The Elfish Gene: Dungeons, Dragons and Growing Up Strange Book

(Note, read the authors comments in the comments section, he points out a few factual errors in this review that I think are worth noting before taking my review seriously.)

Hahahaha...no.

I picked this book up because I was a huge dork in high school and middle school - the dorkiest, and hung out with some fairly damaged individuals. I was looking at a book to wince at my own memories as I share someone elses, and also in a way celebrate that time.

Barrowcliffe has...issues, though. He has a tendency to write sweeping generalizations he shouldn't ("Women don't play Dungeons and Dragons") or talk about his high school being worse than Abu Ghraib (really? You fucking went there, pal?). It's filled with tons of amusing stories, and really gets alive when he talks about gaming - you can tell that, despite all of it, he really loved playing - but in the end, this is the story about a writer with a fantastic ego twisting in his own insecurities.

There's a post-script at the end about how he went to a modern game with strangers, that feels tacked on because it probably was. I can just imagine an editor forcing him to try things out to give readers an idea what things are like today, and him resisting all the while. As it is read, Barrowcliffe starts off having to remind the reader yet again he is successful and has a wife and a kid. He goes into the game with every intent to dislike it, and does, and lets the players know he has a wife and a kid, and more importantly, he's a writer! He writes things. The players are not impressed or try to impress him back, and he is horrified they don't give him proper respect. He ends the book with a pity condemenation of these poor, poor souls, and retreats to the safety of...you guessed it...his wife and his kid.

Yeah.