Ready Player One (Ready Player One, #1) in What's the Name of That Book???

Jan 22, 2014 Lorena rated it liked it

Shelves: science-fiction, epl

2.5 stars. I enjoyed some aspects of the book...the plot line was fun, overall, and there was obviously a lot of nostalgic elements for someone who grew up during the time period idolized and obsessed over by everyone in the book. I thought that the world-building was not as strong as it could have been, though - we only see the world through the eyes of the gunter sub-culture, really, and therefore only through the eyes of people obsessed with the 1980s. I would have been interested to see more 2.5 stars. I enjoyed some aspects of the book...the plot line was fun, overall, and there was obviously a lot of nostalgic elements for someone who grew up during the time period idolized and obsessed over by everyone in the book. I thought that the world-building was not as strong as it could have been, though - we only see the world through the eyes of the gunter sub-culture, really, and therefore only through the eyes of people obsessed with the 1980s. I would have been interested to see more of the "real" world the gunter culture is a part of. There's so much left unexplored and unanswered that could have made the novel a more complete and immersive experience, rather than an exercise in 80s geek nostalgia. I also had some qualms about the fact that it's clearly a very limited and specific white male 80s geek nostalgia that is being very uncritically celebrated. Having been a white (but not male) geek in the 80s, I understand the satisfaction in creating a fantasy world in which the culture you were ridiculed for enjoying has now become THE dominant culture, which everyone has to respect and appreciate. However, there are plenty of elements of that culture that were problematic, like the compete marginalization of women, that carry over into the structure of this novel. Women here are either not gunters (and thus irrelevant), manic pixie dream girls to be won like the princess in the castle at the end of a video game, or, (view spoiler) As it is, the version of geek culture that is celebrated here seems an awful lot like the version that groups like the Sad Puppies and other cis-white-male-dominated groups want to see codified as THE canon of all "real" geek culture. ...more

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Jun 08, 2013 Heron rated it really liked it

Ready Player One is a perfect example of the force of well-drawn character and plot. I was totally pulled into the amateurish, vanity-driven world by Cline's incredible imagination, attention to detail, and complete enthusiasm for his story. I loved Parzival and Aech. I hated the Sux0rs. I couldn't wait for the next puzzle.

There were a few technical inconsistencies that I blame on poor copy editing. And I find it mathematically inconceivable that Wade could have spent the time he claimed watchi ...more

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Oct 12, 2015 Magda rated it really liked it

Shelves: adventure, sci-fi

Wow indeed. I feel like I had to log out of the books when it was over. It did its very best to capture the nostalgic joy of all the well-loved everything from the '80s, and did an excellent job. My one quibble was that most of the puzzle games would have forced the reader to work things out, and instead we're just along for the ride. I'm not sure how that would have been accomplished any better, honestly, but I'm used to being left behind in the puzzling, so this was a surprise to me.

I enjoyed ...more

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Nov 02, 2013 Abigail rated it really liked it

Well, you definitely have to have at least *some* inner geek to appreciate this book, and luckily for me, I am the kind of person whose heart literally stopped beating for a few minutes when Cline flashed me back to my childhood in a deep and vivid immersion with the opening command lines from text based Zork: "you are standing in an open field west of a white house..." .
The contest to find Halliday's Easter Egg in a virtual second world was excellently paced (though I admit there some slow part ...more

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Sep 13, 2016 Emily rated it liked it

Shelves: dystopian-post-apocalyptic

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here. Info dump, info dump, '80s reference, info dump, '80s reference, stereotype about Japan.

That is my summary of Ready Player One by Ernest Cline. So many people I know loved it, and I just...didn't. And it made me sad.

I think one of the reasons why I didn't like it is because I'm a geek. What? you ask. This book is beloved by geeks with its constant references to video games, comic books, Monty Python, and everything that geeks love. But being a geek is not about what you love but about how you lo Info dump, info dump, '80s reference, info dump, '80s reference, stereotype about Japan.

That is my summary of Ready Player One by Ernest Cline. So many people I know loved it, and I just...didn't. And it made me sad.

I think one of the reasons why I didn't like it is because I'm a geek. What? you ask. This book is beloved by geeks with its constant references to video games, comic books, Monty Python, and everything that geeks love. But being a geek is not about what you love but about how you love. I feel passionately about some things that this book just not only didn't care about but thought were completely unimportant. What I mean by this is the law. The law in most states says, basically, that you can't leave an unknown someone something in a will unless you will figure out who that person is within a set amount of time. Which, in this book, would leave Halliday's will invalid (maybe there was a separability clause making parts of it valid). I can suspend my disbelief for a lot of things (everything in OASIS, for example), but I was just so sad that Cline didn't even inquire in writing this book "how does one actually make a will?" And I was doubly frustrated by this because at the end of the book, Og told Wade, ok, you need to go talk to the lawyers now. So obviously Cline thought the law was somehow involved, but it is something both mysterious and inconsequential.

And with Og. Og Ex Machina much?

And with the references. It's not clever to talk about how many times you've seen War Games and quote lines from Monty Python. It's clever to work them into the story. And I honestly felt these weren't. The example that stands out in my head is Wade's vehicle--the Delorean/KITT hybrid with ECTO plates. It felt both meaningless and over the top to me. I felt maybe Cline was going somewhere with this--how we brush off the bad memories from the '80s to create some sort of idealism that ends up feeling fake. (I felt like Doc even said something like that in Back to the Future II when talking about Cafe '80s, but maybe I have it wrong.) But he didn't. It was just supposed to be cool because, hey, '80s, and that's everything cool he could think of. The '80s references weren't part of the story, just atmosphere.

When he described wearing a red bowtie and a gray suit like Buckaroo Banzi, I thought he looked more like Pee Wee Herman. ...more

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Jul 23, 2013 Susan rated it really liked it

Shelves: adult-fiction, adult-sci-fi, adult-books-appealing-to-teens, up-lit

This would be heavenly to read if I'd been a gamer. In spite of being in high school when video games (in my recollection,Pac Man was especially big) first became a HUGE exciting phenomenon, I never really enjoyed playing them. However, since I was a young adult in the 1980s, it was fun to read this, with its many 1980s references.

My 15-year-old liked it a lot too, even though she's never been a gamer and (obviously) wasn't around in the 1980s. ...more

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Aug 30, 2012 Bryan457 rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: juv-ya, science-fiction, fugitive, dystopia, borrow-library-audio, profanity, virtual-reality, treasure-hunt

Geek-pop-culture heaven. A new religion is born. Join the gunters.
While the pop-culture stuff actually got a bit tiresome for me at times, I absolutely loved the VR setting, where anything that can be imagined and coded can be experienced.
One of the best books I've listened to this year. ...more

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