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That long list of '80's references reminds me of something that drove me bonkers when I read RPO. For a book about an Easter egg, most of the references are painfully obvious. I mean, re-read that list. It's all greatest hits and no deep cuts. There are no surprises or hidden gems. It's just a list of really common pop culture signifiers. The book pretends that this stuff is deep arcana that requires hours and hours of study and memorization, but the references in the actual text are grossly predictable.
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Mar 15, 2018 18:57
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chitoryu12 posted:Oh yeah the next update is where poo poo gets weird and uncomfortable. The horrible sex stuff is going to happen, isn't it?
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Mar 21, 2018 22:47
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Chef Boyardeez Nuts posted:The youth being literally forced to exist entirely within the confines of recycled Boomer nostalgia, for one. Cline's an X-er. If you want to drown in Boomer nostalgia, you gotta go Gump.
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Mar 25, 2018 20:36
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Gnome de plume posted:So uh, how about that guy who had a piece of computer hardware installed in his scrotum. Talk about balls, eh! Balls. Get it? Balls.
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Mar 26, 2018 02:33
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I see two fundamental problems with RPO: 1. The whole story is a flashback. Wade won, and now he's going to brag about how awesome he was. This drains a ton of tension out of story, because the reader already knows that Wade can't lose. I think flashback nature of the book is at least partly responsible for how dull the actions scenes are. Not only is there no real risk when Wade fights off a bunch of "Skinjobs" or whatever, Cline has to use a weird past-tense to describe everything. 2. Wade is absolutely alone, has no real friends, and does not really cooperate with anybody. After he finds the Copper Key, he almost never expresses himself to anybody. We get no outside perspective on what he's doing. He's a lonely freak and we're trapped in his head with him. Point 1 would be forgivable if the story of how Wade won were more interesting. As it is, Wade's success amounts to (a) sudden, intuitive revelation (Hey! The first key is on my school-planet!) followed by (b) cheating (I downloaded a walkthrough of the dungeon from the internet) followed by (c) poo poo that cannot be rendered on the page in an interesting way (I'm really good at Joust! I memorized War Games!). Point 2 would be forgivable if Cline realized what a miserable, lovely person Wade actually is and used that somehow. But alas, it was not to be.
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Mar 26, 2018 18:37
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Dave Syndrome posted:I think the first person perspective is also problematic. Agreed. The use of first person perspective plays into both issues that bug me. It amplifies the "let me tell you how awesome I am" aspect of the narrative, and it keeps us trapped in Wade's head.
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Mar 26, 2018 20:39
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So when Wade first found the Copper Key, IOI immediately took steps to implement his assassination, made him a (maybe bogus) job offer, and then tried to blow him up when he turned them down. Later (months later? the timeline here isn't clear) IOI assassinates Daito. Also, IOI had Art3mis and Shoto under constant surveillance this whole time? Or at least ever since the second gate, which is when they killed Daito, right? Why are Art3mis and Shoto allowed to live? Why is Daito killed?
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Mar 27, 2018 16:43
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So why do they let Art3mis and Shoto live? IOI has both of them dead to rights.
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Mar 27, 2018 17:56
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As much as RPO is hyped as "80's References! The Book" it really is just a bunch of poo poo that Cline happens to like. I'm pretty sure he just mined his adolescence and then added a dollop of Firefly (the famous 80's sci-fi series that ran on the Fox network in 2002). Think about the three keys/gates: Tomb of Horrors debuted at Origins in 1975 and was first published in '78. Joust was released in '82. Dungeons of Daggorath is from '82. Wargames premiered in '83. Phone phreaking is much more a '70's thing than an 80's thing (according to Mental Floss John Draper was arrested for it in 1974). Zork seems to date back to '77. Probably the TRS-80 version is from 1980. Blade Runner came out '82. Black Tiger is an outlier, released by Capcom in 1987. Rush's 2112 is from '76. (Really, why is there no Devo?) Three is a Magic Number first aired in 1973. Tempest came out in '81. Holy Grail premiered in 1975. Adventure came out in late '79. Did I miss anything? With one exception, all of this poo poo is from '83 or earlier. Most of it is from the mid to late '70's. Nobody needs to know anything about "80's pop culture" to win Haliday's big prize. They just need to know what Ernest Cline thought was cool when he was 12. Why does this piss me off? I don't know, but it does.
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Apr 10, 2018 15:38
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Aston posted:This isn't really related to Ready Player One except that it reminded me of this scene and it's driving me crazy trying to remember where it's from: someone is playing an arcade game, and they realise the creator was really into Rush and playing to the same rhythms as in a Rush song lets them get the high score. Any ideas? Probably Futurama: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VmCqn-DNSA0
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Apr 10, 2018 16:29
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