Ready Player One was not that good a book...

…and I think the movie will be not that good either.

When I first read RPO my opinion was mixed but leaning positive but as time has gone on it has shrunk. It’s not a terrible book but it is very lazy and empty. The story is paper thin and little more than something to hang all the Gen X Nostalgia Porn on. It’s the book version of that Chris Farley character where he interviews people by saying, “Remember [XXX]? That was cool!” Eventually you get tired of just saying, “Yeah I remember that”.

The author presents a world where people can literally create anything they want and the best they can come up with is references to movies their grandparents would have watched (the story takes place 30 years from now so us Gen Xers are all senior citizens). It also presents a world where corporations rule but somehow Copyright laws are no longer being enforced.

Prejudging the movie from the trailers it leans into the Nostalgia porn. I can see now all the YouTube videos with headings like 'All the Easter Eggs form Ready Player One explained!" But they won’t be Easter Eggs. The references are the only reason the movie exists.

Spielberg is an amazingly talented film maker so maybe he will surprise me but my hopes aren’t high. The movie will almost certainly be a hit because “Remember that?” entertainment is very popular but I am expecting a story that makes you smile briefly and then completely forget a few minutes later.

Hmm… I was hoping that wouldn’t be the case. I’ve just started “reading” it via audiobook, and that was the feeling I was getting from the first few chapters. I was hoping it would improve. I feel very pandered to, as I’m right in the Familty Ties-watching, 1st edition Dungeons & Dragons-playing generation it’s targeted at. But unlike say, Stranger Things, where the nostalgia all felt organic… here it feels like that’s all there is.

Not really. Players have to earn credits in order to create things for themselves, or win them in games/challenges. There’s no reason to believe that copyrights have been violated - I just assumed that licenses had been acquired. Remember - the main character had nothing to start with. His gear and equipment was all crappy level 1 stuff, and it wasn’t until he passed the first challenge did he earn all the credits to buy upgrades.

I enjoyed it quite a bit, but as I read it, I realized it has no long-term impact. It will not “leave a huge footprint” felt in the future.

It is only really aimed at people who either remember the 1980’s, experienced it themselves, or had parents that showed a bunch of 80’s stuff to them growing up.

That will pass and the book will be pretty much ignored.

Ready Player One is the Worst Thing that Nerd Culture Ever Produced.

I’ve not read the book, but nothing I’ve heard about it, either from its fans or its detractors, makes me want to read it. I should be a key demographic–grew up in the eighties, had all-night Zelda sessions and later all-night Dungeons and Dragons sessions, owned one of the first Nintendo systems, dropped countless quarters at the arcade, and so on.

But there’s one thing that separates me from the key demographic: I like stories that are well-written.

I’m in the target demographic as well, and I have very close to zero interest in this film. I’m just not interested in revisiting stuff from the late '70s-early '80s. If it’s still cool we all know it because it’s still around and if it’s not cool, why the hell would I want to get nostalgic about that?

Also, my entire life has been a parade of nostalgia from previous generations and frankly, I didn’t really care for most of that. Now that it’s my generation’s turn to be nostalgic, I find I have no interest. What’s going on today is what’s cool, not what went on 30-40 years ago, IMO.

I dunno. I can’t tell good books from bad books, really (I just don’t read enough) but *RPO *was fun. Just fun. I’d already devoured *Snowcrash *so I was a fan of the premise, and adding in all the nostalgia was fun. Like Snowcrash Lite.

I feel this way about “Stranger Things”. I think it’s pretty boring and have no real use for picking apart the series. But I watched both seasons and I thought it was fun!

I think *RPO *will be a fun movie, too.

World changing? Nah.

I thought it was fun and I enjoyed it. Although I’m right in the target demo, I wasn’t like “OMG they’re talking about Zork and War Games! This is the best!” but I was amused by the story and stayed interested to see how it would pan out. Having said that, I doubt it holds up to repeated readings and will likely never delve into it again although I’ll see the movie at some point just out of curiosity.

I figured the implication was that we kept hearing about these kids & young adults being into 80’s stuff because they’d spent the last several years immersed in Holliday’s puzzle and writings (plus his influence on the Oasis up until his death). They didn’t represent the average Oasis user but rather the subculture of Egg Hunters who lived and breathed this stuff just like a community of modern day Overwatch fanatics don’t represent the average internet user.

I think the guy in the linked article is way, way WAY more worked up about the book than it deserves but I’m far too little worked up about it to bother refuting points. It’s light entertainment and a chance for some Gen Xers to be like “I remember that”. Ranting about genocide is like working on a deconstruction of The Real Ghostbusters. In the words of a wise sage, “Lighten up, Francis”.

I thought the book was OK. It was a good read for the few hours it took me to read it and I didn’t pay much more attention to it after that. Plot-wise it kinda fell apart around the middle when they tried to have the weird love story bit.

The part that bugged me the most about the book was the absolute Mary Sue-ness of the character. “Oh what’s this Pac-Man game doing here? Guess I’ll just play a perfect game cuz it’s so easy.” “Oh I have to know this movie? Good thing I memorized every line and gesture.” He was able to be an absolute expert at everything with only the explanation of his expertise being “well he really wants this and is, like, super nerdy.”

The film will annoy me only because the virtual world looks like it’s hitting the uncanny valley and I don’t like it.

To be fair, it’s also got a ton of references to 2020s pop culture, too. You just didn’t get those.

That was entertainingly savage. Although I enjoyed the book, Coleman’s criticisms are true.

I thought RPO was fun, but I can see where the OP is coming from. Yes, it was just an excuse for a giant nostalgia dump. And that kind of thing only works well (or well enough) once. Because Ernest Cline’s next book, Armada, was much less enjoyable. The story surrounding the GenX nostalgia is incredibly flimsy with hardly any original ideas.

I like the book and have high hopes for the movie, but I’d be the last to defend it as a masterpiece. It’s a light entertaining read, but not particularly well-written.

That said, some of the criticisms in this thread are off. Wade’s not a Mary Sue - he and the other Gunters are experts on old games and films because they’ve spent years studying nothing else. This is established in the first scene in the book with Aetch, where he and Wade bounce obscure game and movie trivia off each other in the Basement.

The OASIS isn’t an 80s paradise - the parts Wade and other Gunters are into focus on that, but it’s mentioned early on that most people don’t bother with those places or the quests related to them. They shop, game, and go to school and leave the rest to the Gunters.

As far as copyright, the OASIS is run by the most profitable company on the planet, and its basically Steve Jobs’ wet dream - a closed system wherein the company controls all access to its customers and can take a piece of everything you sell them. The content is available on their terms, which would be quite favorable.

Yeah–part of my consideration is that there’s no way the book is going to be as fun to read as that takedown was :).

I agree on the book, not so sure on the movie. The book reads a like someone’s first attempt at book-length fiction (it is), so he wrote about something he was knowledgeable about and was fun for hime. Like most first books, it wasn’t particularly great writing-wise, but somehow the topic for this one caught on. I think this will be one of those rare cases where the movie is better than the book. The question is, how much better?

I’d call it a popcorn book but Ready Player One is even lighter and without any crunch at all. It’s cotton candy.

It is enjoyable, but utterly lacking in self-awareness.

I liked it as well, enough that I searched for a copy after reading it at the library. Want to share a popcorn bucket?

I should note that I didn’t read the book, rather it was read to me by Wil Wheaton during my work commute. In those circumstances, having a book be light entertainment and not having to worry about missing anything important when concentrating on a left-hand turn is a feature, not a bug.

I tried reading that “take down” but it was pretty poorly written and I wound up skimming more often than not. I noticed several things I could disagree with or think were just plain wrong but, again, I don’t care enough about the book to defend it by proxy. Other things I just can’t see getting that worked up about. I guess my charitable view is that he was exaggerating for sake of entertainment since the alternative – that he really was that upset – is considerably more worrying.

Eh. I’m a Gen-Xer who’s had to deal with The Beatles, Reaganomics, the Cold War, and crappy Christmas music rammed down my throat for years, then, when our time came, get written off as “slackers” and “Generation Nothing” and get a few so-so movies before being utterly ignored forever. I’ll take whatever I can damned get. If someone wants to make a brainless effects-driven extravaganza for the sole purpose of pandering to my generation, I say pass the popcorn. If nothing else, it’ll be a ride, much like Scott Pilgrim vs. The World. Not going to buy it, of course, but definitely worth an IPad rental.

Covered briefly here.

This echos my experience. The takedown is harsher than I would have expressed it, but I can’t say any of it is wrong. RPO has terrible writing, awful characters, but the story is fun and forgettable.

On my first read, I was pretty sick of the 80s references by the end and just wanted to finish it. But I reread it last month, and somehow I actually enjoyed it a little more the second time. I could skip over sections like the one described where he endlessly lists 80s movies and songs. I could skip the stupid dialog. I knew Cline would do absolutely nothing with the big Aech “reveal” so I wasn’t frustrated by its stupidity and pointlessness. Once you get past that, the story is fun. Stupid, yes, but fun.

I still wouldn’t recommend it to anyone, because it’s a lot of shit to wade through for a simple story. But I do have a glimmer of hope that the movie might retain some fun and not go overboard on the shit.