3 ms·

I read "Ready Player One" years ago after a few colleagues recommended it. I truthfully could not get through it. After a point in about the middle of the book

I read "Ready Player One" years ago after a few colleagues recommended it. I truthfully could not get through it. After a point in about the middle of the book I realized that there were other books I would much rather be reading and the nostalgia just wasn't hitting me to overcome the rather lacking story lines and not great writing. To each their own: some will like it some won't, but I was not a fan. I couldn't imagine putting myself through this book as well. I think a lot of the criticisms on the Wikipedia page hold true for both books: "tedious slog through arcane pop culture references sprinkled in [lazily]," I agree with this assessment for the first book as well. I applaud Cline for writing about his love of pop culture and immortalizing it in a book, but in many ways it felt like badly written fanfic. Overall, the books are not written for me. Many people enjoyed them, enjoyed the nostalgia.

jfengel 5y ago
The book was written for me, and I found that weird. I get being nostalgic for one's childhood, but writing a character who is nostalgic for my childhood? I finished the first book, but all I could think on seeing this HN articles was "Oh, please, no." I will not be reading it.
PaulHoule 5y ago
I saw a few scenes from the RP1 movie that enticed me to watch the whole thing and liked the movie better than I expected to. As a real hater of the postmodern I thought the nostalgia for the 1980s was a dangerous theme but it Spielberg was able to pull it off because he was a cultural force in that time. Also Spielberg had avoided his own bad habit of showing you something and then showing it to you again and again in a heavy handed way that shows a lack of trust in the audience. (... am I really a postmodern hater if I use Baudrillard books for self-help?) My son was skeptical about the movie and calling it Ready Player Two and I was amused to see that the book had already been written. In the end my son watched RP1 with me and liked it. In my mind RP1 is also eclipsed by Sword Art Online, particularly the arcs after they escape the death game. (It is like the commercial version of The Matrix and quite shocking that the kids go back into VR after the death game.)

jfengel 5y ago

The book was written for me, and I found that weird. I get being nostalgic for one's childhood, but writing a character who is nostalgic for my childhood? I finished the first book, but all I could think on seeing this HN articles was "Oh, please, no." I will not be reading it.

PaulHoule 5y ago

I saw a few scenes from the RP1 movie that enticed me to watch the whole thing and liked the movie better than I expected to. As a real hater of the postmodern I thought the nostalgia for the 1980s was a dangerous theme but it Spielberg was able to pull it off because he was a cultural force in that time. Also Spielberg had avoided his own bad habit of showing you something and then showing it to you again and again in a heavy handed way that shows a lack of trust in the audience. (... am I really a postmodern hater if I use Baudrillard books for self-help?) My son was skeptical about the movie and calling it Ready Player Two and I was amused to see that the book had already been written. In the end my son watched RP1 with me and liked it. In my mind RP1 is also eclipsed by Sword Art Online, particularly the arcs after they escape the death game. (It is like the commercial version of The Matrix and quite shocking that the kids go back into VR after the death game.)