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Ccs posted:The guys from Rifftrax already did a Let's Read of Ready Player One. It's astonishing that this book got good reviews from mainstream critics considering how bad it is.
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Mar 13, 2018 10:15
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The fact the main plot is literally "The Last Starfighter but with more 80s References" definitely didn't help.
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Mar 13, 2018 10:27
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Armada is an entirely new level of bad. Even if you don't enjoy RP0, you can see the little ways it could be turned around and made more interesting, as many have posted here. Armada got nothing. It's completely devoid of anything resembling charm, and the fact that it takes place in a modern, normal Earth makes the nerd adoration even more excessive.
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Mar 13, 2018 10:43
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Arcsquad12 posted:My hot take is put that dumb gently caress botl on ignore and get on with your lives happily ignorant of his ignorance I don't think he's a dumb gently caress, quite the opposite. Just completely out of place
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Mar 13, 2018 12:32
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Doctor Spaceman posted:What I find astonishing is that Armada got a much worse reception despite it being essentially the same thing as RPO. Partly, I think it got a worse reception because it was essentially the same thing as RPO. When I first read RPO, I kinda liked it. It was trash, but sometimes I like trash, and it was fun playing reference bingo. The whole egg-hunt thing was a mildly interesting frame to support the juvenile power fantasy of "What if this worthless knowledge I have was somehow the key to saving the world?" Armada was exactly the same thing again, but without the thin veneer of justification for the reference-laden power fantasy, and with even more obvious creepy misogyny. And while I sometimes like trash, I don't generally eat the same trash twice. 
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Mar 13, 2018 12:52
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SUPERMAN'S GAL PAL posted:Aech’s identity By far the biggest flight of fantasy in RPO is that the Aech reveal happens and Parzifal doesn't get gross, weird, or racist about it.
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Mar 13, 2018 13:24
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The_White_Crane posted:Partly, I think it got a worse reception because it was essentially the same thing as RPO. The nostalgia high wears off and people realise they're snorting baby powder.
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Mar 13, 2018 13:28
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SUPERMAN'S GAL PAL posted:I think it’s notable they remark on the more egregious offenses in the story (Aech’s identity, the use of “autistic,” the behavior toward Art3mis) despite not being a social justice-oriented review.
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Mar 13, 2018 14:46
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The Bee posted:I know the Star Wars wiki is as dry as a boring biscuit, but is there a record of the EU that's as mocking as the Transformers wiki? I could really use a timeline punctuated with "yes this poo poo really happened" to get through a rainy day. The OP of the Geeky Star Wars Loser Thread over in TBB comes close to what you're looking for.
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Mar 13, 2018 17:37
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Antivehicular posted:By far the biggest flight of fantasy in RPO is that the Aech reveal happens and Parzifal doesn't get gross, weird, or racist about it. He does, or I thought he mentally struggled with being angry initially about it before getting over it in two seconds because Wade is the bestest EVAR at everything he does!!!1
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Mar 15, 2018 05:27
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Wade Watts, 2040's Teen gets plenty weird enough about Artemis anyway. There's a point in the book where he gets super possessive toward other people in the group because they've been spending time with her. I'm sure in Ernest Cline's mind it was supposed to be "just like Han and Luke duking it out over Leia (before Return of the Jedi sorted that out for Luke)" but it came off more like someone yelling at his friends because they smiled at the girl he's got a crush on.
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Mar 15, 2018 05:52
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SUPERMAN'S GAL PAL posted:He does, or I thought he mentally struggled with being angry initially about it before getting over it in two seconds because Wade is the bestest EVAR at everything he does!!!1 Sham bam bamina! has a new favorite as of 06:08 on Mar 15, 2018 |
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Mar 15, 2018 06:01
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Sham bam bamina! posted:He's angry not because she's black but because she "lied" to him by befriending him in the form of a white guy. As crazy as it sounds, there's actually isn't anything racist about this - the truth is much, much dumber than that. There are multiple points in the course of the story when Wade is introduced to someone in the real world, and every time, he's genuinely surprised that their real body isn't like their OASIS avatar. It might be the stupidest thing in the whole stupid book. Not even he looks anything like his avatar, but it's always treated like a significant revelation - revelation not of how they're different, but that they're different at all. This happens literally every time. Wade isn't racist, he's just a bizarre idiot who takes one of the most basic concepts in online interaction as personal betrayal. why should i take the word of a spinning cat cats cant read
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Mar 15, 2018 06:18
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Sagebrush posted:Ah, phew, I'm glad someone else noticed that. There's one scene in particular where that characteristic of his writing really stood out to me: The thing is that Cline can't describe the scene, or he'd be getting dangerously close to crossing the line of fair use. There could be a way to actually show the action of the scene vaguely enough that it wouldn't be literally transcribing War Games, but it would be almost the same as telling the stakes and then immediately resolving them as you quoted. It would be kind of brilliant if Cline meant to set it up that way as a reasonable excuse for the laziest writing ever. Which is why I'm pretty sure it wasn't on purpose.
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Mar 15, 2018 07:07
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speaking of RPO https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bWPMJwHrWFU
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Mar 15, 2018 10:57
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I'm glad every place seems to be nearing complete RPO saturation. It's the RPO Event Horizon, one might say.
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Mar 15, 2018 10:59
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https://twitter.com/electrolemon/status/971208968323280896?s=19 His expression is everything I feel about Ready Player One.
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Mar 15, 2018 11:55
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Hemingway To Go! posted:I have never seen a wiki that does what tfwiki does the only good wiki
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Mar 15, 2018 12:33
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Just listened to the I Don't Even Own A Television episode for "The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo". It's fairly entertaining (I'm finding IDEOTV a bit hit-and-miss these days) and I actually read the book some years ago. Stray observations: * It is really crazy how that book became super-ubiquitous for a few years, given its content and quality of writing * IDEOTV asserted that the English edition of the novel was translated from an unedited manuscript and so contains a bunch of stuff that was snipped from the Swedish version * I found the book strangely readable. (Explanation for my first point?) I mean, it was weird and goofy and the plot was absurd and gave away too much about the author and his hangups. But the pages passed by surprisingly fast for a 700 page novel. * But that plot resolution just stunk: I mean, the daughter goes missing, there's no trace of her, someone is sending messages on the anniversary of her disappearance ... Even the protagonists suggest that maybe she left the island and is still alive. But no, we're assured repeatedly that's impossible. Only to find out that she left the island and is still alive.
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Mar 15, 2018 13:43
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SUPERMAN'S GAL PAL posted:Honestly the same thing happens when I think about Twilight and it’s interesting to contrast the two books in terms of being pure power fantasies. So much potential just left rotting on the floor for the sake of individual wank. Although the more I hear about RPO the more I feel it’s on a Handbook for Mortals level. They're reading Armada now and have pointed out a new bit of awful Cline-ian writing. The "I realized I was" which makes it seem like the character isn't in control of his body at any point. This goes along with the "I was already doing...". So he'll tell you what he should be doing, then say he was already doing that thing. God it's awful. He also has a penchant for "It would come to be known as..." PJOmega posted:It's really bad, but no it isn't H4M tier. You are right to point out similarities to Twilight, and that's actually why I harp on RPO in my social circle so heavily. It's still perfectly acceptable in polite company to rip on Twilight and 50 Shades and even people who enjoyed them won't rise to defend them. Fans of RPO however will get outraged at any criticism. And people will try to back it down. The only real dividing line is that it's seen as socially acceptable to rip on women aimed reading, but it's not "fair" to attack male orientated reading. And RPO is insanely aimed at men. This is why I hate RPO more than Twilight. I'm also not the target demographic for Twilight, whereas I am for RPO and I resent this dreck being marketed to me. Ccs has a new favorite as of 03:49 on Mar 16, 2018 |
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Mar 16, 2018 03:46
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outlier posted:Just listened to the I Don't Even Own A Television episode for "The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo". It's fairly entertaining (I'm finding IDEOTV a bit hit-and-miss these days) and I actually read the book some years ago. Stray observations: One of my friends kept telling me to read that book, so I picked up a copy and read it. It was so amazingly bad I didn’t talk to her for a week. Especially that last point there, or the list of tech specs for every computer. Jesus H Christ that book was a steaming pile.
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Mar 16, 2018 03:57
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outlier posted:Just listened to the I Don't Even Own A Television episode for "The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo". It's fairly entertaining (I'm finding IDEOTV a bit hit-and-miss these days) and I actually read the book some years ago. Stray observations: Fun fact: the translator requested to use a pseudonym based on how badly he felt things were handled for the English edition. Same translator did a bunch of other books in the genre - Henning Mankell is a good example of someone doing better in the genre.
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Mar 16, 2018 04:27
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Is the protagonist still the greatest lover of all time in the Swedish version? Because that middle-aged-would-be-lothario's-Gary-Stu bit was the most obnoxious part of the first two books for me. (I stopped afterwards when I realized I didn't give a poo poo how book 2's cliffhanger would be resolved.)
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Mar 16, 2018 14:14
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Senior Woodchuck posted:Is the protagonist still the greatest lover of all time in the Swedish version? Because that middle-aged-would-be-lothario's-Gary-Stu bit was the most obnoxious part of the first two books for me. (I stopped afterwards when I realized I didn't give a poo poo how book 2's cliffhanger would be resolved.) Yes, he is still garbage in Swedish.
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Mar 16, 2018 16:08
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Far as I know it was just a fairly run of the mill nordic crime airport thriller. It probably wouldn't have sold nearly as much if Larsson hadn't died while it was being published & there was a court battle between his live-in girlfriend & his family, and an unnotarized(?) will & what not, keeping it all in the news for months.
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Mar 16, 2018 17:41
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Krankenstyle posted:Far as I know it was just a fairly run of the mill nordic crime airport thriller. It probably wouldn't have sold nearly as much if Larsson hadn't died while it was being published & there was a court battle between his live-in girlfriend & his family, and an unnotarized(?) will & what not, keeping it all in the news for months. It was a run of the mill airport thriller wrapped up in another book about financial crimes explained in excruciating and often difficult to follow detail. I think Liz Salander being a weird feminist icon was what got it in the news in the US, way more than the death of a journalist 99 percent of the country had never heard of. That poo poo was everywhere, and baffled me once I read the book and saw what the character was like.
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Mar 16, 2018 19:53
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No yea the death was the reason it got popular in Sweden & the rest of Scandinavia. From whence Salander as heorine & the books ready for the American market.
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Mar 16, 2018 21:06
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The Swedish film adaption of the first book was good.
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Mar 16, 2018 22:53
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Ugly In The Morning posted:It was a run of the mill airport thriller wrapped up in another book about financial crimes explained in excruciating and often difficult to follow detail. There was a lot of "Lisbeth Salander is awesome / owed / kicks rear end" going around the net. Which, as you say, is weird when you find out she's an emotionally stunted, self-hating sex abuse survivor. Hard to see her story as any sort of triumph.
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Mar 16, 2018 23:46
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outlier posted:There was a lot of "Lisbeth Salander is awesome / owed / kicks rear end" going around the net. Which, as you say, is weird when you find out she's an emotionally stunted, self-hating sex abuse survivor. Hard to see her story as any sort of triumph. And everything she does that isn’t  as gently caress basically happens somewhere else and you find out about it later. She’s a flat character who exists to get raped or torture people, it’s really gross.
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Mar 16, 2018 23:52
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theres often a catharsis in "victims" turning the tables and becoming the "violators" though, that might be it
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Mar 16, 2018 23:55
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I think it's just that she's described as attractive punk girl, and the 'emotionally stunted, self-hating' part of her character exactly describes the kind of guys on the internet who latch onto a tough alternative girl to jack off to while trying to convince people she's actually a feminist icon for wearing boots and having piercings.
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Mar 17, 2018 00:21
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It's Joss "I constantly cheated on my wife for years" Whedon-style empowerment.
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Mar 17, 2018 04:16
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In the sequel, she gets breast implants. She also teaches herself mathematics, immediately solves Fermat's Last Theorem, but then gets knocked out and when she comes to, can't remember her solution. They are not good books.
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Mar 17, 2018 09:53
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She has sex with a teenage kid while on vacation in the tropics
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Mar 19, 2018 20:56
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Man, is there any worldwide phenomenon bestseller book/s in the last 30 years that didn't turn out to be a candy coating over a massive center of poo poo?
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Mar 20, 2018 03:44
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Cornwind Evil posted:Man, is there any worldwide phenomenon bestseller book/s in the last 30 years that didn't turn out to be a candy coating over a massive center of poo poo? the first three harry potter books are pretty good
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Mar 20, 2018 03:50
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Cornwind Evil posted:Man, is there any worldwide phenomenon bestseller book/s in the last 30 years that didn't turn out to be a candy coating over a massive center of poo poo? stephen king
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Mar 20, 2018 03:55
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Cornwind Evil posted:Man, is there any worldwide phenomenon bestseller book/s in the last 30 years that didn't turn out to be a candy coating over a massive center of poo poo?
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Mar 20, 2018 04:10
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Cornwind Evil posted:Man, is there any worldwide phenomenon bestseller book/s in the last 30 years that didn't turn out to be a candy coating over a massive center of poo poo? I didn't read it but I never heard any gross stuff about A Series Of Unfortunate Events
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Mar 20, 2018 05:35
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