Ready Player One

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Bane_sl

shitlord
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Figured I would start the thread for one of my favorite sci-if / video game genre books as its newly announced sequel will be coming out soon too. Will post that in a separate thread.

Ready Player One:

Summary:
At once wildly original and stuffed with irresistible nostalgia, READY PLAYER ONE is a spectacularly genre-busting, ambitious, and charming debut?part quest novel, part love story, and part virtual space opera set in a universe where spell-slinging mages battle giant Japanese robots, entire planets are inspired by Blade Runner, and flying DeLoreans achieve light speed.

It?s the year 2044, and the real world is an ugly place.

Like most of humanity, Wade Watts escapes his grim surroundings by spending his waking hours jacked into the OASIS, a sprawling virtual utopia that lets you be anything you want to be, a place where you can live and play and fall in love on any of ten thousand planets.

And like most of humanity, Wade dreams of being the one to discover the ultimate lottery ticket that lies concealed within this virtual world. For somewhere inside this giant networked playground, OASIS creator James Halliday has hidden a series of fiendish puzzles that will yield massive fortune?and remarkable power?to whoever can unlock them.

For years, millions have struggled fruitlessly to attain this prize, knowing only that Halliday?s riddles are based in the pop culture he loved?that of the late twentieth century. And for years, millions have found in this quest another means of escape, retreating into happy, obsessive study of Halliday?s icons. Like many of his contemporaries, Wade is as comfortable debating the finer points of John Hughes?s oeuvre, playing Pac-Man, or reciting Devo lyrics as he is scrounging power to run his OASIS rig.

And then Wade stumbles upon the first puzzle.

Suddenly the whole world is watching, and thousands of competitors join the hunt?among them certain powerful players who are willing to commit very real murder to beat Wade to this prize. Now the only way for Wade to survive and preserve everything he knows is to win. But to do so, he may have to leave behind his oh-so-perfect virtual existence and face up to life?and love?in the real world he?s always been so desperate to escape.

A world at stake.
A quest for the ultimate prize.
Are you ready?


Amazon Link -http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/AS...ouseinc3442-20

A great easy read for anyone who's into nostalgia. It covers everything from old movies, great old video games, and pop culture stuff that we all drool over here on the boards. The book was great for me and really got me looking back into my childhood for stuff to read, play, etc. Enjoysble for many different demographics.
 
Grimmlokk

Grimmlokk

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OK it's not a BAD book, but it is wildly overrated. People seem to go apeshit because half the book is just a list of 80's type shit. Meanwhile it's got some of the worst dialogue I've ever read. I actually groaned out loud at times.

I hate to maybe scare anyone off, it IS fun for the most part. It's just...temper your expectations.
 
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Ritley

Ritley

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As someone who was too young to remember the 80s (born in 86) I still really liked this book.
 
Kovaks

Kovaks

Mr. Poopybutthole
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Agree dialogue was pretty bad, but it was a fun book, interested to see what the sequal is about, it seemed pretty stand alone with a good wrap up at the end.
 
Grimmlokk

Grimmlokk

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Kovaks_sl said:
Agree dialogue was pretty bad, but it was a fun book, interested to see what the sequal is about, it seemed pretty stand alone with a good wrap up at the end.
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yeah,

They wrapped it up in a neat little bow. Saved the world, became the richest man in the world, got the girl. But he could go anywhere with it. My first guess would be someone starts hacking the game and he has to spring back in to action with his friends. Expect lots of fist bumping.
 
Vandyn

Vandyn

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I agree, the book was good, but not great by any stretch. The first third of the book started off really great and I thought it just started going downhill after the 1st gate. The dialogue was gut wrenching at times. I guess what bothered me the most was that the ending was just so predictable. I expected something to keep surprising me toward the end but it never did.
 
Drinsic

Drinsic

privileged excrementlord
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I just assumed the author never had friends. I don't understand how anyone could write dialogue this awful.
 
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The Ancient_sl

shitlord
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Most of the fun of the book was going "played that/ remember that" to the common and obscure references. The storytelling was alright. I don't see a need for a sequel.
 
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phen_sl

shitlord
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I thought it was a fun read. Personally, I had a hard time buying into the idea of the "Oasis". There's NO way people would put so much of their life into something if the death penalty was so severe. AMIRITE?
 
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a_skeleton_03

<Banned>
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Well it looks like this movie got a release date and I am excited.

December 15th, 2017

That is crazy far away but with Spielberg attached it could be amazing.

Steven Spielberg Slated for 2017 Release | Variety

Ready Player One takes place in the not-so-distant future--the world has turned into a very bleak place, but luckily there is OASIS, a virtual reality world that is a vast online utopia. People can plug into OASIS to play, go to school, earn money, and even meet other people (or at least they can meet their avatars), and for protagonist Wade Watts it certainly beats passing the time in his grim, poverty-stricken real life. Along with millions of other world-wide citizens, Wade dreams of finding three keys left behind by James Halliday, the now-deceased creator of OASIS and the richest man to have ever lived. The keys are rumored to be hidden inside OASIS, and whoever finds them will inherit Halliday?s fortune. But Halliday has not made it easy. And there are real dangers in this virtual world. Stuffed to the gills with action, puzzles, nerdy romance, and 80s nostalgia, this high energy cyber-quest will make geeks everywhere feel like they were separated at birth from author Ernest Cline.--Chris Schluep
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I really suggest you read the book. I am reading his new one this weekend.

Ready Player One: A Novel: Ernest Cline: 9780307887443: Amazon.com: Books
 
Soygen

Soygen

The Dirty Dozen For the Price of One
<Nazi Janitors>
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I read this on my flight to the Philippines last year. Was a pretty fun, fast read. I'm hearing not-so-great things about his most recent book. Let me know how it goes.
 
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a_skeleton_03

<Banned>
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Soygen_sl said:
I read this on my flight to the Philippines last year. Was a pretty fun, fast read. I'm hearing not-so-great things about his most recent book. Let me know how it goes.
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Will do brosephus.

I have purposely not read any reviews because I would not be surprised if he was a one hit wonder.
 
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The Ancient_sl

shitlord
7,386
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It was as well written as The Hunger Games.

The constant stream of references was entertaining enough for it to be read, but the entire plot is retarded.
 
Kovaks

Kovaks

Mr. Poopybutthole
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I liked the book but mainly for the awesome references to my favorite things growing up... this movie will only work if they can get rights to everything in the book which I am guessing will be hard.
 
Void

Void

Experiencer
<Gold Donor>
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One of the few places I have a different opinion than Grimmlokk is this book. I loved it, and finished it in a day. I can see where others might not like it, and perhaps the nostalgia factor due to my age and actually experiencing most of the things mentioned in the book blinded me to some of the shortcomings, but overall I thought it was an excellent book. Either way, someone picking it up will know fairly quickly whether they will like the rest of the book or not, so no harm in giving it a couple of chapters I'd think.

Personally I'm really looking forward to the movie, but I can't imagine them getting all of the rights to do it the way it needs to be done. Still, I'll watch it in the hope somehow they do capture that magic for me one more time.
 
Grimmlokk

Grimmlokk

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It's the Eregon of lists of nostalgia shit. It's not a story, it's barely a coherent idea.

Devlin_sl said:
It sounds like Willy Wonka...
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Because it fucking is. Except instead of being charming and teaching a bunch of valuable life lessons it's fucking horrible and just keeps telling you how good is good and bad is bad. Also video games.


"OMG BUT HE TALKS ABOUT WARGAMES AND WIL WHEATON!!!!!"

Great, you're an easy mark for pandering bullshit with no actual redeeming qualities. It's a fucking Buzzfeed post posing as a novel. "500 things only REAL geeks will squee over!!!! CLICK HERE AND SHARE ON FACEBOOK!"

Also George Lucas cringes at the dialogue.

Terriblenovel. Could make for an entertaining movie though if they integrate the game stuff with the real world stuff well.
 
Abefroman

Abefroman

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Grimmlokk_sl said:
It's the Eregon of lists of nostalgia shit. It's not a story, it's barely a coherent idea.



Because it fucking is. Except instead of being charming and teaching a bunch of valuable life lessons it's fucking horrible and just keeps telling you how good is good and bad is bad. Also video games.


"OMG BUT HE TALKS ABOUT WARGAMES AND WIL WHEATON!!!!!"

Great, you're an easy mark for pandering bullshit with no actual redeeming qualities. It's a fucking Buzzfeed post posing as a novel. "500 things only REAL geeks will squee over!!!! CLICK HERE AND SHARE ON FACEBOOK!"

Also George Lucas cringes at the dialogue.

Terriblenovel. Could make for an entertaining movie though if they integrate the game stuff with the real world stuff well.
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I couldn't agree with this more. It was like some VH1 the 80's show, beating you over the head with nosalgia. It could make a good movie as they could just have movie posters, music and arcade cabinets shown instead of talking about it non fucking stop.
 
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