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Friday 2 March 2018

Are you trying to run a country?

People keep asking when Jamie and I are going to write another gamebook, and after twenty-two years we finally have. It’s called Can You Brexit (Without Breaking Britain)? and the story begins on the day in 2017 that the UK gave notice of its intention to quit the European Union.

You play the Prime Minister and you have two years (played out over four six-monthly “game turns”) to negotiate Britain’s future relationship with the union of which it has been a member since 1973. Imagine a divorce settlement after forty-five years of marriage, multiply by a half a billion people, add a poisonous cauldron of political ideology, raise to boiling point with a baying partisan press that's way off to the right of Attila the Hun, and you’ll have some idea of how smoothly those talks are going to go.

In Can You Brexit? there are ten main issues to be negotiated (residency rights for EU citizens living in Britain, security & defence arrangements post-Brexit, the National Health Service, etc) and you only have time to oversee a few of those issues in person; the rest are delegated to your ministers. So you have to manage your time while trying to prevent the four metrics (Authority, Economy, Popularity and Goodwill) from going into a tailspin.

Describing it like that makes it sound dry. It’s not. Think Veep or The Thick of It (or, for older readers, Yes Minister) rather than House of Cards or The West Wing. (Not that those last two are dry either, but you know what I mean.) At the same time, we aimed to make the game part of it informative and factually accurate. Perhaps the best comparison is Private Eye, with its blend of blistering satire, nose-tweaking mischief, and hard-nosed determination to speak truth to power. Jamie did win the 2012 Roald Dahl Funny Prize, after all, so trust me, you'll be entertained as well as informed.

Only hours after our agent sent the manuscript out to publishers he was getting replies that described it as brilliant. One editor phoned up the next day to say she’d read it and thought it was a work of genius. There’s a but. None of London’s top publishers took it – and to explain why an editor’s wild enthusiasm for a book could be shot down so easily by the acquisitions committees that make these decisions I’d have to give you a crash course in how modern publishing works. But here's a typical response that we got a month on:
I loved the idea and I promptly sent it round to all my colleagues. I was particularly taken by the level of effort Dave and Jamie have put into it. Added to which, they write really well (the Yes Minister comparison was a good one). I’m afraid where it foundered for us was the horrible greyness of Brexit itself. The book is very funny but the thought of imagining yourself into running the debacle is enough to make anyone want to hide in a cupboard – so I’m not convinced that the coverage I could definitely see this book getting would lead to proper sales… and I’m afraid they all agreed. So I’m afraid in the end we are going to pass, even though there is something essentially very brilliant about the book. It is a great project that definitely deserves success.
That's publishers these days. Always willing to back something they truly believe in, just so long as there's absolutely no risk attached. Pass me the spittoon. Luckily Jamie and I have our own small publishing imprint, so the fruit of a year’s labour doesn’t have to be cast into a desk drawer. I realize it’s not shotgunning zombies or looting dragon hoards, but if you want to see what a gamebook for grown-ups looks like, this one's for you.

And as an antidote to all those naysayers in publishing, who really just want a TV celeb to offer them a book about cats and Brexit, we got this cheering endorsement from my good friend Tim Harford, author of The Undercover Economist and presenter of BBC Radio's More or Less.
“A wholly original approach to the big question of our times, this book educates, entertains, and also achieves the seemingly impossible feat of making you empathise with Theresa May. It reminded me of Yes Minister: it made me laugh, but then it made me think.”



Also available in France, Germany, Italy, Spain, and Australia. Find more about it on Gamebook News.

44 comments:

  1. Looks interesting. What's the combat system in it like, Dave? ;-)

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  2. And... Have you sent a copy to our 'amazing' PM?

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    1. If I had the money I'd send one to every MP, Richard, or at least the cabinet. Almost everything they say suggests they really need to play it.

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    2. Yeah, agreed. It really is scary stuff.

      I mean, I'm not fundamentally opposed to Brexit as I get peoples' concerns and support the independence of countries, however...

      There was no discussion as to what Brexit would look like during the referendum, no plan as to how it would be handled and no clear objectives and a clear understanding of the impacts to the country, etc. In other words, the Business Analyst in me shuddered regarding the wish-washy governance of it all, and still does!

      Without a clear plan the only logical option was to vote 'remain'. At least that's what I thought and didn't reckon we had so many of us in the country willing to risk their futures, and their childrens' futures, in such a blind leap into the unknown.

      Crazy stuff.

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    3. Call me 'Rich' by the way. ;-)

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    4. I wonder why the actual delivery of all the promises didn't seem to factor in most voters' decisions. For example, if you needed an operation, you'd want to know the surgeon's qualifications before agreeing, surely.

      The book isn't intended as an anti-Brexit diatribe, certainly. I want people to see how all these different issues connect and to think about what they want and how it might be achieved. I'm a European federalist myself, but Jamie is not and we've even had readers who voted Leave who say they enjoyed the book.

      Reviews on Amazon, though, that's what we really need ;-)

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    5. I agree, the implementation and the plan was key for me. There wasn't one even remotely discussed during the referendum and there appears to be little now. I'm opposed to the lack of a workable plan and visible strategy.

      Just ordered my copy so once read will certainly add a review.

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  3. I'm hoping I get to change the flag from the Union Jack to crossed hammers. For the sake of those who don't get that reference: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zRvPoCWElOc&list=RDzRvPoCWElOc&t=61

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    1. That's a little outside the scope of the book. Maybe if I ever do a Nineteen Eighty-Four gamebook...

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  4. Nah, 1984 would be considered too dated because of the actual. Do Animal Farm instead and sell it as a book for children. Recruit a generation of anti-Fascists.

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    1. Well, anti-Stalinists in fact. I suppose some would argue it's much the same thing.

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    2. As long as they end up on the "Totalitarianism is a Very Bad Thing" side of the fence, I'm okay with it.

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    3. I did propose to Profile Books, who published my Frankenstein app, that I follow up with an interactive version of Kafka's The Trial. Unfortunately by then they had forgotten that it had been my idea to do interactive classic novels, and somehow they even seemed to have the notion that Inkle had co-written Frankenstein. (Just for the record, it was all my own work. And Mary Shelley's, of course.)

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  5. With both sides spouting such complete nonsense, my default setting of apolitical, don't bother voting, kicked in. Which is where publishers are making incorrect assumptions. People aren't put off by greyness, wouldn't hide in cupboards and probably daydream about being in a position they will never get the opportunity to fulfil.

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    1. I'm not sure. In Goodbye To All That, Graves notices when he's home on leave that the public are all in favour of the war just so long as they don't have to talk about it. Brexit has become like that. So publishers maybe are right, and readers in general would avoid anything that drills down into the details. They're happy to publish comedy books like Five On Brexit Island, just nothing actually in danger of provoking thought. Also, the acquisitions committees at most UK publishing houses are 90% made up of middle-aged women, who won't have a childhood spent on gamebooks and RPGs as a reference point -- that's possibly another factor. And also I suspect the publishers, like voters, don't want to engage with these issues because they are scary and quite complex.

      Anyway, the book is now out there and I just hope it's found by the people who are interested in this stuff.

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    2. "And also I suspect the publishers, like voters, don't want to engage with these issues because they are scary and quite complex."

      Which really is a shame. The voters essentially decide which people are going to decide these issues. You'd think they'd want to have at least a cursory familiarity with the issues to be decided and various parties and peoples' positions on those issues. Or maybe in 2022 they'll vote in Trump to Make Great Britain Great Again...

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    3. Robert Graves is kind of a patron saint of mine, Dave, and I feel he would have loved this book. And George Dangerfield. However, as neither of them are likely to post a review on Amazon for you, I will do so as soon as possible ! Loved that line about David Davis getting his Hogwarts letter. We know he ain't going to Hufflepuff or Ravenclaw !

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    4. Time will inevitably tell, Dave. It got my vote, anyway. :)

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    5. Thanks, guys. I want you to know that your reviews will make my day. They don't even have to be 5-star, honest ;-)

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  6. I'm glad you finally managed to publish it !

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    1. Thanks! Hey, do you suppose there's a French publisher who's a bit bolder than these London ones? Or would French readers decide that the whole Brexit issue is simply too stupid to bother with? (I wouldn't blame them one bit.)

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    2. Alas, I fear that this may be worse than in Britain. Maybe some politicians and people interested by politics would have fun with a Brexit-critical text, but they wouldn't care about a (even excellent) gamebook , "they're too serious for that....". + the market for French gamebooks is now too small. Still yesterday, I was looking at the last "Lone Wolf" (OK, not the best one, but the art was good, and it was still entertaining). The publishers released the last books without the pictures, and they cared so little that they inverted the series order of two of the books....

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    3. I deliberately didn't put the term "gamebook" on the cover of Can You Brexit? because I knew UK publishers would be put off by that. Also, it's not going to have much overlap with gamebook fans; it just happens that I used the structure of a gamebook to present serious information about Brexit. Most publishers couldn't see past the surface, though.

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  7. Such a shame that there seems to be a deficit of courage in publishing these days. Hopefully the book garners notoriety and sales on the strength of the writing. I've ordered my copy anyway, trusting it will still make sense to us lowly Antipodeans.

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    1. Thanks, Michael. It'll be interesting to hear how it all looks from outside the UK. There are times when I think our friends abroad really ought to stage an intervention.

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  8. Referencing both George Dangerfield’s “Strange Death of Liberal England” and “Dragon Warriors Book 2 The Way of Wizardry” I was wondering if maybe “Words of Damocles” would be a good title for the follow up to this volume ?

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    1. I have a soft spot for Damocles, John -- the name, that is, not the courtier in the story -- as he's the NPC frenemesis of the characters in our immortal Spartans campaign. But I'm now thinking I ought to write The Strange Death of Parliamentary Sovereignty, which was dealt more grievous a blow by the referendum (or rather, its media-steered aftermath) than by any treaty of the EU.

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    2. Oh, you could definitely do that ! Perhaps with a time- travelling aspect where our hero visits other crucial moments in British constitutional history. To quote Mr Dangerfield - "This Constitution had no visible body, A Magna Carta, an Apology, an Act of Settlement, an Act of Union, had printed themselves across the ribbed sands of English history like the footsteps of an unseen traveller, a mighty ghost..."
      On a separate note I would also like to see a book entitled, in the manner of Jamie's Way of the Tiger, "FRENEMESIS !" I am sold already : )

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    3. I only just coined that word this morning and already it's in demand as a book title :-)

      Mr Dangerfield wrote well, didn't he? And I see it's Michael Gove's favourite book, too, so I think I'd better read it.

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    4. Correction re "frenemesis" -- I assumed I'd coined it, but it turns out the Urban Dictionary got there first. Verily, under the sun there is no new thing.

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    5. How about “Archfrenemy” ? I think I prefer Frenemesis though. It also sounds like the name of a Marvel character.

      Here is a bit more Dangerfield - “The soil of the 18th century was very rich. Far beneath its surface the struggles of history, long dead, worked their powerful chemistry: here were the corpses of feudalism and absolutism, in various stages of decay; here were the ashes of heretics, the blood of rebels, the nourishing mineral relics of ignorance and patriotism. There was scarcely an institution, political or social, which did not flourish in this earth and grow fat; and particularly was this true of the House of Lords...”

      Simply delightful writing !

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    6. That is wonderful. Schools in those days turned out better writers because they didn't have "creative writing" on the curriculum. Maybe.

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  9. Can we raise money to help the economy in the book by renting/selling Scotland to Donald Trump?

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    1. Really, it's not that kind of a gamebook. Think of it as a serious (but not sombre) examination of the Brexit situation. You are dealing with real problems (trade agreements, security & defence, the health service, etc) and each of those affects the others. I guess we could have written an outright farce (Jamie would be able to carry something like that off very well; it would bore me) but that would be a whole other book.

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    2. Talking of Trump, somebody just suggested my next book sould be Can You Get Elected President (Without Wrecking America)? I don't think I could stand another year of researching politics, but it is tempting...

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    3. You could do it in epistolary form...tweets of course ; )

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    4. Another cracking idea, Mr Hagan :-)

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  10. I just got my copy in the mail way earlier than I thought I would. I love some of the names. Dave Deadpool. Martin Mugglemore. And, of course, US President Dumpster P. Windrip.

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    1. I have to confess I, er, ripped off President Windrip from Sinclair Lewis's novel It Can't Happen Here. In that book he was Berzelius "Buzz" Windrip -- maybe Dumpster's father?

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  11. Figure a blog post about the actual Brexit would best be titled "Are you trying to Ruin a country?"

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    1. That's for sure. You'd think by this stage that the half of the electorate who voted to quit the EU would be having second thoughts, seeing as the government is obviously a hostage to extreme elements and isn't competent to organize a pizza delivery, never mind a comprehensive new trade agreement. I wonder what Dean Acheson (quoted at the end of the book) would have said if he'd known Britain's terminal post-Imperial malaise would finally finish it off fifty years after he gave that speech.

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  12. I had my first go at this last night! I learned some interesting things, had a laugh, and it COULD have been worse... but wasn't all I'd hoped for either.

    Good work!

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    1. Thanks, James. Some readers have been getting through with surprisingly high scores. I suspect the reality will be a little less forgiving than Jamie and I were!

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    2. I tried to be reasonable and fair, and my popularity did hit a high point of 62%! In the end things started to go wrong and I was ousted in a leadership challenge by Mr Umbrage.

      I'll have to have another go, but this time as Bulldog Drummond or something, see how bad the rabbit hole gets...

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