Let's Read Ready Player One - The Ultimate Showdown as a book

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chitoryu12: Apr 24, 2014

I guess we all had to get here at some point.

Ready Player One is a 2011 novel by creepy neckbeard Ernest Cline. As a man who grew up in the 1980s, Cline is a man who defines himself and his generation by the media they consumed. This is his car, and I'm not even loving kidding:

RPO is a book by and for people who define themselves by pop culture. It's a book for people who get a Jurassic Park sticker on their jeep despite having only seen the movies once and not really remembering the third one, have a weekly podcast with 5 regular listeners about 80s movies, and still try to tell girls they don't know anything about Batman unless they can explain exactly what Zur-En-Arrh is. It's for people who have no personality once the veneer of pop culture references is stripped away, and people who can never really explain what their hobbies are beyond consuming media.

Despite being widely derided on Something Awful as vapid and boring, RPO has been wildly successful and is two weeks away from the release of a Steven Spielburg film adaptation. After a while I started to worry about potentially being called out for criticizing it without actually having read it, so I decided to grab a Kindle copy and see if the complete text really is as bad as that excerpt everyone has seen.

Yeah, that's basically the whole book.

This will be a read-along with me, as I've only read the first two chapters and part of the third at the time of this OP. I do know the vague plot synopsis and the ending thanks to Wikipedia so it's not going to be an utter surprise, but I don't know how deep the pop culture rabbit hole goes. I also feel like this will help people really decide on their feelings about the book and be able to truthfully tell people "This is why it sucks".

I'd come up with some cheesy 80s reference to lead into this but you're going to have enough of that bullshit when I start updating. Let's just get this over with.

# ? Mar 13, 2018 00:50

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# ? Apr 18, 2024 23:50

PJOmega: May 5, 2009

Chitoryu I simultaneously salute you and worry about you for your dedication to Let's Reads of horrible books. Shine bright you crazy diamond.

# ? Mar 13, 2018 00:56

chitoryu12: Apr 24, 2014

PJOmega posted:

Chitoryu I simultaneously salute you and worry about you for your dedication to Let's Reads of horrible books. Shine bright you crazy diamond.

I have to do something when slacking at work.

# ? Mar 13, 2018 01:00

Subjunctive: Sep 12, 2006; ✨sparkle and shine✨

When this came out, I was super depressed and really enjoyed the pablum validation of my youth. �I know that and it�s in a book! My things matter! I matter!�

Later, I worked at a VR company where everyone got a copy of the book in their welcome kit. I started re-skimming it and immediately felt mortified about my previous enthusiasm.

Let�s do this indeed.

# ? Mar 13, 2018 01:00

The Killer Dynamo: May 31, 2011; Gonna have a good time tonight

I had the same worries about getting called out for talkin' poo poo when I hadn't read the book.

Now you're doing the legwork for me. Thank you for your endurance, good sir.

# ? Mar 13, 2018 01:01

chitoryu12: Apr 24, 2014

Before we begin, let's look at some of the praise put at the beginning of the book and decide whether or not to ironically weep.

quote:

�[An] adrenaline shot of uncut geekdom��sweet, self-deprecating Wade, whose universe is an odd mix of the real past and the virtual present, is the perfect lovable/unlikely hero.�
�Publishers Weekly

�The pure, unfettered brainscream of a child of the �80s, like a dream my thirteen-year-old self would have had after bingeing on Pop Rocks and Coke.� I couldn�t put it down.�
�Charles Ardai, Edgar Award�winning author and producer of Haven

�Pure geek heaven. Ernest Cline�s hero competes in a virtual world with life-and-death stakes�which is only fitting, because he�s fighting to make his dreams into reality. Cline blends a dystopic future with meticulously detailed nostalgia to create a story that will resonate in the heart of every true nerd.�
�Christopher Farnsworth, author of Blood Oath

�A fantastic adventure set in a futuristic world with a retro heart. Once I started reading, I didn�t want to put it down and I couldn�t wait to pick it back up.�
�S. G. Browne, author of Breathers

�Cline has somehow managed to jack into the nervous system of some great warm collective geek-dream nostalgia of the �70s and �80s and used the precious touchstones he�s rediscovered there to create an adventure that�s almost more experienced than read.� Ready Player One let me romp through some of the best memories of my youth.�
�Paul Malmont, author of The Chinatown Death Cloud Peril

�Imagine that Dungeons and Dragons and an �80s video arcade made hot, sweet love, and their child was raised in Azeroth. If you�re not already experiencing a nerdgasm at the thought, I don�t want to know you.�
�John Scalzi, New York Times bestselling author of Old Man�s War

�Ready Player One expertly mines a copious vein of 1980s pop culture, catapulting the reader on a light-speed adventure in an advanced but backward-looking future. If this book were a living room, it would be wood-paneled. If it were shoes, it would be high-tops. And if it were a song, well, it would have to be �Eye of the Tiger.� I really, really loved it.�
�Daniel H. Wilson, author of Robopocalypse

�I was blown away by this book.� Ernie Cline has pulled the raddest of all magic tricks: He�s managed to write a novel that�s at once serious and playful, that is as fun to read as it is harrowing. A book of ideas, a potboiler, a game-within-a-novel, a serious science-fiction epic, a comic pop-culture mash-up�call this novel what you will, but Ready Player One will defy every label you try to put on it. Here, finally, is this generation�s Neuromancer.�
�Will Lavender, New York Times bestselling author of Obedience

If this is our generation's Neuromancer, does that mean all future cyberpunk is just going to be pop culture references?

# ? Mar 13, 2018 01:03

Subjunctive: Sep 12, 2006; ✨sparkle and shine✨

quote:

like a dream my thirteen-year-old self would have had after bingeing on Pop Rocks and Coke

That doesn�t sound like praise, really.

# ? Mar 13, 2018 01:06

PJOmega: May 5, 2009

quote:

like a dream my thirteen-year-old self would have had after bingeing on Pop Rocks and Coke

Yeah that sounds like a good backhanded compliment.

# ? Mar 13, 2018 01:20

Zamboni Rodeo: Jul 19, 2007; NEVER play "Lady of Spain" AGAIN!

chitoryu12 posted:

Before we begin, let's look at some of the praise put at the beginning of the book and decide whether or not to ironically weep.

quote:
�I was blown away by this book.� Ernie Cline has pulled the raddest of all magic tricks: He�s managed to write a novel that�s at once serious and playful, that is as fun to read as it is harrowing. A book of ideas, a potboiler, a game-within-a-novel, a serious science-fiction epic, a comic pop-culture mash-up�call this novel what you will, but Ready Player One will defy every label you try to put on it. Here, finally, is this generation�s Neuromancer.�
�Will Lavender, New York Times bestselling author of Obedience

I've read Neuromancer. Neuromancer is an exceptionally good book. RPO, sir, is no Neuromancer.

Why the gently caress does this guy want to insult William Gibson like that?

# ? Mar 13, 2018 01:32

Happy Landfill: Feb 26, 2011; I don't understand but I've also heard much worse

Chitoryu why

# ? Mar 13, 2018 01:32

A human heart: Oct 10, 2012

chitoryu12 posted:

After a while I started to worry about potentially being called out for criticizing it without actually having read it, so I decided to grab a Kindle copy and see if the complete text really is as bad as that excerpt everyone has seen.

That's a dumb thing to worry about

# ? Mar 13, 2018 01:33

Subjunctive: Sep 12, 2006; ✨sparkle and shine✨

Zamboni_Rodeo posted:

I've read Neuromancer. Neuromancer is an exceptionally good book. RPO, sir, is no Neuromancer.

Why the gently caress does this guy want to insult William Gibson like that?

It might be more of an insult to this generation.

# ? Mar 13, 2018 01:34

Punished Chuck: Dec 27, 2010

quote:

�Imagine that Dungeons and Dragons and an �80s video arcade made hot, sweet love, and their child was raised in Azeroth. If you�re not already experiencing a nerdgasm at the thought, I don�t want to know you.�

Reading this quote, thinking it's the worst thing I've ever read, and then realizing that the actual book is going to be filled with so much more that's as bad or worse is a kind of dread I haven't felt since I was a child listening to Southern Baptist sermons about Hell.

# ? Mar 13, 2018 01:42

chitoryu12: Apr 24, 2014

quote:

Everyone my age remembers where they were and what they were doing when they first heard about the contest. I was sitting in my hideout watching cartoons when the news bulletin broke in on my video feed, announcing that James Halliday had died during the night.

I�d heard of Halliday, of course. Everyone had. He was the videogame designer responsible for creating the OASIS, a massively multiplayer online game that had gradually evolved into the globally networked virtual reality most of humanity now used on a daily basis. The unprecedented success of the OASIS had made Halliday one of the wealthiest people in the world.

At first, I couldn�t understand why the media was making such a big deal of the billionaire�s death. After all, the people of Planet Earth had other concerns. The ongoing energy crisis. Catastrophic climate change. Widespread famine, poverty, and disease. Half a dozen wars. You know: �dogs and cats living together��mass hysteria!� Normally, the newsfeeds didn�t interrupt everyone�s interactive sitcoms and soap operas unless something really major had happened. Like the outbreak of some new killer virus, or another major city vanishing in a mushroom cloud. Big stuff like that. As famous as he was, Halliday�s death should have warranted only a brief segment on the evening news, so the unwashed masses could shake their heads in envy when the newscasters announced the obscenely large amount of money that would be doled out to the rich man�s heirs.

But that was the rub. James Halliday had no heirs.

RPO wastes no time in explaining the setting. We'll get more details later, but Chapter 0000 (that's really how it's written in the book) just sort of dumps the basic plot with about 2 paragraphs of text.

Halliday was an eccentric, possibly insane 67-year-old man when he died in 2039. He's described as a combination of Howard Hughes, Richard Garriott, and Willy Wonka, creating possibly the most insufferable manchild of a businessman that Cline could think was cool. He was a bachelor with no friends, no family, and no children.

Instead, his will appeared in the form of a 5-minute video titled Anorak's Invitation (Anorak was Halliday's avatar in OASIS) that was simultaneously emailed to all OASIS users upon his death. The video was heavily analyzed frame by frame for any sort of meaning, so of course we get a detailed description of the entire video.

quote:

Anorak�s Invitation begins with the sound of trumpets, the opening of an old song called �Dead Man�s Party.�

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iypUpv9xelg

I hate to tell you Ernest, but that ain't a loving trumpet.

The black screen transforms into a party where Halliday (appearing as he did in his 40s on the cover of Time, wearing an old Space Invaders shirt and faded jeans) is dancing with a bunch of teenagers in 80s dress. He's not dancing with anyone, just wildly swinging his arms around alone. One might say he's....dancing with himself.

Get it?

GET IT?

quote:

When the lyrics kick in, Halliday begins to lip-synch along, still gyrating: �All dressed up with nowhere to go. Walking with a dead man over my shoulder. Don�t run away, it�s only me.��

He abruptly stops dancing and makes a cutting motion with his right hand, silencing the music. At the same moment, the dancers and the gymnasium behind him vanish, and the scene around him suddenly changes.

Halliday now stands at the front of a funeral parlor, next to an open casket. A second, much older Halliday lies inside the casket, his body emaciated and ravaged by cancer. Shiny quarters cover each of his eyelids.

The younger Halliday gazes down at the corpse of his older self with mock sadness, then turns to address the assembled mourners. Halliday snaps his fingers and a scroll appears in his right hand. He opens it with a flourish and it unfurls to the floor, unraveling down the aisle in front of him. He breaks the fourth wall, addressing the viewer, and begins to read.

I removed them from the copied text, but there's multiple annotation links in here. Possibly to give the illusion of being an in-universe document, there are footnotes describing some details not included in the text. Such as how all the teenagers at his party were extras from John Hughes teen films digitally inserted into the clip, or that the funeral is actually Heather Chandler's funeral from Heathers and thus all the mourners are the film characters. The quarters over his eyes were even minted in 1984, which seems a little too obsessive.

quote:

�I, James Donovan Halliday, being of sound mind and disposing memory, do hereby make, publish, and declare this instrument to be my last will and testament, hereby revoking any and all wills and codicils by me at any time heretofore made.�� He continues reading, faster and faster, plowing through several more paragraphs of legalese, until he�s speaking so rapidly that the words are unintelligible. Then he stops abruptly. �Forget it,� he says. �Even at that speed, it would take me a month to read the whole thing. Sad to say, I don�t have that kind of time.� He drops the scroll and it vanishes in a shower of gold dust. �Let me just give you the highlights.�

The funeral parlor vanishes, and the scene changes once again. Halliday now stands in front of an immense bank vault door. �My entire estate, including a controlling share of stock in my company, Gregarious Simulation Systems, is to be placed in escrow until such time as a single condition I have set forth in my will is met. The first individual to meet that condition will inherit my entire fortune, currently valued in excess of two hundred and forty billion dollars.�

So, that's who the entire estate goes to: literally whoever manages to figure out his bullshit. Kim Jong-un recruits a team to solve it for him and grant the entire fortune and controlling stock in OASIS to North Korea? Halliday don't give a poo poo. He wants people to play his game.

quote:

Halliday snaps his fingers again and the vault disappears. In the same instant, Halliday shrinks and morphs into a small boy wearing brown corduroys and a faded The Muppet Show T-shirt. The young Halliday stands in a cluttered living room with burnt orange carpeting, wood-paneled walls, and kitschy late-�70s decor. A 21-inch Zenith television sits nearby, with an Atari 2600 game console hooked up to it.

�This was the first videogame system I ever owned,� Halliday says, now in a child�s voice. �An Atari 2600. I got it for Christmas in 1979.� He plops down in front of the Atari, picks up a joystick, and begins to play. �My favorite game was this one,� he says, nodding at the TV screen, where a small square is traveling through a series of simple mazes. �It was called Adventure. Like many early videogames, Adventure was designed and programmed by just one person. But back then, Atari refused to give its programmers credit for their work, so the name of a game�s creator didn�t actually appear anywhere on the packaging.� On the TV screen, we see Halliday use a sword to slay a red dragon, although due to the game�s crude low-resolution graphics, this looks more like a square using an arrow to stab a deformed duck.

Guys I'm making a 1970s period horror film and I don't have this many references to the 70s in it.

quote:

�So the guy who created Adventure, a man named Warren Robinett, decided to hide his name inside the game itself. He hid a key in one of the game�s labyrinths. If you found this key, a small pixel-sized gray dot, you could use it to enter a secret room where Robinett had hidden his name.� On the TV, Halliday guides his square protagonist into the game�s secret room, where the words CREATED BY WARREN ROBINETT appear in the center of the screen.

�This,� Halliday says, pointing to the screen with genuine reverence, �was the very first videogame Easter egg. Robinett hid it in his game�s code without telling a soul, and Atari manufactured and shipped Adventure all over the world without knowing about the secret room. They didn�t find out about the Easter egg�s existence until a few months later, when kids all over the world began to discover it. I was one of those kids, and finding Robinett�s Easter egg for the first time was one of the coolest videogaming experiences of my life.�

I'm getting really annoyed by "videogame" as one word. If you want to see this Easter egg for yourself, here you go:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YS-HYWRdb2g

The living room fades out. Now Halliday is in his avatar as Anorak (a taller, slightly handsomer wizard version of himself) standing in a dim cavern. Here he reveals the truth: he's hidden an Easter egg in OASIS. Whoever can find it gets the whole fortune. He shows three keys: copper, jade, and clear crystal. As he recites the first clue, flaming subtitles appear at the bottom of the screen.

quote:

Three hidden keys open three secret gates
Wherein the errant will be tested for worthy traits
And those with the skill to survive these straits
Will reach The End where the prize awaits

The jade and crystal keys vanish, leaving the copper one hanging around Halliday's neck.

quote:

The camera follows Anorak as he turns and continues farther into the dark cavern. A few seconds later, he arrives at a pair of massive wooden doors set into the cavern�s rocky wall. These doors are banded with steel, and there are shields and dragons carved into their surfaces. �I couldn�t playtest this particular game, so I worry that I may have hidden my Easter egg a little too well. Made it too difficult to reach. I�m not sure. If that�s the case, it�s too late to change anything now. So I guess we�ll see.�

Oh great. He didn't even playtest his loving will and it might be impossible for anyone to ever get to.

quote:

Anorak throws open the double doors, revealing an immense treasure room filled with piles of glittering gold coins and jewel-encrusted goblets. Then he steps into the open doorway and turns to face the viewer, stretching out his arms to hold open the giant double doors.

�So without further ado,� Anorak announces, �let the hunt for Halliday�s Easter egg begin!� Then he vanishes in a flash of light, leaving the viewer to gaze through the open doorway at the glittering mounds of treasure that lay beyond.

Then the screen fades to black.

So first, one more annotation mentions that the pile of treasure behind him also includes stuff like old 80s video game systems and cartridges and hundreds of dice. Second, Halliday intentionally staged the end of the video to look identical to the 1983 Dungeon Master's Guide cover.

What a loving nerd.

The end of the video has a link to Halliday's personal website. While it used to have nothing but a looping animation of Anorak making potions and looking over spell books in his lab, the site now includes a huge scoreboard that quickly became known by the dramatic nickname....the Scoreboard. In its default format, all 10 spots are taken up by the initials "JDH" with a score of 000000.

quote:

Just below the Scoreboard was an icon that looked like a small leather-bound book, which linked to a free downloadable copy of Anorak�s Almanac, a collection of hundreds of Halliday�s undated journal entries. The Almanac was over a thousand pages long, but it contained few details about Halliday�s personal life or his day-to-day activities. Most of the entries were his stream-of-consciousness observations on various classic videogames, science-fiction and fantasy novels, movies, comic books, and �80s pop culture, mixed with humorous diatribes denouncing everything from organized religion to diet soda.

If your goal was to make me think Halliday is quirky and cool, you're failing miserably. If anything, it sounds like he didn't have anything in his life except 80s pop culture and based his entire personality at it.

*stares intently at the reader*

The Hunt, as it became known, led to a huge resurgence in 1980s culture. The 2040s are now a near carbon copy of the 80s from hairstyles to music, as everyone young and old began obsessing over finding the Easter egg and earning a $240 billion fortune. Millions of OASIS users became "egg hunters", or "gunters" because this is a sci-fi book and we need at least one really dumb slang term to be sufficiently cyberpunk. But as the years went on, the number of gunters (I keep reading it as "grunters" and that's never going to stop) started to die down. The Hunt became an urban legend, one last practical joke by a crazy old rich dude.

quote:

Then, on the evening of February 11, 2045, an avatar�s name appeared at the top of the Scoreboard, for the whole world to see. After five long years, the Copper Key had finally been found, by an eighteen-year-old kid living in a trailer park on the outskirts of Oklahoma City.

That kid was me.

Dozens of books, cartoons, movies, and miniseries have attempted to tell the story of everything that happened next, but every single one of them got it wrong. So I want to set the record straight, once and for all.

The only thing that's about to get set straight is my opinions on this book, believe me.

# ? Mar 13, 2018 01:43

JacquelineDempsey: Aug 6, 2008; Women's Circuit Bender Union Local 34

Happy Landfill posted:

Chitoryu why

I blame his selfless valor in experiments with torpedo juice

fake edit after "preview reply": oh god, the first installment has happened. Once more into the breach, gentlefolk.

# ? Mar 13, 2018 01:56

Transmogrifier: Dec 10, 2004; Systems at max!; Lipstick Apathy

Happy Landfill posted:

Chitoryu why

Because I asked nicely. Thank you chitoryu. :allears:

# ? Mar 13, 2018 01:59

chitoryu12: Apr 24, 2014

I just found this in another thread and wish I included it in the OP.

# ? Mar 13, 2018 02:11

there wolf: Jan 11, 2015; by Fluffdaddy

quote:

. Here, finally, is this generation�s Neuromancer.��Will Lavender, New York Times bestselling author of Obedience

I too have found a cheap xerox of a picture of Warhol's diptych to be of the same value and quality as Marilyn Monroe herself. Christ, that's bleak. This is what I'm going to make myself remember every time I thing what the younger generations are doing as stupid and vapid.

# ? Mar 13, 2018 02:19

Gnome de plume: Sep 5, 2006; Hell.
Fucking.
Yes.

You're doing the lord's work. I tried reading this after listening to the I Don't Even Own A Television & 372 Pages podcasts but gave up 3/4 of the way in.

So not only does this chucklefuck drive that eyesore but he also deliberately goes over the speed limit just so he can get pulled over and written a ticket for doing 88mph.

Also with the movie coming out the latest copies of the book are being sold with this cover

leeeeeeegs

# ? Mar 13, 2018 02:26

JacquelineDempsey: Aug 6, 2008; Women's Circuit Bender Union Local 34

Transmogrifier posted:

Because I asked nicely. Thank you chitoryu.

Chitoryu is the hero SA deserves. Just in case you're not cool enough to know, that's a paraphrasing from the hit film Batman Begins, which I saw when I happened to be alive at the time and blah blah blah needless explanation we get it already (seriously these excerpts are even worse than I imagined)

edit: just to clarify, love this thread and your commentary, chitoryu. It's Cline's prose I find horrible. Keep up the good work!

JacquelineDempsey fucked around with this message at 02:52 on Mar 13, 2018

# ? Mar 13, 2018 02:41

Solumin: Jan 11, 2013

The "Handbook for Mortals" thread was a gift that kept on giving, and I can't wait to see just how terrible this ends up being. :allears:

# ? Mar 13, 2018 03:27

Happy Landfill: Feb 26, 2011; I don't understand but I've also heard much worse

You know, if Cline was setting up the character's collective realization that Halliday was actually incredibly lonely and sad and used his childhood nostalgia to avoid dealing with some trauma this would almost be...effective? Like, it's so over the top and shallow that it just...it's gotta be leading to something at least somewhat interesting.

But no. Everything you see here is exactly as it says on the tin.

Edit: also before I forget

quote:

the most insufferable manchild of a businessman that Cline could think was cool. He was a bachelor with no friends, no family, and no children.

Notch. Cline included Notch in his book.

Happy Landfill fucked around with this message at 03:42 on Mar 13, 2018

# ? Mar 13, 2018 03:38

chitoryu12: Apr 24, 2014

JacquelineDempsey posted:

I blame his selfless valor in experiments with torpedo juice

I may or may not have gotten drunk tonight on 95% Everclear mixed with Dr Pepper.

# ? Mar 13, 2018 04:07

A HUNGRY MOUTH: Nov 3, 2006; date of birth: 02/05/88
manufacturer: mazda
model/year: 2008 mazda6
sexuality: straight, bi-curious
peircings: pusspuss; Nap Ghost

chitoryu12 posted:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iypUpv9xelg

I hate to tell you Ernest, but that ain't a loving trumpet.

The "Boingo Alive" version of the track has a horn/sax intro, but Cline sure doesn't seem to know it's only an alt-version thing. My evidence for this is that he absolutely would point it out if he did because that's the basis of the entire loving book

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1j20aRoYrJA

# ? Mar 13, 2018 04:09

A human heart: Oct 10, 2012

Gas.

(USER WAS PUT ON PROBATION FOR THIS POST)

# ? Mar 13, 2018 04:31

Proteus Jones: Feb 28, 2013

Happy Landfill posted:

Notch. Cline included Notch in his book.

Holy poo poo.

I can�t believe I never made the connection.

# ? Mar 13, 2018 04:46

Mel Mudkiper: Jan 19, 2012; At this point, Mudman abruptly ends the conversation. He usually insists on the last word.

Chapter One

It was gamemasteranthony's birthday...

# ? Mar 13, 2018 04:53

Ccs: Feb 25, 2011

The Rifftrax guys already have this covered, so you can supplement your reading with their podcast and it's notable segments, like:

Dumb Sentence of the Week
Fan--Fiction or Real

and various skits based on the stupidity.

372 Pages We'll Never Get Back

http://372pages.com/page/2

# ? Mar 13, 2018 04:53

Memento: Aug 25, 2009; Bleak Gremlin

chitoryu12 posted:

If this is our generation's Neuromancer, does that mean all future cyberpunk is just going to be pop culture references?

So far all signs point to yes.

Goonspeed chitoryu, I have nothing to offer you but my [5].

# ? Mar 13, 2018 05:42

iospace: Jan 19, 2038

Gods speed, may they have mercy on your soul.

(Also, they are ad blitzing this movie hard, which to me screams it'll be meh at best)

# ? Mar 13, 2018 06:00

Somebody Awful: Nov 27, 2011; BORN TO DIE
HAIG IS A FUCK
Kill Em All 1917
I am trench man
410,757,864,530 SHELLS FIRED

Thread bookmarked with extreme prejudice.

# ? Mar 13, 2018 06:24

Not Nipsy Russell: Oct 6, 2004; Failure is always an option.

chitoryu12 posted:

Before we begin, let's look at some of the praise put at the beginning of the book and decide whether or not to ironically weep.

If this is our generation's Neuromancer, does that mean all future cyberpunk is just going to be pop culture references?

"The sky above the port was the color of television, tuned to a dead UHF channel which could only be accessed by a cheap seventy-five cent loop antenna you could pick up at K-Mart, Woolworths, and sometimes FYE. UHF would show kung fu movies simulcast on local FM stations for the audio, but you had to watch and listen at exactly the same time, and only when the TV Guide told you it was on. UHF had, like, another eighty channels, but usually only a dozen or so were actually broadcasting. So it was like one of those channels where nothing was on. That's what the sky looked like."

"Case found himself staring through a shop window. The place sold small bright objects to the sailors.
Swatches, Balisongs, pet rocks, slap bracelets, Tech Decks, Tamagotchi (a Generation One! They could die in a day, given a moment's inattention and required a deft hand to thrive), and shuriken.
The shuriken had always fascinated him, steel stars with knife-sharp points. They reminded him of the Glaive from Krull. He knew actually, that a glaive was nothing like it was portrayed in the movie: Advanced Dungeons and Dragons (first edition, of course) and Gary Gygax's exhaustive list of every kind of pole weapon taught him that."

# ? Mar 13, 2018 06:30

roomforthetuna: Mar 22, 2005; I don't need to know anything about virii! My CUSTOM PROGRAM keeps me protected! It's not like they'll try to come in through the Internet or something!

Zamboni_Rodeo posted:

I've read Neuromancer. Neuromancer is an exceptionally good book. RPO, sir, is no Neuromancer.

It's easy to make this an appropriate insult if you read only the first ~5 pages of Neuromancer, which are comprised of 100% virtually unreadable author-masturbatory jargon. (The rest of the book is a fine book, but the beginning is loving atrocious.)

# ? Mar 13, 2018 06:37

A human heart: Oct 10, 2012

Neuromancer and Ready Player One are both awful. Gas.

# ? Mar 13, 2018 07:54

Srice: Sep 11, 2011

A human heart posted:

Neuromancer and Ready Player One are both awful. Gas.

# ? Mar 13, 2018 10:24

Doctor Bishop: Oct 22, 2013; To understand what happened at the diner, we use Mr. Papaya. This is upsetting because he is the friendliest of fruits.

The Killer Dynamo posted:

I had the same worries about getting called out for talkin' poo poo when I hadn't read the book.

Now you're doing the legwork for me. Thank you for your endurance, good sir.

I love how one of the ground floor posts in this thread is by a poster with a username, avatar, and title all lifted straight out of a series that has pop culture references out the wazoo, especially from the '80s, and yet still manages to be genuinely fun to watch. Just as a cute little reminder of what RPO is not.

# ? Mar 13, 2018 11:52

stealie72: Jan 10, 2007; Their eyes locked and suddenly there was the sound of breaking glass.
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Forrest Gump 2: Gen X Nerd Edition

# ? Mar 13, 2018 11:53

SUPERMAN'S GAL PAL: Feb 21, 2006; Holy Moly! DARKSEID IS!

Since I refuse to ever let this go: please note the name of the protagonist is shared with a real-life important figure in Oklahoma. I feel it�s more than a coincidence; maybe Cline just thought the name sounded cool, but an editor (HA) should have caught this because it�s insensitive and thoughtless at best.

# ? Mar 13, 2018 13:02

Mel Mudkiper: Jan 19, 2012; At this point, Mudman abruptly ends the conversation. He usually insists on the last word.

Oh no not an important figure in Oklahoma

# ? Mar 13, 2018 13:13

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# ? Apr 18, 2024 23:50

Darth Walrus: Feb 13, 2012

Mel Mudkiper posted:

Oh no not an important figure in Oklahoma

Big civil-rights hero. Which does make calling your liberator of the nerds Wade Watts faintly suspect.

# ? Mar 13, 2018 13:18

The Something Awful Forums > The Finer Arts > The Book Barn > Let's Read Ready Player One - The Ultimate Showdown as a book

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