Ready Player One: A novel about video games and 80s culture

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Ready Player One: A novel about video games and 80s culture

Post by takenoko »

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So I just tore through Ready Player One by Ernest Cline. If you guys are anything like me, you will love this book. It will speak to you in the secret language of references and murmurs of things so alien to normal people that it may as well be a foreign language. It should appeal to you if...
-You like video games
-You like 80s pop culture
-You have an interest in Internet culture
-You like stories that take place in a semi-post apocalyptic society where people fight over basic necessities (like the Internet!)

It might especially resonate with you (maybe painfully so?), if you're a person like me who probably spends more time online than interacting with real friends

So what's it about?

Well, it takes place in the far future. The world's gone to shit and countries fight over resources. Most people live shitty lives in overcramped conditions. To escape the dreariness of reality, they turn to OASIS. It's basically Second Life, if Second Life were done really well. Or a Holodeck, since Second Life was pretty terrible from my experience.

The protagonist is an overweight nerd. He does all the things a nerd does. He eats junk food, he browses the Internet, he watches movies and he plays games. Plus his life isn't going anywhere. Just your typical everyday slub, right?

But then one day, the king of WOW OASIS dies, and instead of leaving his money to his kids (he had none), he holds a grand contest. The ultimate game that tested the limits of 80s pop culture. If this time period is of any significance to you, then oh yes, you will enjoy the many references to that time period. You may even find yourself looking up some things because it's intriguing and tangentially related to something else you're into. The winner of this contest will get more money than he or she can even dream of.

Long story short, use pop culture, go on quest of a life time. There's an antagonist in the form of an overwhelming evil corporation. There's multiple references to tokusatsu (Yes, more than one). And it keeps the suspense up right to the climactic ending.

Review:

I basically read a few chapters at work, then powered through the book in my bed tonight. It's pretty addicting.

It took me a while to actually pick this book up (I just borrowed my copy from the local library). I had heard from several reliable sources that it was a good book that would be worth reading (and would appeal to my niche hobbies), but it took a non-gamer co-worker to recommend it make me go "Maybe there's something worth checking out about this book." Since it clearly appeals to people who aren't necessarily typical nerds and gamers. But if you are a nerd or gamer, it truly is a bible treasuretrove of things that you like. And there's no better feeling in the world than when something truly speaks out to you

I thought it was fairly strong on many fronts. The characters were engaging and believable (although the love story seemed a bit wish fulfillmenty). It's not judgmental in its bleak depiction of a populace that basically lives in a game. The moral of the story might be a bit obvious, but it's true none the less. It has excellent pacing, keeping you reading to find out what happens next. And the hallmark of any really good piece of media, it leaves you thinking a bit about how the story relates to your own life at the end.

So read it, and let's have a book discussion thread about it, since we don't do a lot of book discussions.
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Re: Ready Player One: A novel about video games and 80s cult

Post by takenoko »

Something I just realized. In the story, the crazy eccentric revitalizes the pop culture of his youth through his contest. The book does the exact same thing for the viewer. And I think that's kind of nice. When you're introverted or shy, sometimes it's easier to talk about pop culture or hobbies. In that sense, it really is the language for nerds.
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Re: Ready Player One: A novel about video games and 80s cult

Post by jonty »

I read the book a while back and enjoyed it very much as well (even gave a copy to a friend as a gift).

Take, you're right about the romance being a little heavy on the wish fulfillment side; one of the thoughts I had about the book after reading it was whether Art3mis (the primary female character, if I remember the names correctly) had too many Mary Sue like characteristics. I'd be interested to see if there are any feminist critiques of the book, now that I think about it.

Really, though, the whole book is pretty wish fulfillment-y, but I guess that's kind of the point. The way so much of modern fiction is nowadays, though, it's almost refreshing to read a book like this. It kind of seems like lately that everyone who isn't writing a YA book feels the need to make everything super dark, brooding, negative, and depressing. One of the reasons the book is so engaging is that you actually get to experience the protagonist's victories and revel in them with him. That's not to say there aren't some darker, depressing parts of the book, but overall those are really there to make the victories more satisfying.

As far as all the nerd/geek culture aspects, Take's right in saying it's simply chock full of them. You definitely leave with no doubt as to Ernest Cline's nerd bona fides. If you're a child of the 80s, you'll probably revel in all of the little references. At the same time, though, the book is one of those rare nerd tomes that doesn't require you to be an uber-geek to enjoy or understand the book. It's not at all geek snobbery. I'm a tad bit too young for most of the 80s references, but I still managed to enjoy the book immensely. I probably got something like 50% of the references, with the rest being a mixture of "I've kind of heard of that," "that sounds sorta familiar," and "WTF? That sounds amazing; I'll look it up later."

Interesting side note: if I remember correctly, the book was optioned for a movie script before the book was even published.
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Re: Ready Player One: A novel about video games and 80s cult

Post by takenoko »

I don't know if I'd call Art3mis a Mary Sue, but I get what you mean. She's pretty much just there to be Wade's girlfriend. It just strikes me as a bit too convenient, that's all. While distracting, it probably would have been more interesting if Art3mis did end up being a 300 pound guy named Chuck, or a 300 pound girl. Art3mis brings up a lot of good points about how Wade is falling for this image that she projects of herself on the Internet, but he doesn't have to go through any conflict because she just happens to actually be the same girl. For a book that deals with the disparity between fantasy/Internet and reality, this one aspect seemed a bit too fantastical to me.

>Really, though, the whole book is pretty wish fulfillment-y, but I guess that's kind of the point.

Well, yes and no. I'd agree with that in the sense that all adventures are wish fulfillment. We all want to be the hero that fights the evil empire/organization to save the day.

>That's not to say there aren't some darker, depressing parts of the book, but overall those are really there to make the victories more satisfying.

Oh definitely. When people start dying, it's a real shocker because you probably weren't expecting that in your game fantasy novel. That really makes you hate the evil corporation even more, especially with the death of a certain Gunter in the book.

>Interesting side note: if I remember correctly, the book was optioned for a movie script before the book was even published.

I hear that a film is in the works. Pretty neat stuff all around.

I also watched Fanboys, which Ernest Cline did the screenplay of. Apparently it went through a lot of Hollywood changes and Ernest wasn't happy with the results. And while I liked the concept of Fanboys (a bunch of nerds go on a journey to see Star Wars Episode 1 early, because a friend is dying) overall there was something kind of off about the experience. I can't really recommend it to anyone except someone who absolutely has to see all things Star Wars related.

Speaking of which, did you hear about the real life contest based on Ready Player One, Jonty? Apparently the book had a URL in it somewhere that took you to a page. There were three gates just like in the book, and the winner won a Delorean.
http://readyplayerone.com/post/30607319 ... ests-ernie

This link is also cool:
http://www.shmoop.com/ready-player-one/allusions.html
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Re: Ready Player One: A novel about video games and 80s cult

Post by jonty »

Good point about adventures and wish fulfillment. I should probably refine my point; if I have a criticism of the book it might be that Wade's victories are almost too triumphant and numerous. It's like having an overload of "fuck, yeah!" moments. Again, though, it's sometimes nice to have that in a book, and it seems like that that was the intent of the story.

Interestingly, on a whim I did a search on "mary sue ready player one" and most of what came up were accusations of Wade being a Mary Sue (or your favorite male equivalent). I guess I can see that, but I honestly think the characterization of Art3mis in such a way would be more problematic than for Wade. It's been a while since I read the book, though, so any analysis I could give would be pretty shallow.

I guess I shouldn't be surprised at that number of references, but jeez.

I remember hearing off-hand about the contest; neat stuff.

In a tangential way, the book actually reminds a bit of one of my favorite book series: the Thursday Next books by Jasper Fforde. He's a literary nerd, so the books are oozing with literature references. And the books are incredibly silly, in the vein of Douglas Adams. Definitely recommend them.
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Re: Ready Player One: A novel about video games and 80s cult

Post by takenoko »

I didn't really feel that way about Wade being too triumphant. The scenes where he falls behind and loses Art3mis and becomes a depressed mess do a good job at countering such moments. It's probably pretty hard to balance creating a protagonist who does the majority of the cool stuff without him starting to fall into the lines of being a Gary Stu I guess.

I kind of wonder if there's a term for Art3mis. I really don't think of her as a classical Mary Sue, maybe more along the lines of "everyday media woman/girlfriend trope". I mean, she's pretty interesting as a rival, up until the point that she becomes a sorta love interest for Wade. I kept hoping that it'd turn out that she turned out to be a guy. Or
Spoilers for a character revelation at the end
Spoiler
H's identity for example. It's pretty non threatening to Wade. As a fat African woman who's a lesbian, he is not a potential love interest for Wade nor a rival for Art3mis. I mean, I don't want a love triangle in the story, but it seems like Wade's relationship with Art3mis wrapped up too neatly. Art3mis probably should have been black, fat, or a lesbian instead of an idealized girlfriend but with a tiny facial flaw.


Although I'm probably harping a bit much on the Art3mis thing. Some guys would probably find facial scarring to be a deal breaker, but he looks past it. So at least there's some thought put into it.

I've never heard of the Thursday Next books. I'll have to keep an eye out for them.
http://www.goodreads.com/series/43680-thursday-next

Come to think about it, the last book I read was about pop culture too. Red Shirts was a book that pointed out how silly Star Trek would be if the things that happened in the show were real.
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Re: Ready Player One: A novel about video games and 80s cult

Post by Lunagel »

I powered through this book in about 4 hours and I'm really glad I bought it. Lots of fun, so many references and it especially hit home for me because I used to live in Ohio and went to quite a few places mentioned in the book. The thought of Columbus as a technological Mecca was particularly amusing.

Quite a few tokusatsu references too. There were a few random Japanese phrases and a mentioning of "seppuku" at one point that made me roll my eyes but for the most part it was handled fairly well. I especially enjoyed the School House Rock stuff because I grew up watching those and can still sing Three is a Magic Number by heart.
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Re: Ready Player One: A novel about video games and 80s cult

Post by takenoko »

Four hours?

I didn't know they made that many references to places in the real world. (A lot of it takes place in the Matrix).

The Japanese bros were two-dimensional, but they were endearing in their own stereotypical way. Luna, you live in Japan, know any Japanese guys who would act they way they did online?

What did you guys think about the silent moral at the end of the book? He's given a button to turn off/destroy the Matrix, but he chooses to not do that. I find the ending hopeful. Despite all the bad stuff that can happen, there's a lot of good stuff that comes from the Internet too.
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Re: Ready Player One: A novel about video games and 80s cult

Post by Lunagel »

takenoko wrote:Four hours?
I read ridiculously fast. I can knock out a 300 page book in under 4 hours. When I was in high school I could do it in 2-3, depending on if I had read it before.
takenoko wrote:The Japanese bros were two-dimensional, but they were endearing in their own stereotypical way. Luna, you live in Japan, know any Japanese guys who would act they way they did online?
I think they fell a bit too far into the "Japanese people act with honor and refer to everyone with -san" stereotype. If they're talking in English, especially native-level, I find most Japanese tend to drop the honorifics.
takenoko wrote:What did you guys think about the silent moral at the end of the book? He's given a button to turn off/destroy the Matrix, but he chooses to not do that. I find the ending hopeful. Despite all the bad stuff that can happen, there's a lot of good stuff that comes from the Internet too.
Honestly I felt this part could have used a little work. He didn't think about it or even really react to it, he was just like "Oh, it's a world ending button. On to the making out!" I wish there had been a little bit of dilemma or maybe even just an outright refusal to ever use it. Because even if the real world is better than the online one, there are still people who need the internet to connect with others. And quite frankly I thought that was a good message it did get across. It doesn't matter what race or gender the person is in real life, or even what they look like since on the internet it doesn't matter. All that comes across is raw personality. I honestly think some of my more lasting friendships have been internet ones because of that.
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Re: Ready Player One: A novel about video games and 80s cult

Post by takenoko »

Oh yeah, before reading this book, I remember some criticisms that some of the coincidental stuff is too convenient. Like needing three people to enter the last gate, but not needing three people to participate in the last puzzle. Kind of seems like the inheritance could have easily fell into the greedy corporation's hands, just because the original owner wanted to play some silly game with people.

Another thing is, what if his best friend hadn't told Wade the story about being in love with his best friend's wife? How would he have ever gotten the password to log into the Wargames computer?

I actually like the treatment of the world ending button. It's pretty annoying how there's too much exposition at times. I mean, why would Wade dwell on it? He loves the Matrix and what it's given him. In that sense, I'm interpreting that to be his decision in regards to the button. The fact that he completely disregarded it seems hopeful to me.
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Re: Ready Player One: A novel about video games and 80s culture

Post by msf232 »

So...

Have anybody here watched the film adaptation of last year?

I didn't
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Re: Ready Player One: A novel about video games and 80s culture

Post by Catastrophe »

It's average.
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Re: Ready Player One: A novel about video games and 80s culture

Post by msf232 »

msf232 wrote: Thu Feb 21, 2019 2:58 am So...

Have anybody here watched the film adaptation of last year?

I didn't
I didn't read the novel either, so... I basically don't know anything about this

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Re: Ready Player One: A novel about video games and 80s culture

Post by Lunagel »

Why'd you even post then?
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Re: Ready Player One: A novel about video games and 80s culture

Post by msf232 »

Lunagel wrote: Sat Feb 23, 2019 7:46 am Why'd you even post then?
If I say "to increase my number of posts", will that do?

:wink:

Actually, my cousin watched the movie, so I learned the name from there, and looked it up on Wikipedia, and here I am now
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