George Cockcroft - Writing

Writing

Much of Cockcroft's writing follows the styles of his first book, The Dice Man. He switches rapidly between a first and third person view, and intersperses that narrative flow with (fictional) excerpts from journals, minutes of meetings, and other sources. This gives the impression of a larger story, of which just a glimpse is being seen. In one case, he even quotes from a future book that he did not actually write until more than two decades later. The moods of the book change rapidly too; a single book might have sections of erotica, thriller, comedy, psychology, romance, philosophy, and detective in it — not mixed together, but standing side by side with only a chapter number, if that, between them. Sections of carefully timed comic relief include a sex scene in the middle of a river, various dice parties, and a hallucinogenic tomato plant.

On the other hand, Long Voyage Back, and Matari show that he is entirely comfortable writing somewhat more traditional fiction, and The Book of est shows that he is capable of writing wholly factual accounts too. In all his books, Cockcroft focuses attention on only a few characters — typically fewer than five. Other characters are introduced, but solely as caricatures or plot devices.

The Book of the Die is a collection of thoughts and ideas about dicing - its purpose, the meaning of life, and so forth - much in the style that might be expected from George Cockcroft's previous work. Interspersed with this are frequent parables, poems, stories. Some are from his earlier books, some from the new ones, some stolen and rewritten from various well-known sayings and writings, some from his followers (both real and imaginary), and some which purport to be from his own life. Roughly at the end of each chapter are six dice options, with the standard instructions: "Read the options, throw out one or two (or all six) and replace them, then roll a dice and do as suggested." The dice options, and the book in general, aim to be intriguing and thought-provoking. It contains lots of amusing or absurd sections, as if to counter-point the occasional more serious sections.

There are also continuing plans to release the story of either Luke, Larry or Wim as a movie. Cockcroft has written a number of screenplays himself, including one on The Dice Man, and WHIM, in an effort to accelerate the process, and both projects are being pushed forward on several fronts.