Book Details
| Title: | Ready Player One | |
| Author: | Ernest Cline | |
| Times Read: | 2 | |
| Last Read: | 08.27.17 |
Other Books Read By This Author (2)
- Armada
- Ready Player Two
| Date Read | Note |
| 08.27.17 | With the movie coming out, the trailer getting released, I realized that I had forgotten a lot of the small plot details like what the gate challenges were and who main characters were. So re-reading this was pretty good fun. Having read Armada, some of the scotch tape and white-out starts to show in the actual prose here, but you can't argue with the references, plot, or fun of it. I just hope that the movie captures that. |
| 07.08.12 | A sci-fi pop-culture adventure that takes place in an insane VR MMO that has taken over the world. This book seems designed to appeal to any geek who's into video games, movies, 80s, RPGs, or any other generally nerdy topic. It's a scattershot kitchen-sink setting that really gets your imagination going. I loved it. It's interesting that the puzzles and problems that the protagonist has to undergo are kind of written such that they don't really involve the player that much at all. Since the world and the game is completely new, a lot of the rules that the puzzles abide by are explained as we discover the answers which really undercut any mystery-genre practice of audience participation. The real way that it sucks the reader in is just in exploring and learning about the world itself. Waiting to see if your own particular favorite sub-culture is represented with its own planet or sector. Seeing what this impossible world of IP-mixing nerdery comes up with. Real-world implications of the new technology and global obsession as well. I loved the fitness routine and bet everyone else who wants a gamified exercise routine or healthy diet made easy wants right now. In those notes, the book succeeds like the best near-future sci-fi does. For all the negatives associated with the world, there are really attractive facets that I would love to have become reality. The story is fairly prototypical, which isn't really a bad thing. For a world as wild as this you need some familiarity to hold on to and even still there are enough turns on convention to make it seem unique. I loved the ending where... well.. spoilery things happen. I thought it was a nice note to end on in terms of romance. So yeah... big surprise. This book worked on me on every level. I spent the last 4 hours of my Sunday reading the last third of it to finish it up. That hasn't happened in a long time. |
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