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Title: Ready Player One
Author: Ernest Cline
Genre: Nostalgic science fiction
Thingummies: 4.5
Synopsis: A love song to the 1980s in a futuristic spin on Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. When a reclusive billionaire (who invented and controlled the global Second Life clone/MMORPG that provides the only hope left in a dying post-fossil fuels civilization) dies, his will leaves his entire empire to whoever can find the Easter egg hidden in a mountain of 1980s pop culture clues scattered across his virtual universe.
Thoughts Brush up on your 80s knowledge before diving into this one. It's an endless homage of references to arcade games, D&D, science fiction, hackers' lore, cartoons, anime, 80s rock, Star Trek, Monty Python, Star Wars, giant robots, and more, with a couple (now ancient) celebrity references certain to please Internet geekdom.
Cline's world-building is endlessly inventive, but I think rings true. There's a certain element of cyberpunk going, but this doesn't feel like a rehash of 80s fiction--more a fresh, modern spin on it. The world is screwed, but somehow he manages a far more hopeful view, despite the incredibly depressing background of his protagonist, Wade. There's even a sweet love story hidden inside.
The complete dominance of all things 80s does become a little sad--the entire world has stopped making much progress in creating new culture, because everyone is obsessed with trying to solve the puzzle of a recluse who never got over the things he liked when he was a teenager. It's not addressed directly, which is a bit of a pity. There are a couple other, more recent fandoms mentioned--Firefly and the Whedonverse get a couple shoutouts--but the conceit of the novel is extremely tightly focused for all that its 80s-related interests are wide ranging. It still makes a certain amount of sense--the current day of the setting is sufficiently depressing, with little available energy, crumbling infrastructure, massive unemployment, and no hope in sight, that you can understand why people would retreat to the past. But in a cyber world where people can literally look like anything and create anything they can imagine, it's tragic that they seem to merely recycle previous generations' memes. It would have been nice to have a little more of this addressed rather than implied.
Still, there's plenty of action, both in game and in the real world as Wade tries to deal with the massive corporations whose employees are just as eager to get control of the world's default playground/meeting space/currency. There's a couple real surprises I appreciated when he meets some of his digital friends in real life. The interpersonal relationships may not be as developed or nuanced as possible, but I think they're pretty good for a science fiction novel. I would not particularly want to go back to this world--there's an awful lot of 80s nostalgia as it is (seen the new Voltron trailer yet?), and it takes something superlative to rise above the froth and be worth another rehash. But as a one shot, this does a fantastic job of covering all the bases of geekdom in an endless reference-fest that's witty, amusing, and even a little touching.
Author: Ernest Cline
Genre: Nostalgic science fiction
Thingummies: 4.5
Synopsis: A love song to the 1980s in a futuristic spin on Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. When a reclusive billionaire (who invented and controlled the global Second Life clone/MMORPG that provides the only hope left in a dying post-fossil fuels civilization) dies, his will leaves his entire empire to whoever can find the Easter egg hidden in a mountain of 1980s pop culture clues scattered across his virtual universe.
Thoughts Brush up on your 80s knowledge before diving into this one. It's an endless homage of references to arcade games, D&D, science fiction, hackers' lore, cartoons, anime, 80s rock, Star Trek, Monty Python, Star Wars, giant robots, and more, with a couple (now ancient) celebrity references certain to please Internet geekdom.
Cline's world-building is endlessly inventive, but I think rings true. There's a certain element of cyberpunk going, but this doesn't feel like a rehash of 80s fiction--more a fresh, modern spin on it. The world is screwed, but somehow he manages a far more hopeful view, despite the incredibly depressing background of his protagonist, Wade. There's even a sweet love story hidden inside.
The complete dominance of all things 80s does become a little sad--the entire world has stopped making much progress in creating new culture, because everyone is obsessed with trying to solve the puzzle of a recluse who never got over the things he liked when he was a teenager. It's not addressed directly, which is a bit of a pity. There are a couple other, more recent fandoms mentioned--Firefly and the Whedonverse get a couple shoutouts--but the conceit of the novel is extremely tightly focused for all that its 80s-related interests are wide ranging. It still makes a certain amount of sense--the current day of the setting is sufficiently depressing, with little available energy, crumbling infrastructure, massive unemployment, and no hope in sight, that you can understand why people would retreat to the past. But in a cyber world where people can literally look like anything and create anything they can imagine, it's tragic that they seem to merely recycle previous generations' memes. It would have been nice to have a little more of this addressed rather than implied.
Still, there's plenty of action, both in game and in the real world as Wade tries to deal with the massive corporations whose employees are just as eager to get control of the world's default playground/meeting space/currency. There's a couple real surprises I appreciated when he meets some of his digital friends in real life. The interpersonal relationships may not be as developed or nuanced as possible, but I think they're pretty good for a science fiction novel. I would not particularly want to go back to this world--there's an awful lot of 80s nostalgia as it is (seen the new Voltron trailer yet?), and it takes something superlative to rise above the froth and be worth another rehash. But as a one shot, this does a fantastic job of covering all the bases of geekdom in an endless reference-fest that's witty, amusing, and even a little touching.
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Date: 2011-10-17 05:03 pm (UTC)From:no subject
Date: 2011-10-17 05:36 pm (UTC)From:no subject
Date: 2011-10-17 06:03 pm (UTC)From:no subject
Date: 2011-10-25 07:04 pm (UTC)From:no subject
Date: 2011-12-05 10:27 pm (UTC)From:It also became too easy for our hero to do everything. In the beginning, you could buy his success on his quest because it was so obscure that his progress seemed to be a fluke more than anything else. Later, though, he becomes some kind of insane hacker fiend which I don't think is built up prior to that well enough to justify his mad skills-with-a-Z. I can buy an entire world filled with fairly computer savvy people, but there's savvy and cautious and then there are hackzors. It's a bit of a stretch.