Ready Player One, by Ernest Cline
Jun. 19th, 2012 07:48 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
yomikomaI just finished reading Ready Player One, by Ernest Cline. As the world goes to hell in the 2040s, a billionaire exactly my age gives his inheritance to whoever can learn enough 1980s trivia and puzzle-solving/game-playing skill to find the easter egg hidden in the MMO that ate the internet. A real '80s movie of a book, with humor and danger and romance. Recommended.
I had seen before reading that it was a little too geek-celebratory, which I agree with. A lot of what I swallowed without thinking when I was 13 seems a little unenlightened in retrospect, something I would expect people in the future to be even more aware of, but maybe when faced with imminent ecological and economic collapse the problems and faults of the 1980s are quaint.
When I was describing the plot,okrablossom asked if Wade was okay with basically turning into Halladay in order to win, which is a really good point, but I think Halladay may have designed his contest so that someone who was like him already would be likely to win.
I did really enjoy catching the references (like I said, exactly my age, though I didn't play as many video games). I feel like the problems of the world were underemphasized - clearly things are bad but we spend so much time in OASYS that you can almost forget that it's not the real world, and once Wade gets his endorsement money we don't see anyone who has much trouble making ends meet.
I'd be interested in hearing other people's thoughts on it (and will probably go searching for reviews now).
I had seen before reading that it was a little too geek-celebratory, which I agree with. A lot of what I swallowed without thinking when I was 13 seems a little unenlightened in retrospect, something I would expect people in the future to be even more aware of, but maybe when faced with imminent ecological and economic collapse the problems and faults of the 1980s are quaint.
When I was describing the plot,
okrablossom asked if Wade was okay with basically turning into Halladay in order to win, which is a really good point, but I think Halladay may have designed his contest so that someone who was like him already would be likely to win.I did really enjoy catching the references (like I said, exactly my age, though I didn't play as many video games). I feel like the problems of the world were underemphasized - clearly things are bad but we spend so much time in OASYS that you can almost forget that it's not the real world, and once Wade gets his endorsement money we don't see anyone who has much trouble making ends meet.
I'd be interested in hearing other people's thoughts on it (and will probably go searching for reviews now).
