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quote:. Here, finally, is this generation’s Neuromancer.”—Will Lavender, New York Times bestselling author of Obedience I too have found a cheap xerox of a picture of Warhol's diptych to be of the same value and quality as Marilyn Monroe herself. Christ, that's bleak. This is what I'm going to make myself remember every time I thing what the younger generations are doing as stupid and vapid.
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Mar 13, 2018 02:19
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Baron Corbyn posted:yeah, I haven't read the book but I don't get what would be all that different if it weren't just set in a whatever the word is for something that isn't dystopian or utopian future is (topian?) Because that wouldn't be the Last Starfighter but edgier enough.
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Mar 13, 2018 21:24
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Wargames is about the inherent Pyrrhic victory that lies at the end of nuclear conflict. Wade lives in a world where nuclear bombings have not only happened but continue to happen. But the only thing he thinks about it is that it's cool because Halliday liked it and it has a hacker teen for a protagonist. Where Clines imagination and intellectual curiosity should be lies a black hole.
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Mar 17, 2018 01:29
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Gorilla Salad posted:Someone once pointed out to me that YA fiction isn't actually about the characters overcoming trials. It's about the trials being solved for them while they engage in overwrought personal drama. I protest the idea that the personal drama can't be the trial; navigating relationships and emotions is action, too. But holy hell have I read a lot of YA that fits that definition. Living in an isolated, fortified village because of zombies your whole life and finally get the chance to leave and see what else is out there? Better obsess over a dumb love triangle for the rest of the book.
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Mar 22, 2018 14:30
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Gorilla Salad posted:Is this the only 80s reference he hasn't gone out of his way to point out? How did the boombox thing ever become such a big romantic gesture when it doesn't work? She blatantly ignores his stalker move, and only goes back when her life falls apart and doesn't have any other friends to turn to. I know it's because it's a memorable part of an otherwise bland romantic movie and so no one remembers the actual context of the scene, but it's still dumb.
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Mar 22, 2018 16:42
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PJOmega posted:The key is to strip any descriptors of actions. And repeat the same sentence transitions. And put everything in past tense, which I can't really do because it is so loving weird. It lays so poorly on the page. It's not because I did____ /It was____ are active voice and at least 90% of the book. Passive voice is when the subject of the sentence is also the object of the verb. I ate the apple-active, the apple was eaten-passive. I threw RPO in the trash- active. RPO was trash- active. In a better world, RPO was thrown in the trash instead of published -passive. Cline uses passive voice when talking about Daito's death "Instead, a few minutes after Shoto obtained his copy of the key, Daito’s name disappeared from the Scoreboard entirely. There was only one possible explanation: Daito had just been killed." because we don't know who killed him, and in context it's not really important.
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Mar 25, 2018 18:16
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chitoryu12 posted:What really baffles me is the idea of all this stuff like tabletop RPGs being some kind of lost knowledge that even adults don’t know about until clued in by the Hunt. It'd say Cline is actually just playing us all and deliberately using pretty accessible pop culture a lot so everyone can relate to his obsessive protagonist, but there are a lot of nerds out there who still hold the delusion that their interests are super niche because their self-image as holders of esoteric knowledge is too central to their identity. Also what would it matter if the stuff was even popular now or twenty years from now? Everything that exists exists in an easy to access digital format. All Wade has to do is look it up. And because Cline is a lovely writer, even that isn't any kind of challenge since he's got a reference guide to steer him through the impossible amount of data he's have to go through, and his character has memorized the incredible amount that's in the guide. Maybe it's just the old adventure gamer in me, but that Wade never gets stuck on too many options is one of the bigger flaws in the story for me.
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Mar 26, 2018 01:02
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nerdz posted:Everyone can be a white man! Racism and sexism are over! I know a lot of people aren't fond of them turning Aech's avatar into an orc, but I'm kind of in favor of it for sidestepping this sad little jab at life lesson. MHI road around in my car for a year and my cousin picked it up and decided to challenge himself to finish it. When he realized he was spending his free time reading old case law for fun instead, he made it the only book in the bathroom and it still took 6 months. Have fun with that.
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Mar 28, 2018 00:40
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PetraCore posted:I mean it'd be interesting to explore how Marie's decision was in and of itself steeped in racism and sexism, even if it was a response to it and just trying to sidestep that, and then maybe Aech is like, 'I'm not going to pretend to be a white dude but maybe I'll pretend to be something entirely fantastic instead'. Like she's still presenting as a guy in OASIS but not doing the racial thing. Because it's a mediocre action-adventure flick is why I'm glad it's taking steps to avoid having to explain why Aech would choose to present to the world and her friends as a big white dude. Choosing and orc isn't great, but I doubt the thought process went much farther than whats a buff, male power fantasy that is also not human so we don't have to deal with the politics of that. It's not good; it's just preferable to trying to translate Clines "in the digital world there will be no racism because you don't know who's really white or not" idea to film.
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Mar 28, 2018 03:38
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Leofish posted:I'm genuinely curious how many people who aren't weird internet nerds like us know what Gamergate is. This book sold very well and presumably a lot of people who are only on the periphery of the geek world Cline idolizes read it and maybe even enjoyed it, but did Gamergate really resonate that much outside of the online gamer bubbles? I wonder what people who read it in 2011 who never paid any attention to gg would think about RPO today. The problem is that that shift in the lens didn't happen because of just gamergate; it's the product of an increasing wave of criticism towards how women are viewed and treated by men, especially in male-dominated spaces. Nerds were dealing with how lovely nerd culture is to women when RPO came out; 2011 was also when elevatorgate went down, and dickwolves were the year before. Gamergate is probably just the point where nerdy-types can't pretend ignorance about the woman problem anymore. All the big internet news sites covered it; anyone going to a Marvel film opening weekend has an opinion on it. That's enough people to shift public consensus, especially on a movie targeted at that demographic.
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Mar 30, 2018 06:07
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If we're throwing out better alternatives to RPO, how about Summer Wars? Anime, but a cute movie about a threat to the OASIS/matrix/virtual reality that the world depends upon that focuses on the importance of family and friends to keep poo poo going.
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Mar 31, 2018 02:15
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The battle should have happened before the shield went down. Their super shield only covers the castle which has minimal defenses put on it. Then there's a sixers army camped out on the field around it, too big and tough for anything but a concentrated push by all the gunters and thus serving as the main deterrent. Wades drone plan only comes out when Sorrento is standing on the battlements yelling "you've beaten my army, but good look breaking my impervious shield!" And when that's down Sorrento turns into Mechagodzilla and starts thrashing everyone else who has roboted up by now; Shoto goes down early but then pops up as Ultraman to take out Sorrento. He doesn't have enough time to make the gate before the remaining sixers, and tells the other three it's been a privilege and to win the prize for gunters everywhere.
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Apr 3, 2018 01:09
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Orthodox Rabbit posted:
Too easy? I just wanted to spin off a version where the drone thing worked because that kind of three-steps-ahead manoeuvre is actually fun when used correctly. Either setup that part of Wayne's spy caper in IOI was to figure out a way around the shield, or have it be a surprise obstacle that Wayne, surprise, already thought of a way around. Better yet, have Morrow do it. Have him loudly declare that it's time to level the playing field and then drop that suckered starting the battle. Cline describes it like a walk-through. When you're in the IOI level, you need to take a moment to order a drone because later you can use that to drop the shield instead of having to solve these ten quests to get the counter spell...
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Apr 3, 2018 05:13
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I keep thinking of Harry Potter, probably because it has a lot of the same kind of lucky rear end pulls for the protagonist except they don't feel completely unearned. I like the drat coin; it's the one actually clever call back to Cline's beloved arcade games and like with everything else if you only rewrote how he got it and how it got used in a way that built suspense instead of strangling it in the crib it'd be fine. Same with the three at the end. If the Sixers are cheating there's no reason to not cheat the same way, and AECH, Artimis, and Shoto serving as guardian angels to Wade, embodiment of all gunters, could work. There could have been something poignant in them offering their artifact gear to outfit Wade after spending most of the book too proud to share anything. But Cline does nothing to make these friendships necessary. They might as well be casual acquaintances hanging around the Donkey Kong cabinet and offering tips on how to cheat the game.
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Apr 3, 2018 18:19
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| # ¿ May 22, 2024 05:08 |
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chitoryu12 posted:While cheating to beat cheaters may be justifiable, the problem is how the book handles it. None of the characters recognize that they’re winning the Hunt by doing exactly what they insulted their sworn enemies for doing. Instead, it’s treated as the protagonists finally becoming true companions. That's pretty much a summery of all my rewrites. Most everyone is spinning bad-ending scenarios because this poo poo pile brings out the cynicism in everyone. But it's fun to do the opposite and try turn it into a functional peice of wonder and escapism. And with that in mind, that should really be what Wade gets out of the old media. He lives in a dystopian future; make all the current media grueling and depressing. Then he starts chasing the Egg and gets exposed to fun escapism and media that looked at nuclear destruction and still found faith, hope, and charity. There should be some virtue of the 80's that resonates with him other than 'it's just cool I guess.'
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Apr 3, 2018 20:12
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