Merriweather
Member
I don't remember that car chase scene in the book.
That's just what I was thinking.
It looks pretty slick, but the hyperbolic buzz words have me rolling my eyes.
I don't remember that car chase scene in the book.
HahahajajajajaSure this ain't Señor Spielbergo?
There's literally a part in the book where people throw down over random 80's trivia and the characters in the book think it's actually super cool.
"Yeah, but do you know about (80's thing)?" "Of course I do dawg, but I bet you didn't know about (80's thing)!"
OHHHHH SNAP Y'ALL
The mixed reception in this thread amuses me.
I thought it looked great! I love this kind of forward-looking sci-fi where they explore the crazier stuff that's possible in a highly developed VR future. I've had enough doom-and-gloom dystopian outlooks to last me a lifetime - something that's just plain fun is right up my alley!
We're going to be doing some crazy shit in a full-immersion VR future, and I damn well hope they at least scratch the surface of that.
Ok guys I see a lot of criticism over this book, so here is my take.
When it came to my research, I never took any shortcuts. Over the past five years, I'd worked my way down the entire recommended gunter reading list. Douglas Adams. Kurt Vonnegut. Neal Stephenson. Richard K. Morgan. Stephen King. Orson Scott Card. Terry Pratchett. Terry Brooks. Bester, Bradbury, Haldeman, Heinlein, Tolkien, Vance, Gibson, Gaiman, Sterling, Moorcock, Scalzi, Zelazny. I read every novel by every single one of Halliday's favorite authors.
And I didn't stop there.
I also watched every single film he referenced in the Almanac. If it was one of Halliday's favorites, like WarGames, Ghostbusters, Real Genius, Better Off Dead, or Revenge of the Nerds, I rewatched it until I knew every scene by heart.
I devoured each of what Halliday referred to as "The Holy Trilogies": Star Wars (original and prequel trilogies, in that order), Lord of the Rings, The Matrix, Mad Max, Back to the Future, and Indiana Jones. (Halliday once said that he preferred to pretend the other Indiana Jones films, from Kingdom of the Crystal Skull onward, didn't exist. I tended to agree.)
I also absorbed the complete filmographies of each of his favorite directors. Cameron, Gilliam, Jackson, Fincher, Kubrick, Lucas, Spielberg, Del Toro, Tarantino. And, of course, Kevin Smith.
I spent three months studying every John Hughes teen movie and memorizing all the key lines of dialogue.
Only the meek get pinched. The bold survive.
You could say I covered all the bases.
I studied Monty Python. And not just Holy Grail, either. Every single one of their films, albums, and books, and every episode of the original BBC series. (Including those two "lost" episodes they did for German television.)
I wasn't going to cut any corners.
I wasn't going to miss something obvious.
Somewhere along the way, I started to go overboard.
I may, in fact, have started to go a little insane.
I watched every episode of The Greatest American Hero, Airwolf, The A-Team, Knight Rider, Misfits of Science, and The Muppet Show.
What about The Simpsons, you ask?
I knew more about Springfield than I knew about my own city.
Star Trek? Oh, I did my homework. TOS, TNG, DS9. Even Voyager and Enterprise. I watched them all in chronological order. The movies, too. Phasers locked on target.
I gave myself a crash course in '80s Saturday-morning cartoons.
I learned the name of every last goddamn Gobot and Transformer.
Land of the Lost, Thundarr the Barbarian, He-Man, Schoolhouse Rock!, G.I. Joe - I knew them all. Because knowing is half the battle.
Who was my friend, when things got rough? H.R. Pufnstuf.
Japan? Did I cover Japan?
Yes. Yes indeed. Anime and live-action. Godzilla, Gamera, Star Blazers, The Space Giants, and G-Force. Go, Speed Racer, Go.
I wasn't some dilettante.
I wasn't screwing around.
I memorized every last Bill Hicks stand-up routine.
Music? Well, covering all the music wasn't easy.
It took some time.
The '80s was a long decade (ten whole years), and Halliday didn't seem to have had very discerning taste. He listened to everything. So I did too. Pop, rock, new wave, punk, heavy metal. From the Police to Journey to R.E.M. to the Clash. I tackled it all.
I burned through the entire They Might Be Giants discography in under two weeks. Devo took a little longer.
I watched a lot of YouTube videos of cute geeky girls playing '80s cover tunes on ukuleles. Technically, this wasn't part of my research, but I had a serious cute-geeky-girls-playing-ukuleles fetish that I can neither explain nor defend.
I memorized lyrics. Silly lyrics, by bands with names like Van Halen, Bon Jovi, Def Leppard, and Pink Floyd.
I kept at it.
I burned the midnight oil.
Did you know that Midnight Oil was an Australian band, with a 1987 hit titled "Beds Are Burning"?
I was obsessed. I wouldn't quit. My grades suffered. I didn't care.
I read every issue of every comic book title Halliday had ever collected.
I wasn't going to have anyone questioning my commitment.
Especially when it came to the videogames.
Videogames were my area of expertise.
My double-weapon specialization.
My dream Jeopardy! category.
I downloaded every game mentioned or referenced in the Almanac, from Akalabeth to Zaxxon. I played each title until I had mastered it, then moved on to the next one.
You'd be amazed how much research you can get done when you have no life whatsoever. Twelve hours a day, seven days a week, is a lot of study time.
It is obviously part of the mecha challenge.
It was a in virtual chatroom focused on the 80s. Of course that's what they talk about. I see similar talk in any nerdy chatroom like that in real life, especially if there isn't new stuff to talk about.
And eventually it became known that you could basically become the most powerful person in the world if you have enough 80s knowledge, so I can see how 80s culture sees a resurgence from that.
Well...I thought it looked great! I love this kind of forward-looking sci-fi where they explore the crazier stuff that's possible in a highly developed VR future. I've had enough doom-and-gloom dystopian outlooks to last me a lifetime - something that's just plain fun is right up my alley!
That's just what I was thinking.
It looks pretty slick, but the hyperbolic buzz words have me rolling my eyes.
A lot of the "fun" of the movie is gonna come down to what they can license or not (and what they think is appropriate for a mainstream western market). The Iron Giant thing makes sense for an American Audience because it's more recognizable thanGundam RX-78 & Ultraman, etc... although as a Gundam fan I reaaaaaaally would like to see the RX-78 make it in.
I can see Ultraman being changed to a Power Ranger for the US.
Hopefully they keep Mecha-Godzilla though, that's worldwide enough.
Yeah, this is more like making one NES game today that includes random stuff from like the top 20 NES games and plays like none of them.Hey, I love nostalgia. No problem with it.
But it's like Family Guy... just throwing a reference out there doesn't make for good writing, but just being "in on the joke" is enough to make some stuff popular. I'm not a fan.
There's a ton of nostalgia in Stranger Things, but it's not the main reason people like it.
It's also dystopian. The real world is very messed up in Ready Player One. Most of the story is cool VR stuff though.
A realistic outlook, if you ask me.Well...
The world of RPOis in a state of constant cultural, environmental and social decay, and the VR world of OASIS is supposed to be the opiate of the masses.
It was in a virtual chatroom focused on the 80s. Of course that's what they talk about. I see similar talk in any nerdy chatroom like that in real life, especially if there isn't new stuff to talk about.
And eventually it became known that you could basically become the most powerful person in the world if you have enough 80s knowledge, so I can see how 80s trivia becomes a pretty big deal in that fiction.
Luckily our main character has encyclopedic knowledge of every exact 80s thing presented to him in the challenges. Reenact War Games word for word? Not a problem. Song reference? That is fine. Atari adventure game? Best player ever at it.
Good stuff.
None of it seemed all that impossible for a guy with an above average memory being quizzed on the stuff he's absolutely obsessed with.
Hardest part was probably the Pac Man Kill screen, but considering the prize, I can imagine you can practice your ass off until you get it.
Except most people don't treat random 80's chat room banter as something worth writing a book about.
You did not find it at all convenient he happened to be an expert at all the specific challenges, despite not knowing in advance exactly which of the billion 80s things would be a challenge?
Anybody notice nightmare of elm street, world of warcraft and duke nukem.
A realistic outlook, if you ask me.
But yes, I'm just in it for the cool VR stuff. If the outside world is fucked then that's less cool, but we'll see how it's handled.
I unashamedly liked the book. People shouldn't run from this because of the vocal minority.
Except most people don't treat random 80's chat room banter as something worth writing a book about.
Wow, you really hated it. Funny how so many felt completely opposite. I turned 2 friends onto the book and they turned another few on and none of us have had any real criticisms about it. It's not perfect but I guess we just haven't looked at it very in-depth and just enjoyed the ride.The book is legitimately the worst written book I've ever seen published. And I've read plenty of trashy, poorly written books.
The concept is fun, and I enjoyed much of what I read. Parts were occasionally cringe-inducing, but whatever, I'm a nerd with a high tolerance for cringing.
The actual writing, though? Absolutely unbearable. I honestly can't believe it got published, much less became popular. The prose and dialogue is worse than the worst fan fiction you can imagine.
I had to stop halfway through because it was so bad. I'd never given up on a book for its writing before. I've grown bored with books for many reasons, but never before has the actual writing itself been so offensively bad that I had to walk away.
Fuck all the hot takes
Ok guys I see a lot of criticism over this book, so here is my take.
When it came to my research, I never took any shortcuts...
Exactly why I couldn't stand the book.Pop Culture Reference: The Movie
I can't wait. -_-
Anybody notice nightmare of elm street, world of warcraft and duke nukem.
Here's some Bono to offset all the Edge in this thread:
Arbogast had then assembled a dream team of creative consultants and contractors to help make his bold claim a reality, luring some of the videogame industry's brightest stars away from their own companies and projects, with the sole promise of collaborating on his groundbreaking new MMOs. That was how gaming legends like Chris Roberts, Richard Garriott, Hidetaka Miyazaki, Gabe Newell, and Shigeru Miyamoto had all wound up as consultants on both Terra Firma and Armada— along with several big Hollywood filmmakers, including James Cameron, who had contributed to the EDA's realistic ship and mech designs, and Peter Jackson, whose Weta Workshop had rendered all of the in-game cinematics.
Chaos Terrain had created its own custom games engine for both Terra Firma and Armada, using many of the same programmers who had worked on previous combat-simulation game series like Battlefield, Call of Duty, and Modern Warfare, and on existing aerial and space combat simulators like Star Citizen, Elite: Dangerous, and EVE Online.
i thought ready player one was an entirely different book that was something non-fiction about games or something
looks like poop
Which is why the plot has a reason for that to happen.
Except the book became super popular and got a big budget movie made out of it, so I guess it was something worth writing about.
It's not just a reference factory. It's basically a power fantasy for people who like 80's culture. Not only does it basically say your useless pop culture knowledge is now the most important thing in the world, but you get to experience all of your nostalgic dreams in a crazy Virtual world with some pretty crazy moments along the way. As far as power fantasies go, it's really good.
I won't argue that some of the references went too far, but you guys are so damn harsh on it. There's more to book than references and it's a lot of fun. Power fantasies will probably never be high art, but they can very good, and this one is.