James Rolfe is best known for his YouTube series, The Angry Video Game Nerd, where he did humorous reviews of classic games in the character of a nerd who was obsessed with the past. James has also made a name for himself with film criticism, including his Monster Madness series of horror film reviews, which has a fanbase of its own. Indeed, for many James is at his best when his is discussing storytelling and horror and experimenting more.
A while back, James released a video where he described a horror film he wanted to make and discussed part of the plot. The audience was instantly hooked and many suggested James turn it into a novel instead, and James ended up taking that advice. The result is Gnome Cave, a novella that serves as James’s first prose fiction work.
The novella sees Dante, who chickened out of seeing the last room of a theme park ride, get his friends back together to try and rectify that mistake decades later. From there things take a darker turn and the question is asked about what limits there should be on reliving the past, and what extent people will go to to recapture that nostalgia. It also raises the question of if it is even worth it, or when people need to accept change.
The novella seems to be based on nightmares James had that he discussed in a video entitled, The Dragon In My Dreams, and childhood experiences. It merges this with James’s love of horror films and film interests in general to create something interesting. I wish I could say that Gnome Cave shows that James has the perfect grasp on storytelling in all forms, but there are some issues. James clearly wrote this as a novelization of his screenplay, and while that can work sometimes, this feels awkward as a first novel. This is not to say that Gnome Cave is a failure of a book, just that it has some weaknesses.
The setting is vividly described, and the idea of nostalgia as a dangerous thing is handled very well. There were some genuinely scary moments in Gnome Cave and I liked the twists that James introduced in the story. It just feels like it would have worked better visually and that James did not adjust it quite enough for the written word.
The thing is though, the book shows that James has a lot of potential as an author, and I have read far, far worse first novels by authors who went on to greatness. I think James handled his characters well, and set the mood just right, and I was invested in the story, with several moments hitting me hard. I just think that James can do even better in the future.
James has described other ideas he had for stories and films, and my suggestion would be to write these as short stories and grow as a writer with each one. Gnome Cave has been getting slammed by some online reviewers, but as someone who is a voracious reader, I can safely say that this is not even in the worst 25 books I have read this year. While it is not one of the absolute best, it is one I think I will re-read a few times as I did enjoy it, even with its faults.
Ideally James will continue to write prose fiction and perfect his craft, because I think that while Gnome Cave may have flaws, it shows he has what it takes to be a great horror author. He just needs to make some adjustments in his writing style and writing methods, as writing for a script and writing for prose are very different things. If he can get that done, I think we will see many more great horror novels from James Rolfe in the future.
Gnome Cave is currently available on Amazon as a paperback, hardcover, kindle version and soon an audio book version.
