even more hesitant when it comes to reviewing a book I actually like. I continually have to ask the question: is this book truly a brilliant piece of work, or is it just particularly tailored to my own tastes? Well, the latter is certainly true of The Elfish Gene by Mark Barrowcliffe...but it's pretty amazing, too. My favourite thing about Elfish Gene is that, excluding the undeniable talent of the author, it could have been written by just about any of the kids I grew up with. Hell, I could have written it, myself - though I tend to gloss over the effect gaming has had on my life, so it wouldn't have been anywhere near as balanced and as honest as this undoubtedly is. Mark Barrowcliffe is immediately likeable, to the point where anyone who spent their teenage years immersed in D&D will genuinely have to stop themselves from hunting him down on the net and confessing, in a heartfelt sob, how delighted they are to see written evidence that they weren't alone. This book isn't just for gamers, though: it's a warm, funny and moving story ABOUT gamers. These are people all around you...the curious kids you grew up with who wandered around staring distractedly at the clouds and always seemed to take four or five minutes to answer relatively simple questions about the weather and what they were having for dinner. As adults, most of them move around you, now, albeit not shouting about their hobby from the rooftops. I write fantasy books for a living, so I might be an obvious gamer - but the others around the various tables I sit each week include a motorbike dealer, a principal consultant for an insurance broker, a museum education director, a customs' officer and a railway engineer. We're all around you....and this book contains everything you need to know about the people they were growing up. I absolutely loved it, and am personally devastated that it's over. Highly, highly recommended.

I'm incredibly picky about books. I used to review for SFX and Interzone, and I'm always aware that I can be ferocious with anything I find less than outstanding. Occasionally, I can even muster a snarl when I'm negotiating my way through a real stinker. However, I'm even more hesitant when it comes to reviewing a book I actually like. I continually have to ask the question: is this book truly a brilliant piece of work, or is it just particularly tailored to my own tastes? Well, the latter is certainly true of The Elfish Gene by Mark Barrowcliffe...but it's pretty amazing, too. Before I delve any deeper, here's a brief synopsis:



In the summer 1976, twelve-year-old Mark Barrowcliffe had a chance to be normal. He blew it. While other teenagers were being coolly rebellious, Mark--and 20 million other boys in the 1970s and 80s--chose to spend his entire adolescence pretending to be a wizard or a warrior, an evil priest or a dwarf. He had discovered Dungeons & Dragons, and his life would never be the same. No longer would he have to settle for being Mark Barrowcliffe, an ordinary awkward teenager from working-class Coventry, England; he could be Alf the Elf, Foghat the Gnome, or Effilc Worrab, an elven warrior with the head of a mule.Armed only with pen, paper and some funny-shaped dice, this lost generation gave themselves up to the craze of fantasy role-playing games and everything that went with it--from heavy metal to magic mushrooms to believing that your bike is a horse named Shadowfax. Spat at by bullies, laughed at by girls, now they rule the world. They were the geeks, the fantasy wargamers, and this is their story.


My favourite thing about Elfish Gene is that, excluding the undeniable talent of the author, it could have been written by just about any of the kids I grew up with. Hell, I could have written it, myself - though I tend to gloss over the effect gaming has had on my life, so it wouldn't have been anywhere near as balanced and as honest as this undoubtedly is. Mark Barrowcliffe is immediately likeable, to the point where anyone who spent their teenage years immersed in D&D will genuinely have to stop themselves from hunting him down on the net and confessing, in a heartfelt sob, how delighted they are to see written evidence that they weren't alone. This book isn't just for gamers, though: it's a warm, funny and moving story ABOUT gamers. These are people all around you...the curious kids you grew up with who wandered around staring distractedly at the clouds and always seemed to take four or five minutes to answer relatively simple questions about the weather and what they were having for dinner. As adults, most of them move around you, now, albeit not shouting about their hobby from the rooftops. I write fantasy books for a living, so I might be an obvious gamer - but the others around the various tables I sit each week include a motorbike dealer, a principal consultant for an insurance broker, a museum education director, a customs' officer and a railway engineer. We're all around you....and this book contains everything you need to know about the people we were growing up. I absolutely loved it, and am personally devastated that it's over. Highly, highly recommended.



Teenage Monsters, 08 Aug 2008
There is a fundamental problem with the idea behind this book. If you played D&D in the early years, you can probably remember what it was like, so reading the book will feel all too familiar. If you've never played, you probably don't care enough to pick the book up in the first place. So the question is, can Barrowcliffe's writing transcend this problem and deliver a book worth reading?

The answer is, just about. There are some sections of the book that deal with the game's minutiae that won't interest anybody but ardent fans (who will probably be mentally noting all the mistakes and omissions) but there are also lots of great chapters that deal with the trials and tribulations of the geeky adolescent.

Barrowcliffe is refreshingly honest with himself and the reader about how horrible he was as a teenager and also describes well, the crushing insecurities and cravings for acceptance, that most of us felt as we grew up. I don't remember D&D being quite as anarchic as the author describes but I can certainly identify with the obsessive characters portrayed on the pages of 'The Elfish Gene'. There are also some delightful set-pieces; every man has stories of crazy plans they attempted, which to their teenage minds seemed perfectly sensible and Barrowcliffe outlines his in hilarious fashion.

If you have ever roleplayed, you will recognise some of yourself in this book and will certainly enjoy most of it. The nostalgia trip is worth the cover price alone. If you haven't, you will probably still enjoy reading 'The Elfish Gene', but be prepared to wade through the odd chunk of text dealing with elves, wizards and oddly shaped dice.


Very funny, yet rather sad, 23 Jun 2008
I really enjoyed the book, very well written and thought provoking. I also spent much of my teenage years roleplaying, and continue to do so, and I certainly recognised the teenage boy behaviour that made the whole growing up experience fairly painful.
He evokes the time very well, and many of his descriptions of gaming took me right back. As with any creative endeavour, how much fun it will be depends on who you do it with, and the end of his friendship with Billy is achingly sad.
I'm sorry that the tribulations of his teenage years alienated him from what can be a fantastic hobby.



A brilliant evocation of spotty adolescence, 13 May 2008
This book is laugh out loud funny, especially if you've played any form of Role playing game.

For some reason D&D largely passed me by, I played a bit of traveller & MERP at Uni but never really got heavily into it, however I was right in the middle of the nerdy computer/sci-fi/fantasy world.

Mark Barrowcliffe brilliantly evokes adolescense with its strange obsessions, malfunctioning body parts and crippling social anxiety.

Where I would disagree with him is his analysis - he claims D&D ruined his teenage years, whereas I rather suspect he would have a had a pretty ropey time, D&D or not. I certainly did. He says he was never bored whilst a teenager which seems like a pretty good deal to me. Also D&D honed his narrative skills - a novelist's bread and butter, surely.

However if you ignore the analysis, and the rather depressing Coda this is an excellent read and very funny, too.

Rubbish, 20 Oct 2008
I thought it would be funny and heartfelt - not a ego driven ramble... let's just be thankful that all those women escaped!!

Not great, 02 Sep 2008
I really expected a lot from this book, but Mark Barrowcliffe comes across as extremely smug, and without many redeeming features. Given the subject material, this should have been a 'laugh out loud' page-turner. It isn't. To be fair though, there are a few amusing anecdotes.
Don't bother with this...read something by Matt Dunn instead. Or Colin Butts.

Funny and moving, 07 Jul 2008
I loved 'The Elfish Gene' - Barrowcliffe's memoir about playing Dungeons and Dragons - and was keen to see what he'd write about next. 'Mr Wrong' focuses soley on his love life...in great detail. It's funny, insightful and moving. The author does marvellous jokes and manages to create sympathy for himself and the women he has known (and I mean known in the Biblical sense). Definitely worth getting.

Youth of Horrors, 31 Oct 2008
As a 30-something male who spent a good deal of my teen years playing wargames and role-playing games, I'm squarely within the target audience for this "growing up geeky" memoir by English novelist Barrowcliffe. However, much as I desperately wanted to revel in the trials and tribulations of his '70s Coventry youth, I just wasn't ever able to connect with them. It's kind of obvious to say, but when a memoir doesn't work for me, it's because I'm not really enjoying the company of the author.

My problem lay in the combination of his obsession with D&D and his total social ineptitude. Don't get me wrong, I'm fully aware of the obsessions of youth and had my own ones, however that never really turned me into the complete idiot that is Barrowcliffe at ages 12-15. (To be fair, he repeatedly admits with hindsight that he was an exceedingly annoying and foolish kid -- but that doesn't make his antics any less cringeworthy.) Maybe the problem is that he only had one obsession, whereas all my gamer friends have multiple obsessions, ranging from sports to music to cars to politics to art, etc. By this standard we were more "well-rounded" than Barrowcliffe and his cohort, even though we were still generally social outcasts. The difference was that we generally didn't worry too much about it, and made plenty of good friends through other interests. So my experience with gaming kind of contradicts one of the book's main themes, which is that "normal" kids don't play RPGs and engage in imaginative play.

It's also somewhat illuminating to me that he basically ditches D&D after reinventing himself as a heavy metal fan, and immerses himself in a different social space. None of the gamers I know ever really stopped gaming by choice. For us, there was never any problem gaming on Friday night, going to a punk show with a girl on Saturday, and playing football on Sunday. It wasn't until we reached our 30s and had more career and family commitments that we had to let go of RPGs, simply because it was impossible to schedule regular 8-hour gaming sessions.

And for all his elaborations on how D&D dominated his life, Barrowcliffe rarely succeeds at explaining what makes it so compelling. Quite the opposite, his descriptions of gaming sessions sound utterly awful. Then again, I didn't start playing until I was in my late teens, and the overall tenor was a whole lot more mature than the chaotic, backstabbing sessions described in this book. Some of the gaming stuff he describes is amusing, but mostly it's just kind of sad. In the end, I guess the book is perfectly fine as a memoir, I just had a very hard time relating it to my own D&D experiences. Certainly there are some funny anecdotes, interesting stuff about the early days of RPGing, some quite good stuff about coming of age in England in the '70s, as well as a rather heartbreaking story of friendship lost. But mainly, the book just made me wish that one of my old gang of gamers could find the time to DM a cool mid-level campaign for us.

Outstanding...., 21 Oct 2008
I'm incredibly picky about books. I used to review for SFX and Interzone, and I'm always aware that I can be ferocious with anything I find less than outstanding. Occasionally, I can even muster a snarl when I'm negotiating my way through a real stinker. However, I'm even more hesitant when it comes to reviewing a book I actually like. I continually have to ask the question: is this book truly a brilliant piece of work, or is it just particularly tailored to my own tastes? Well, the latter is certainly true of The Elfish Gene by Mark Barrowcliffe...but it's pretty amazing, too. My favourite thing about Elfish Gene is that, excluding the undeniable talent of the author, it could have been written by just about any of the kids I grew up with. Hell, I could have written it, myself - though I tend to gloss over the effect gaming has had on my life, so it wouldn't have been anywhere near as balanced and as honest as this undoubtedly is. Mark Barrowcliffe is immediately likeable, to the point where anyone who spent their teenage years immersed in D&D will genuinely have to stop themselves from hunting him down on the net and confessing, in a heartfelt sob, how delighted they are to see written evidence that they weren't alone. This book isn't just for gamers, though: it's a warm, funny and moving story ABOUT gamers. These are people all around you...the curious kids you grew up with who wandered around staring distractedly at the clouds and always seemed to take four or five minutes to answer relatively simple questions about the weather and what they were having for dinner. As adults, most of them move around you, now, albeit not shouting about their hobby from the rooftops. I write fantasy books for a living, so I might be an obvious gamer - but the others around the various tables I sit each week include a motorbike dealer, a principal consultant for an insurance broker, a museum education director, a customs' officer and a railway engineer. We're all around you....and this book contains everything you need to know about the people they were growing up. I absolutely loved it, and am personally devastated that it's over. Highly, highly recommended.

I'm incredibly picky about books. I used to review for SFX and Interzone, and I'm always aware that I can be ferocious with anything I find less than outstanding. Occasionally, I can even muster a snarl when I'm negotiating my way through a real stinker. However, I'm even more hesitant when it comes to reviewing a book I actually like. I continually have to ask the question: is this book truly a brilliant piece of work, or is it just particularly tailored to my own tastes? Well, the latter is certainly true of The Elfish Gene by Mark Barrowcliffe...but it's pretty amazing, too. Before I delve any deeper, here's a brief synopsis:



In the summer 1976, twelve-year-old Mark Barrowcliffe had a chance to be normal. He blew it. While other teenagers were being coolly rebellious, Mark--and 20 million other boys in the 1970s and 80s--chose to spend his entire adolescence pretending to be a wizard or a warrior, an evil priest or a dwarf. He had discovered Dungeons & Dragons, and his life would never be the same. No longer would he have to settle for being Mark Barrowcliffe, an ordinary awkward teenager from working-class Coventry, England; he could be Alf the Elf, Foghat the Gnome, or Effilc Worrab, an elven warrior with the head of a mule.Armed only with pen, paper and some funny-shaped dice, this lost generation gave themselves up to the craze of fantasy role-playing games and everything that went with it--from heavy metal to magic mushrooms to believing that your bike is a horse named Shadowfax. Spat at by bullies, laughed at by girls, now they rule the world. They were the geeks, the fantasy wargamers, and this is their story.


My favourite thing about Elfish Gene is that, excluding the undeniable talent of the author, it could have been written by just about any of the kids I grew up with. Hell, I could have written it, myself - though I tend to gloss over the effect gaming has had on my life, so it wouldn't have been anywhere near as balanced and as honest as this undoubtedly is. Mark Barrowcliffe is immediately likeable, to the point where anyone who spent their teenage years immersed in D&D will genuinely have to stop themselves from hunting him down on the net and confessing, in a heartfelt sob, how delighted they are to see written evidence that they weren't alone. This book isn't just for gamers, though: it's a warm, funny and moving story ABOUT gamers. These are people all around you...the curious kids you grew up with who wandered around staring distractedly at the clouds and always seemed to take four or five minutes to answer relatively simple questions about the weather and what they were having for dinner. As adults, most of them move around you, now, albeit not shouting about their hobby from the rooftops. I write fantasy books for a living, so I might be an obvious gamer - but the others around the various tables I sit each week include a motorbike dealer, a principal consultant for an insurance broker, a museum education director, a customs' officer and a railway engineer. We're all around you....and this book contains everything you need to know about the people we were growing up. I absolutely loved it, and am personally devastated that it's over. Highly, highly recommended.



Teenage Monsters, 08 Aug 2008
There is a fundamental problem with the idea behind this book. If you played D&D in the early years, you can probably remember what it was like, so reading the book will feel all too familiar. If you've never played, you probably don't care enough to pick the book up in the first place. So the question is, can Barrowcliffe's writing transcend this problem and deliver a book worth reading?

The answer is, just about. There are some sections of the book that deal with the game's minutiae that won't interest anybody but ardent fans (who will probably be mentally noting all the mistakes and omissions) but there are also lots of great chapters that deal with the trials and tribulations of the geeky adolescent.

Barrowcliffe is refreshingly honest with himself and the reader about how horrible he was as a teenager and also describes well, the crushing insecurities and cravings for acceptance, that most of us felt as we grew up. I don't remember D&D being quite as anarchic as the author describes but I can certainly identify with the obsessive characters portrayed on the pages of 'The Elfish Gene'. There are also some delightful set-pieces; every man has stories of crazy plans they attempted, which to their teenage minds seemed perfectly sensible and Barrowcliffe outlines his in hilarious fashion.

If you have ever roleplayed, you will recognise some of yourself in this book and will certainly enjoy most of it. The nostalgia trip is worth the cover price alone. If you haven't, you will probably still enjoy reading 'The Elfish Gene', but be prepared to wade through the odd chunk of text dealing with elves, wizards and oddly shaped dice.


Very funny, yet rather sad, 23 Jun 2008
I really enjoyed the book, very well written and thought provoking. I also spent much of my teenage years roleplaying, and continue to do so, and I certainly recognised the teenage boy behaviour that made the whole growing up experience fairly painful.
He evokes the time very well, and many of his descriptions of gaming took me right back. As with any creative endeavour, how much fun it will be depends on who you do it with, and the end of his friendship with Billy is achingly sad.
I'm sorry that the tribulations of his teenage years alienated him from what can be a fantastic hobby.



A brilliant evocation of spotty adolescence, 13 May 2008
This book is laugh out loud funny, especially if you've played any form of Role playing game.

For some reason D&D largely passed me by, I played a bit of traveller & MERP at Uni but never really got heavily into it, however I was right in the middle of the nerdy computer/sci-fi/fantasy world.

Mark Barrowcliffe brilliantly evokes adolescense with its strange obsessions, malfunctioning body parts and crippling social anxiety.

Where I would disagree with him is his analysis - he claims D&D ruined his teenage years, whereas I rather suspect he would have a had a pretty ropey time, D&D or not. I certainly did. He says he was never bored whilst a teenager which seems like a pretty good deal to me. Also D&D honed his narrative skills - a novelist's bread and butter, surely.

However if you ignore the analysis, and the rather depressing Coda this is an excellent read and very funny, too.