Julian Gough writes Minecraft ending

Controversial Galwegian novelist and former Toasted Heretic singer Julian Gough has supplied indie game developer Markus Persson, AKA Notch, with the ending for the full PC version of his Minecraft game.

Not quite sure how to bring the curtain down on his sandbox building epic, the Swede tweeted to his half-million followers that he was looking for “a talented writer – famous is a plus.”

When several of the responses suggested Gough, he got in contact.
“I was stunned to get an email from Markus Persson,” says Julian who’s currently residing in Berlin. “In computer game terms, it’s like getting an email from Christopher Nolan asking if you’d like to write the ending to his next movie. He gave me total freedom, too – he said he just wanted to be surprised.

“I guess gamers like my books. They’re literature, but they’re equally influenced by Samuel Beckett and Star Wars. I mean, at the start of my last novel [Jude In London], I destroy the universe. I think game players like the scale my stories operate on – they tend to be bigger than the average short story; more like science fiction.”

Minecraft – which has already sold a whopping four million copies and won the gaming version of the Booker, the GameCity Prize – will be officially launched this Friday in Las Vegas with 4,500 who’ve flown in from all over the world attending.

Gough’s story scrolls up on screen for nine minutes at the end of the game, making him probably the most read Irish author of the year.