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| http://www.thecreativeissue.com.au/book-review-ready-player-one/ |
Hi Mom,
So, I decided to re-read Ready Player One in preparation for the movie, which debuts on March 29th.
That was the first sentence I wrote for this entry back in early March, which was two months ago. I am finally going to see the movie today, so I may have movie comments or save them for another time.
Indeed. I have now seen the movie. It may be a good movie if you have not read the book. If you're expecting a faithful adaptation of the book, not so much. I will deal with the movie later.
Originally, I was discussing re-reading the novel.
And by re-read, I mean listen to the excellent audio recording narrated by Wil Wheaton. This is my third time through the book, which I wrote about way back in the T-shirts blog at T-Shirt #131 - Starfleet Academy, in which I write about how much I loved this book and show a visit to a classic arcade (and a picture that makes me look really fat). And the link to my Good Reads review.
SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS
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I should tell you two things before you start reading.
1. There are spoilers ahead. I am not skimping. If you haven't read the book, read it, and come back. Thank me later.
2. I love this book. As soon as I read it, the book jumped into my top five favorite genre books of all time and possibly, quite arguably, among my favorite books of all time. So I may be biased. But I will try to look at the book with some objectivity and evaluate detractors (one of whom I call an asshole, and I know that's unfair) somewhat fairly.
Ready Player One is a pop culture reference machine. It's a love affair with 1980s pop culture as well as hacker lore and gaming, specifically computer gaming, trivia.
Here's a reference from early in the book (pg.2):
Also, "Dogs and cats living together... mass hysteria!" And that's from page one.
The book is well written and fun, but the narration by Wil Wheaton takes the book to another level of excellence. I strongly recommend the audio book version. It will increase the enjoyment of Cline's book exponentially.
The book is a headlong rush (ha ha.... that's funny if you've read the book) of a geek fest from a white guy who grew up immersed in 1980s culture (mostly though some 1970s) like many of us who love the book, though I am told that book stands up well with folks who did not live through the 1970s and 1980s.
The book does a good job rising above its white, cis-male roots by introducing a multicultural cast of characters surrounding its main character of Wade Watts, a high school senior and self-described as fat, pop culture obsessed gunter (the book's term for those who hunt for the Easter Egg promised by James Halliday in his post-death released video last will and testament promising his wealth and the keys to the VR world of the Oasis to the winner of the hunt for the hidden Easter Egg, just like in the classic Atari computer game Adventure.
I thought it would be fun to chart some of the references and pop culture icons of the book in a series of blog posts as I re-read the book. Perhaps this is too ambitious of a plan, but I do have some content to impart and a few of the references.
But first, I looked around online. And though I assumed there was universal love for this novel, I soon learned otherwise.
And so, then, there's this asshole:
https://theoutline.com/post/2076/ready-player-one-movie-bad?zd=1&zi=enewkotb
Not that I am against people having dissenting opinions from mine or from the majority of readers and pop culture consumers.
Nearly every one of Ready Player One’s faults is a direct result of Cline’s authorial narcissism. The writing process appears to have begun with the question: What if the entire world revolved around me, and the specific video games and movies I like? The rest was assembled around that essential core. Cline is far from the first author to write a self-insert wish fulfillment narrative, but he may be the first to write one this lazy and self-indulgent. To place oneself in the character of Wade Watts, an 18-year-old video game trivia knower, requires no imagined heroism or personal growth. It simply constructs a world around the reader, where his comfort zone, his passively acquired knowledge of retro video games and Star Wars, is enough to effortlessly make him a Great Man of History. A fantasy this mundane is barely a fantasy at all — just a desire to be unjustly rewarded for mediocrity. And, thanks to Steven Spielberg, Cline’s mediocrity has been rewarded beyond his wildest dreams.
AND THEN, this guys seems to argue well against the dissenter.....
Here's some excerpts
https://www.tor.com/2018/03/19/ernest-clines-ready-player-one-is-smarter-and-more-insightful-than-youve-been-told/
Ernest Cline’s Ready Player One is Smarter and More Insightful Than You’ve Been Told
Michael Moreci
The thing is, though, is that Cline has drawn a lot of heat for indulging too deeply in nerd culture—exploiting it, even, and using it as a crutch to tell less of a story and more of a nostalgia pastiche. Obviously, since I love the book, I disagree with this sentiment. But—this specific take, which is common enough, is certainly worth discussing, particularly the way Cline builds his world around things he clearly loves.
Now, I don’t want to reduce a defense of Ready Player One to “hey, write what you know!” because that’s lazy and it doesn’t capture the point. I’ve faced similar criticism in my own work (obviously not as extensive as the chatter surrounding Ready Player One—though I wish!); my novel, Black Star Renegades, is unapologetically a love letter to Star Wars. I make no effort to hide the fact. And that’s bothered some people, and I’ve been asked, a number of times, why I did that. To me, the answer is obvious: It’s because I’m capturing the world as I understand, which is what writers do. Let’s take this quote from David Foster Wallace:
The world that I live in consists of 250 advertisements a day and any number of unbelievably entertaining options, most of which are subsidized by corporations that want to sell me things. The whole way that the world acts on my nerve endings is bound up with stuff that the guys with leather patches on their elbows would consider pop or trivial or ephemeral. I use a fair amount of pop stuff in my fiction, but what I mean by it is nothing different than what other people mean in writing about trees and parks and having to walk to the river to get water a 100 years ago. It’s just the texture of the world I live in.
The texture of the world I live in.
That, right there, is everything. The texture of my world is Star Wars, amongst other things. I grew up in front of TV/video game console/stack of books and comics. That is the texture of my world, for better or worse. I think it’s safe to say that Cline shared this experience. The important question, though, is what you do with this texture. For me, it was about deconstructing the pulp hero mythos. For Cline, Ready Player One is, in part, about taking a look at why escapism is so powerful, so addicting, so essential for so many people.
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In the above excerpts, I like that last line about the importance of escapism. I have lived my whole life immersed in escapist entertainments and trying to manage my time so these entertainments do not eat my life (which is why I no longer play video games) while at the same time wanting to be a creator of these types of entertainments.
The book had me from page one with its mix of references that I "get." Like a lot of geeky white males, I identify with that "see how clever I am; can you guess all my pop culture references." I get James Halliday's main character trait of wanting everyone else to value what he values and to get all his references to these pop cult faves.
Lots of Ladyhawke and Highlander references. A Buckaroo Banzai reference natch.
Maybe more exploration of this stuff in another entry.
Now to wrap up.
In watching the movie, which did not use ANY of the book's challenges at all, I found that after just a month off, I had forgotten the second set of challenges and was not sure I remembered the third.
So despite SPOILERS, here's the list for my own reference more than anything.
THE CHALLENGES - THE KEYS AND THE GATES
First key - Copper - Navigate the Dungeons and Dragons module of the Tomb of Horrors written by Gary Gygax and then face the lich at the end in a game of JOUST.
First gate - Play through as Matthew Broderick's character David Lightman in the movie WarGames.
Wade is side-tracked thinking he's playing for the Jade Key to play a perfect game of Pacman in a replica of Halliday's old haunt of Happytime Pizza to win the "extra life" quarter that factors into the ending.
Second key - Jade - Find the Cap'n Crunch whistle after collecting the trophies in the trophy case in the house in the first game of Zork. The whistle was used for an old hacker trick with the telephone system.
Second gate - Take the Voigt-Kampf Test at the Tyrell Corporation from the Bladerunner movie and then play inside a simulation of the 1987 Capcom game Black Tiger
Third Key - Crystal - Recover the guitar from the stone in the Temple of Syrinx in the city of Megadon from Rush's SF themed album 2112 and play the opening measure of "Discovery."
Third gate - Halliday placed the third gate on the planet Chthonia, the recreation of his fantasy role-playing world created for his high school Dungeons and Dragons campaign in the Castle Anorak presided over by his avatar Anorak, the Wizard.
The third gate is opened by solving the riddle of "Faith and hope and charity, the heart and the brain and the body, give you three as a magic number" from Schoolhouse Rock. It takes three avatars each with a copy of a key to turn them at the same time and open the third gate.
The next stage involves exploiting a glitch in the first version of the Tempest arcade game from 1980 that gives the player forty free credits if he/she ends the game with a score that ends in 06, 11, or 12. In doing so, the player has a shot to beat Halliday's high score of 728,329. The final stage gives the player the chance to be immersed in Monty Python and the Holy Grail as King Arthur, delivering all the lines perfectly.
After finishing the final challenges, the player obtains the Easter Egg by typing in the right password after picking the right computer -- a replica of the IMSAI 8080 that Matthew Broderick used in WarGames -- from a room full of old and new computers and then finding the Easter Egg in a game of Adventure, just like finding the original Easter Egg in the original Adventure game.
That's enough for now.
This book hits all my buttons and then some I didn't even encounter; I never owned an Atari game.
My thoughts on the movie in the near future.
from pg. 197 - hardcover edition - chapter 19
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Reflect and connect.
Have someone give you a kiss, and tell you that I love you, Mom.
I miss you so very much, Mom.
Talk to you tomorrow, Mom.
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- Days ago = 1036 days ago
- Bloggery committed by chris tower - 1805.05 - 10:10
NEW (written 1708.27) NOTE on time: I am now in the same time zone as Google! So, when I post at 10:10 a.m. PDT to coincide with the time of your death, Mom, I am now actually posting late, so it's really 1:10 p.m. EDT. But I will continue to use the time stamp of 10:10 a.m. to remember the time of your death, Mom. I know this only matters to me, and to you, Mom.
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