|
Mister Nobody posted:Godamn blotches, blotching things up then trooting off. ![]()
|
![]() |
|
![]()
|
# ? Jun 11, 2024 01:49 |
|
Krankenstyle posted:
Sounds like my sex life.
|
![]() |
I'm told fantasy nerds used to do an "Eye of Argon" party game where they'd pass around a copy and see who could read it out loud the longest without laughing. Imagine trying that with Ready Player One.
|
|
![]() |
|
Senior Woodchuck posted:I'm told fantasy nerds used to do an "Eye of Argon" party game where they'd pass around a copy and see who could read it out loud the longest without laughing. Imagine trying that with Ready Player One. I've played that game with a lot of terrible fanfiction. It works best with stuff that's ridiculous on the line-by-line level, so RP1 might not work well -- the prose is mostly boring. You could get some good ambush laughs out of the sudden stupid references, though.
|
![]() |
|
In college my friends and I did this with fanfic. There's a secondary competition to bring the most worst fanfic. A+, highly recommend.
|
![]() |
|
There's a Danish podcast where male "celebrities" read 1970s/80s "letters to penthouse" type things. It's insanely dumb but pretty funny.
|
![]() |
|
I probably posted this ITT already but basically it's a 1983 Finnish science fiction Summer cottage slasher Esperanto thriller novel that, as far as I knew, had only ever been read by my great aunt and me:![]() Anyway, I just now found out that at least one other person has read it because in 2007 they released a concept EP (with no spoilers in the track names) based on the book: https://soundcloud.com/turborecordings/sets/turbo-036-jori-hulkkonen-the (It's better than the book I guess ![]()
|
![]() |
|
Jerry Cotton posted:I probably posted this ITT already but basically it's a 1983 Finnish science fiction Summer cottage slasher Esperanto thriller novel that, as far as I knew, had only ever been read by my great aunt and me: Tell me more about this book. It sounds bizarre and fascinating.
|
![]() |
|
Jerry Cotton posted:Finnish science fiction Summer cottage slasher Esperanto thriller That is not a combination of adjectives I ever expected to see.
|
![]() |
|
Does anyone have that page of RPO handy that's just a list of 80s things the dude watched and also Ernest Clines weird pornstars are objects thing tia
|
![]() |
|
EmmyOk posted:Does anyone have that page of RPO handy that's just a list of 80s things the dude watched and also Ernest Clines weird pornstars are objects thing tia I was just catching up on the funny pictures thread when I ran into this ![]() EDIT: And I'm sure I was also near his gross nerd poetry but I ain't reading that to make sure it's that so good luck finding it
|
![]() |
|
PYF terrible book: And, of course, Kevin Smith
|
![]() |
|
Calaveron posted:I was just catching up on the funny pictures thread when I ran into this One of the things that pisses me off about that stupid list of pop culture is how he lists shows like Go-Bots, Transformers and GI Joe among the Saturday morning cartoons. They were syndicated shows that aired Monday through Friday, not on Saturday mornings. ![]()
|
![]() |
|
EmmyOk posted:Does anyone have that page of RPO handy that's just a list of 80s things the dude watched and also Ernest Clines weird pornstars are objects thing tia I got you, fam quote:Ernest Cline Nerd Porn Auteur Lyrics ![]()
|
![]() |
|
Ernest Cline is a gutter fire. "Let me write some awful poetry that doubles as a wanted ad for my creepy porn startup!" I just read David Wong's Futuristic Violence and Fancy Suits which gave me a lot of Hunger Games and RPO vibes without being awful fanwank drivel. I mean, it's not great literature or anything, but it was a hell of a fun read and easily my favorite Wong book.
|
![]() |
|
I don't know what it is about that "And, of course, Kevin Smith" line that always distracts me. It sticks out like a sore thumb. He doesn't even mention Zemeckis as far as I can see (disclaimer: I scanned it). How can you be a big 80s nerd and not mention Zemeckis?
|
![]() |
|
The answer is that he's not a real 80s nerd, he's an 80s nerd nerd. He is a nerd about being a nerd, and watching John Hughes films until your brain melts out your ears leaves you with unsurprisingly major blind spots in other areas of your life. And of course, Kevin Smith.
|
![]() |
|
An 80's nerd with a time machine to send him 90's stuff like Kevin Smith films.
|
![]() |
Wheat Loaf posted:PYF terrible book: And, of course, Kevin Smith gently caress this so very much.
|
|
![]() |
|
Samuringa posted:I got you, fam Every time I come across this I hate it more than the last time.
|
![]() |
|
Senior Woodchuck posted:gently caress this so very much. PYF terrible book: Van Halen, Bon Jovi, Def Leppard and Pink Floyd Seriously, Pink Floyd? Mötley Crüe with its silly umlauts wouldn't have been more apposite?
|
![]() |
|
there wolf posted:An 80's nerd with a time machine to send him 90's stuff like Kevin Smith films. I'm sure you meant "the 80s' Bonus Round"
|
![]() |
|
PYF terrible book: a serious-cute-geeky-girls-playing ukeles fetish that I can neither explain nor defend
|
![]() |
|
Wheat Loaf posted:PYF terrible book: a serious-cute-geeky-girls-playing ukeles fetish that I can neither explain nor defend ![]()
|
![]() |
Also he has Indiana Jones having more movies after Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, but none of the other "holy trilogies", which ends up being seriously lol after Fury Road revolutionized action films.
|
|
![]() |
|
Posting to mention David Eddings pile of crap, The Elder Gods series. Time travel to wrap up the evil big bad in book 4 was a giant kick in the nuts that invalidated everything in the past three books. gently caress you forever. oh and Also I could buy reusing the same character archtypes in your first two series, since you could squint and see the Belhoim and the Orb as the same thing, in a different universe, but gently caress you again for using the same archtypes in your third series.
|
![]() |
|
Sexual Aluminum posted:Posting to mention David Eddings pile of crap, The Elder Gods series. There’s a huge market for fans who want their favorite band to NEVER EVER change. And there’s plenty of acts that deliver exactly that. And apparently there’s a similar market for fantasy readers. . Dave Eddings is safe, never-change for fantasy fans.
|
![]() |
|
Which was his goal from the start, wasn't it? He set out to write a fantasy series that embraced all the typical archetypes. And it worked, too -- the first time, anyway. And then it got stale.
|
![]() |
Calaveron posted:I was just catching up on the funny pictures thread when I ran into this He listened to everything, except for rap.
|
|
![]() |
|
no women anywhere in that list of authors, i notice
|
![]() |
|
I got the Joe Haldeman "Peace and War" trilogy for my birthday. The first book, "The Forever War", is a sci-fi story about the weirdness of waging war across thousands of light-years against an alien enemy you cannot understand. Due to relativistic fuckery, a single battle that takes a few hours for the participants takes decades or centuries back on earth. The protagonist participates in a total of three battles. Every time he comes home the society he encounters is more and more alien. When the war ends he's the oldest human being in the universe, and has been at war for a thousand years. There's some strange things in the book, like how it starts out in 1990 with space gates and power armour (and also how the army has instituted mandatory sex between enlisted soldiers, to improve unit cohesion and morale). But overall its a neat take on just how hosed up an all-out war in space would be for those involved. The last book, "Forever Peace", is only thematically connected to the first, and is a near future story where the industrialized world is engaged in some sort of unending anti-terror/counter insurgency deal against a third-world resistance movement. Nice take on the kind of "not quite peace, not quite war" unending clusterfucks that the superpower du jour likes to engage in, though a bit of a hippie ending. The second book... now, the second book, "Forever Free", is something else. It is a direct continuation of "Forever War". The protagonist from the first book has retired to some backwater planet, but is growing tired of life in the 31st century. So he and a couple of other war veterans hijack a spaceship intent on taking it out a couple of hundred light-years above the galactic plane and back again - a trip that would take them a few years, but would have several hundred years pass back home (why it would be preferable to live in the 36th century instead of the 31st isn't quite made clear). Almost immediately, things start going wrong. People go crazy. Ship systems fail. Hydroponic crops die. Eventually the ship's antimatter fuel starts evaporating, against the laws of physics. The crew board escape pods and return to their point of origin. They arrive several years later, only to find every sentient creature on the planet gone. In fact, it seems like every sentient being in the galaxy has gone missing. For a while the novel concerns itself with the survivors trying to reestablish civilization on their own. The a couple of them take a shuttle to Earth, to try and find out what's going on. The big, bizarre mystery that the book's been setting up is resolved in the last ten pages, when the protagonist goes to Disney Land, encounters a species of shape-shifters that have apparently been living alongside humanity in secret for thousands of years, and meets god. Apparently the creator of the universe has been running the Milky-way galaxy as some kind of experiment, and got miffed when some of his subjects tried to leave by travelling outside the galactic plane. In revenge, he hosed up their spaceship and removed every other sentient being in existence, because of course that's what gods do. Oh, and god also violently kills and then resurrects a couple of the survivors, I guess just to show off. Then god changes a couple of physical laws, and leaves the universe forever. The immortal shape-shifters' only impact on the story is that one of them suggest that maybe all of this is due to god being pissed off, literally seconds before god reveals himself to the protagonist. I cannot begin to describe how out of left field this ending is. It feels like Haldeman had the novel maybe half done when the publisher starts nagging him to finish it, and then he does some weird spite-writing, churns this out and goes "You want a loving ending? Well, how do you like this poo poo, motherfucker?"
|
![]() |
|
food court bailiff posted:The answer is that he's not a real 80s nerd, he's an 80s nerd nerd. He is a nerd about being a nerd, and watching John Hughes films until your brain melts out your ears leaves you with unsurprisingly major blind spots in other areas of your life. The part I know of second hand that always irked me was the association with Wil Wheaton like he was some major touchstone of 80s culture. Dude had about as much relevance at the time as the blonde kid from Growing Pains in the 80s, and only gained nerd relevance in the late 00s or early 10s.
|
![]() |
|
Choco1980 posted:The part I know of second hand that always irked me was the association with Wil Wheaton like he was some major touchstone of 80s culture. Dude had about as much relevance at the time as the blonde kid from Growing Pains in the 80s, and only gained nerd relevance in the late 00s or early 10s. Stand By Me was a popular movie.
|
![]() |
|
Every time I see excerpts from Ready Player One I can't believe it's not only real but getting a movie.
|
![]() |
|
Sagebrush posted:no women anywhere in that list of authors, i notice Or directors. And other than Del Toro? That list is all white. PS, unless you were a horror fan in the 90s most Americans had no idea who Del Toro was until Hellboy. You know, I’m just going to say it: “Wade Watts” is a real suspect name for Cline’s protagonist when the real Wade Watts was a black preacher and civil rights activist in Oklahoma who was friends with MLK, was Oklahoma NAACP President for a number of years, and followed a doctrine of Christian love that most famously converted a KKK leader away from racism. We’re told in RPO Wade’s father named him that because he was a comic book fan and it sounded like a superhero’s secret identity (Deadpool wasn’t around yet and didn’t get his popular personality until the late 90s). RPO starts off in Oklahoma City. Although I don’t think Cline ever mentions Wade’s ethnicity or describes what the character looks like the actor cast is white and I’d hazard a guess most readers imagine Wade as white. I have a hard time believing the name was just pure circumstance and I’m honestly surprised no one has picked up on this, or at least in my search attempts I haven’t seen it mentioned in any reviews.
|
![]() |
|
Sagebrush posted:no women anywhere in that list of authors, i notice ha, you silly. everyone knows women don't write books. ![]()
|
![]() |
I was listening to Teen Creeps podcast last week and they had a bit where they talked about how if ready player one was written by a woman and about a virtual world full of my little pony and jem and the holograms, it’d be in the YA section and not getting rave reviews from the nytimes
|
|
![]() |
|
It’s a good point and another example of what’s missing from RPO. We ![]()
|
![]() |
|
Ambitious Spider posted:I was listening to Teen Creeps podcast last week and they had a bit where they talked about how if ready player one was written by a woman and about a virtual world full of my little pony and jem and the holograms, it’d be in the YA section and not getting rave reviews from the nytimes It probably wouldn't even be published, just some fanfiction.
|
![]() |
|
![]()
|
# ? Jun 11, 2024 01:49 |
|
Ambitious Spider posted:I was listening to Teen Creeps podcast last week and they had a bit where they talked about how if ready player one was written by a woman and about a virtual world full of my little pony and jem and the holograms, it’d be in the YA section and not getting rave reviews from the nytimes I have often wondered why we keep getting reboots of TMNT and GI Joe but not Barbie Just kidding I know exactly why
|
![]() |