Ready Player One

I think it should be abbreviated RP 1 instead of RPO, like how Deep Space Nine is DS 9 instead of DSN.

I'm not sure how to feel about that. I liked RPO, but thought Armada — the only other thing Ernest Cline has published, to my knowledge — was really terrible. I guess we'll see which is the exception and which is the rule once Ready Player Two comes out.

Armada was a lot dumber than Ready Player One, but it had its moments. I'd be lying if I said I didn't enjoy it.

I was expecting a major case of It's the Same, So It Sucks(and apparently a lot of people did have that reaction), but I liked it a lot.

I was wondering: does the sequel being called Ready Player Two make the original's title an example of Title One? I'm not aware of Cline intending for there to be a sequel when he wrote the original.

Plot Twist: Ready Player Two is just Ready Player One with all the genders reversed, like that Twilight flip-over book.

Edited by Krory21 on Jul 13th 2020 at 6:14:55 AM

Am I the only one who thought it was way too easy for Wade to break out of that center? Granted, he did get himself sent there on purpose but I feel like he really should have had a more difficult time getting out.

Edited by Mroh on Aug 17th 2020 at 10:28:57 AM

No, you're not the only one. It's part of the book's continuous issue of introducing a conflict only to instantly undo the tension by revealing the character already planned for whatever the COMPLETELY UNEXPECTED COMPLICATION was or that he was also obsessed with Joust or a TV show or some other obscure thing related to the current obstacle.

It ruins any pacing or tension the story is building because I can't care or be invested. He'll always get out of it because the story won't allow for any threat or danger.

In the case of Joust Wade's expertise is perhaps understandable, given how familiar he was with Halliday's favorite stuff and how long he'd spent studying and prepping and whatnot. I'll agree, though, that the whole IOI infiltration felt much too easy. Apparently, Wade is the rare adventure novel protagonist for whom plans run smoothly.

Edited by Robbery on Nov 29th 2020 at 12:32:04 PM

Another suggestion: Since we now have RP 1 and RP 2 now, and Mr. Cline has hinted at a possible prequel called Ready Player Zero, that we refer to the novel trilogy as The OASIS Saga. But that's just my suggestion.

I notice this book on the Condemned by History page. Can anyone else here give their take on whether it's really achieved that status?

I recall people criticising the book on those grounds as soon as it was released. At the time, however, it was mostly read by awkward nerds like me who enjoyed getting all the references. The movie brought a lot of extra attention, which resulted in more people reading it who fell outside of the target demographic of awkward nerds like me; as such, the criticism became more common.

So yeah, I don't think it's CBH; it's just that the only people who noticed it at first were the type who were likely to enjoy it in spite of its flaws.

I do remember the book getting a lot of praise from mainstream media sources of the type you wouldn't expect to praise a nerdfest like RP 1.

Never read the book but I loved the movie, which apparently did away with some of the more problematic elements.

For what I get, the gist is that the book and movie is very much a gamer wish fulliment in that the world depend of gaming and 80 and 90 reference in a way a nerd can win by remenbering every bit of trivia that it exist. Is the kind of wild dream of mileenial gamer.

Nowdays with gamergate, the whole gatekeeping stuff and how many have complain about his obsesion of remenbering every bit of detail or memorizing the wiki an used as way to claim superiority in the same "male pack" behavior many geeks decry decades ago probably sours a lot of people about the book or the movie(who indeed move way some issues).

A book that gets a movie made by STEVEN SPIELBERG is hardly condemned.

It is Vindicated by History all the way to the bank.

And frankly, while Wade is a bit of an asshole, I find it kind of silly that Ernest Clines is getting any flack at all for recent controversies is odd. He's been clumsily supporting LGBT rights while a bunch of other authors (see Rowling) are condemning them.

I don't like his writing but the fact is that Gamergate is about how girls don't belong in male spaces while Ernest Clines has, "wouldn't it be awesome if I had a social activist Gamer Girl girlfriend and a gamer best friend who was a lesbian black woman?"

Which...props to him. I actually think the acceptance deserves a Values Resonance just because the bar is so low and Ernest makes his opinions 100% clear even if, again, clumsily. He outright admires Art3mis for her woke status.

Edited by CharlesPhipps on Mar 30th 2023 at 4:39:41 AM

I feel like it qualifies for Condemned by History if only because the initial reaction when the book was released was fairly muted but largely positive, and when the movie was announced, there was another wave of attention given to the book and it was mostly negative. Hell, you can see that in this thread. Basically, people in 2011 thought it was fun not exactly deep, but people in 2017 thought it was trash. That seems to fit the definition of Condemned by History, without getting into the question of whether history was right to condemn it or not.

It being a success doesn’t equal vindicated by history, especially since it’s just ended up getting lumped into the trend of Warner Bros going “LOOK AT OUR STUFF ISN’T IT COOL WE CAN DO CROSSOVER STUFF WITH OUR PROPERTIES LIKE THIS?”

There’s a lot of huge successes that have gotten looked at increasingly badly over time and Ready Player One is basically guaranteed to become less and less relevant. It hinges so hard on nostalgia that people who aren’t cued in on 80s and 90s nostalgia won’t really get it and most of the appeal will be lost on them. Sure, Hollywood is basically refusing to move past that market, but it’ll happen eventually.

Not to mention that the movie is only really brought up in the context of “remember that weird self-referential nostalgia trend that lead to some really wonky movies?”

Except the hatedom has largely died down and, again, the movies and books have aged well in their acceptance of larger communities.

Indeed, Ernest continues to sell and the book does as well.

The acceptance is nice (though it has some problems), but the main hook remains the 80's-90's nostalgia. I doubt Zork is the kind of cultural touchstone that people will remember for generations.

I admit to bias because self-referential humor is what got me 5000 positive ratings for my first book on Audible.

And Buffy stands up today despite its own nostalgia memes. It just its creator that sucked.

There is a good middle point here, Charles is not wrong that while the book kinda age bad the hatedom it got probably die down in part because the storm about GG kinda move on into other stuff.

BUT is not a lie to see the book havent age well, my consensus is that it become a....let call it "2010 book/movie", you know when people said "that is 70/80/90" thing to do? well this is the same as it have all the hallmark you see in peak geek fandom: the protagonist is a gamer in a work were gaming become so important that gamer fight to defend the spaces(sound familiar?) and because of it, knowing every single piece of trivia become esencial and a sign on how good you are and I will said charles is wrong in one thing, for many in GG the issue wasnt woman were in their spaces is that they were complaing about how men were running things. because for gamers if you are one of them you have to do two thing: sexualizing yourself or desexualizing and being a typical angry obsesive gamer.

Ultimatly, the movie is good because they tone down a lot of wade jerkassery and it manage to land the emotional core of why gaming matter very well but a lot of this because dificulty after both GG and many recient revelation of gaming industry, the little fact many CEO were like sorento and many gamers suport them(blizzard and Riot being a clear case here).

Today is the release of the new Ernest Cline book Bridge to Bat City. It's a kids book and doesn't appear to be a nerd-fest like his other books.