The Search for The Dice Man by Luke Rhinehart

The Search For The Dice Man takes up the story of The Dice Man twenty years later. Centering on Luke's son Larry, it updates the concept of the dicelife for the 90s and, like it's predecessor is as much of a reflection of its times.

Unlike his father, Larry (introduced as a child in The Dice Man) is leading a respectable and ordered life, working as a Wall Street commodities trader and preparing to marry into respectable society when he is contacted by FBI agents looking to trace his father and find out what he's doing now. Larry has completely rejected all of his father's ways and ideals and is not interested in helping them trace his father until his own life takes a turn for the worse, seemingly because of random chance.

While it is an interesting book, The Search For The Dice Man does suffer from that curse of all writers - sequelitis. While it does update the mythos of the dicelife into the 90s, there's very little new to say about it and so much of the book feels like a retread of the original with just a different protagonist. Rhinehart also seems to have written the book in a hurry with various promising subplots being resolved arbitrarily or inconclusively. That said, there are some excellent scenes in the book, especially as Larry introduces the idea of trading by the whim of the die into Wall Street and if you enjoyed The Dice Man, then you'll get enough out of this to make it a worthwhle read.

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