The Search for the Dice Man

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The Search for the Dice Man

LukeRhinehart TheSearchForTheDiceMan.jpg

Cover to the UK first edition
Author Luke Rhinehart
Country United States
Language English
Genre Novel
Publisher HarperCollins
Publication date
7 June 1993
Media type Print (hardback & paperback)
Pages 450 pp (hardback edition) & 386 pp (paperback edition)
ISBN 0-00-223937-X (hardback edition) & ISBN   0-586-21515-8 (paperback edition)
OCLC 28561047
Preceded by The Dice Man

The Search for the Dice Man was written by George Cockcroft under the pen name Luke Rhinehart. It is the official sequel to The Dice Man , and was published in 1993.

Luke Rhinehart American writer

George Powers Cockcroft, known by the pen name Luke Rhinehart ,is an American novelist and screenwriter, author of eleven books. He is best known for his 1971 novel The Dice Man, the story of a psychiatrist who experiments with the multiple parts of his personality by making life decisions based on the roll of a die.

<i>The Dice Man</i> book

The Dice Man is a novel published in 1971 by George Cockcroft under the pen name Luke Rhinehart and tells the story of a psychiatrist who begins making life decisions based on the casting of dice. Cockcroft wrote the book based on his own experiences of using dice to make decisions while studying psychology. The novel is noted for its subversion, anti-psychiatry sentiments and for reflecting moods of the early 1970s. Due to its subversive nature and chapters concerned with controversial issues such as rape, murder and sexual experimentation, it was banned in several countries. Upon its initial publication, the cover bore the confident subheader, "Few novels can change your life. This one will" and quickly became a modern cult classic. The book went through a number of republishings - in the United States it acquired the even more confident subheader "This book will change your life". It was initially not successful in the United States but did better in Europe, particularly England, Sweden, Denmark and Spain.

Contents

Other books by George Cockcroft with the same themes: The Dice Man , Adventures of Wim , The Book of the Die .

<i>Adventures of Wim</i> book by George Cockcroft

Adventures of Wim or is a book by George Cockcroft, written under the pen name Luke Rhinehart. It was published in 1986, and was sold as "The sequel, well almost, to The Dice Man". This version is no longer in print. A "major reworking" of the book was later published under the title of Whim in 2002.

Plot summary

The book is set 20 years after the end of The Dice Man, and Luke's dicechild, Larry Rhinehart, has grown up to become a hotshot investor on the stock market. He has totally rejected his father's reverence for chance: he sees it as an adversary to be overcome, and has managed to create a stable, normal life for himself, in spite of his early abandonment. Indeed, he is due to wed the daughter of his boss, and live wealthily ever after.

Stock market public entity for the trading of company stocks and shares

A stock market, equity market or share market is the aggregation of buyers and sellers of stocks, which represent ownership claims on businesses; these may include securities listed on a public stock exchange, as well as stock that is only traded privately. Examples of the latter include shares of private companies which are sold to investors through equity crowdfunding platforms. Stock exchanges list shares of common equity as well as other security types, e.g. corporate bonds and convertible bonds.

This state of affairs would make a dull story and soon his father's ghostly presence intervenes. He gets approached by the FBI, who are trying to trace his father's location, and find out whether he's alive or dead. Though Larry naturally refuses to have anything to do with the FBI, he soon starts to pursue his own investigations. He is financed in this by his fiancée's father, who wants to put the whole dice business to rest, and is accompanied by his fiancée's cousin, an unreformed hippy.

It takes a long time - a whole book in fact, but Larry eventually does complete his quest. Along the way, what he sees and hears change his views somewhat; by the end of the book it is he who is trying to convince Luke, his father, to accept more chance into his life, rather than the other way round.

Release details

International Standard Book Number Unique numeric book identifier

The International Standard Book Number (ISBN) is a numeric commercial book identifier which is intended to be unique. Publishers purchase ISBNs from an affiliate of the International ISBN Agency.

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