Jump to content

Luke Rhinehart

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
This is an old revision of this page, as edited by R Lowry (talk | contribs) at 17:33, 15 June 2003 (sp). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

Luke Rhinehart is the pen name of the author George Cockcroft (see that entry for a biography). Alternatively, one could say that George Cockcroft is the legal name of the diceperson Luke Rhinehart. Luke Rhinehart is also a character in some of George Cockcroft's books: to avoid confusion, in this article "George Cockcroft" will refer to the author, while "Luke Rhinehart" will refer to the character.

In accordance with Finagle's law, many websites refer to him as George Cockroft, without a "c".

The Books

Much of George 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 quoted from a future book that he did not actually write until over 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. Many believe that the best parts of the stories are the sections of sheer hilarity, which come in brief ten page bursts. These 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 Book of Est shows that he is capable of writing wholly factual accounts too. In all his books, George Cockcroft focuses attention on only a few characters: typically less than five. Other characters are introduced, but solely as caricatures or plot devices.

Bibliography

Forthcoming

There are also continuing plans to release the story of either Luke, Larry, or Wim as a movie. Currently the rights to The Search for the Diceman rest with New Line Cinema, and Brian Evans has written a screenplay for it but nothing has happened to it so far. The rights to The Dice Man rest with Paramount Pictures.

George Cockcroft has written a number of screenplays himself, including one on The Dice Man, and Adventures of Wim, in an effort to accelerate the process, but with no success. Luke Rhinehart would seem not to be a Hollywood-style hero.

Spin-offs and Influences

Companies, being companies, have often attempted to profit from the ideas of The Dice Man, and a few such ventures are noted below. Also, a number of musicians, writers, artists, and other people have been influenced by the ideas. A wide influence for a small paperback book sold for less than a fiver.

Commercial Ventures

Dice have always been colloquially referred to as rocks, and the makers of Rolling Rock lager knew a good tie-in when they saw one. They launched a series of adverts based around the diceman theme, and even a Diceliving website (now defunct), and have since been associated with Luke's books. Indeed, the rise from the dead of Rolling Rock in the late 1990s has partially been attributed to the rise of dicing at around the same time, fueled, perhaps, by Internet chatrooms where role-playing is common.

It has been claimed that 'Barter Books' in Alnwick, England is or was a dice centre.

Music References

The Dice Man has turned up in several songs - here's a quick list:

Other Art

Art which exploits the principle of randomness is called aleatory. Several pieces of aleatory art have been partially inspired by the writings of George Cockcroft.

The Discovery Channel recently hired a pair of part-time dicers to do a Diceman Travel programme based on the dice. Where they go, what they see, and what they do, all are based on the roll of a dice. Apparently it's been popular, though the tendency of the dice to steer the couple off in strange directions has caused problems for the producers and editors.

On film, there have been at least three documentaries on diceliving and the philosophy of the dice, including one 50-minute short film called Dice World by Paul Wilmshurst, and published by Channel Four in the USA.

Ben Marshall, of Loaded magazine, spent two years from 1998 to 2000 experimenting with being a diceman, and writing up his experiences in the magazine. This seems to have been a big hit with the readers, and Loaded subsequently named Luke Rhinehart as writer of the century. Praise indeed.

Larnie Reid Fox invented (or popularised) the idea of the DiceWalk, which was featured in the May 28, 2003 edition of sfweekly.

Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Luke_Rhinehart&oldid=1039638"