Whenever I read a new piece of literature, that-is, something considered a “bestseller”, I’m not at all surprised to find books based on modern technology, or nonfiction work, as fiction seems to be dying, because let’s face it: this is the least creative generation to exist in a long, long time. I fear when people actually seem excited about a Jem movie, rather than showing excitement for something creatively unique as say a fiction novel about changelings. The point is that making the old seem original is a very difficult strategy, and it’s even more unique to find something exciting in nostalgia, even in the most nostalgic generation. We all want our childhood back, because for most of us think getting old sucks, and everything was better “back in the day”.
In-truth, things are very, very overrated, and today the games, technology even the films are aesthetically better, and well written, because we write our dialogue and scripts with such intelligence, which has not been seen in recent decades. With every other film being a superhero rehash, and every book being some sort of pompous nonsense of overwritten trash that’s as unimpressive as reality television, it’s hard to find a novel with all the brash characteristics of respect to the so-called glory days, and written in a way that speaks to not only the laymen, but also the majority of Gen Xers and Gen Yers respectively.
Ready Player One was considered a New York Times bestseller, and the sales back up those claims. The book is Ernst Cline’s debut novel, following his second novel, Armada, recently released last month. The book follows Wade Watts, an eighteen-year-old high-school student that lives in a nasty trailer park-like ghetto in Oklahoma called the Stacks. He spends most of his time in a virtual world called the Oasis, which is similar to most MMOs like World of Warcraft, but appears identical to Second Life. The point of the Oasis is to give most people an escape from the hellishly deteriorating reality, as most people rather stay away from the horrors that come from calorie corporations ruining society, and all the other hubbub of liberal dystopia. In-truth, the idea is old and boring, but the real story is the rather inventive way the story paces itself.
The point of the story is that the inventor of the Oasis has died, and instead of leaving all his assets to the company, or an heir, which he had none, has used an Easter Egg as a way of passing the torch of both his company, and his entire fortunes, which are equivalent in the billions. The story itself is sufficient; although the characters are very, very static, almost mirror projections of one-another. Think automatons, quite difficult to find any differential in them, and they aren’t very likeable. There is an acute pompous elitism in the characters that tends to alienate the whole audience who are not necessarily fans of gaming, but may have been fans of the 80s and 90s in general. The story does well to include a great deal of eighties trivia, but mostly it adds up to be an over glorified fan fiction tribute to most things from Ernst Cline’s childhood. There is a great deal of disconnection, almost robotic, and if that was the point, this was perhaps the most genuine tribute to gamers, and it paints them in a negative light. It makes them seem self-absorbed, greedy, maniacal, and out-of-touch with reality.
Indeed, Wade Watts is an obvious teenager with only teenage desires, but he doesn’t give much in the ways of progressive growth, or even hold much interest through the entirety of the novel. I don’t root for him. I really don’t see him as anything more as a placeholder for where a better character could’ve been thrown. There is not even any emotional attachment to the loss of his grandmother figure that was murdered by the “evil” corporation.
There are generic villains, unabashedly political, which is usually fine in my book, in-fact, if it’s done right, I personally enjoy it, even if it goes against my own philosophies. Yes, there are parts of this novel that are sheer genius; Cline does an outstanding job of piecing a great deal of my favorite media of my own childhood. He builds up story a great deal, making it almost impossible not to hold onto every single word. It is a definitely apparent that this is a first novel, and it’s overall, a well-written first novel. However, I think that even another decent edit could’ve benefited this work, rather than detract from the overall story.
The story follows the quest for the ultimate Easter Egg, the one that will grant the recipient the benefit of being the richest person in the world, and gaining control of the largest entertainment company the world has to offer. The story is like the Matrix meets Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, it references everything: The story itself is just like Raiders of the Lost Ark, actually more like The Temple of Doom. It’s also a very updated version, similar to the Prince and the Pauper.
Wade, along with Aech, and Art3mis are three of the High Five, which the story follows. Shinto is also added in with his brother, but they are just there so we can call the Top Five scorers the High Five. They have to gain keys and clear gates, which could be contributed to Zelda, or Baulder’s Gate, although there was no “X” Needs Food references that’d go with that reference. Still, without giving away most of the plot, the game becomes very real with the Sixers, named so for the first numeral of their screen names of the cliché evil corporation, become a serious antagonist.
The protagonists are the Gunters, or Egg-Hunters, which Parzival (Wade) Aech, and Art3mis consider themselves, and they sort of become generic, and rather dull. Still, the best part of the story comes not from the interactions, which are childish, and reek of obvious Asperger’s Syndrome, I was rather unimpressed by how blatantly generic they represent the bulk of gamers that interact with one-another.
I’m being brutal, and believe-it-or-not, I really did enjoy this book, I found it heartfelt, and because it’s written by a true fan, rather than someone trying to capitalize on the market trend of gaming, I respect it for what it was, and I don’t mean to mislead any of you into thinking this book was anything but fun. It was cliché, that’s a given, but it was a fun cliché, and as you all know, I hate to give away plots. Still, it was a very wooden plot, one many of us could’ve come up with, but it was well crafted, so I give it a pass, at least I’m not as harsh as I could be. Cline’s wording is his saving grace, it was accurate, although a bit difficult to believe that over forty years in the future from now, they’d be using the same doggerel language, and slang from Cline’s childhood. I’d hate to say Cline is living in the past, but well, he’s rather out-of-touch with today’s youth it seems.
Then-again, it is science fiction, not real-life, so I’d dare not judge the egalitarian usage of vernacular. Therein, I’d also like to state that this story is the makeshift design for a proper, and rather obvious Hollywood script, that would not be surprising to be made into a movie, although it missed the bar, as Pixels has come out first, and thus that’s the game of “Oh no! Too slow!”
However, the purpose of this book is to show a literal epic journey through the computer game, and it proves to be altruistically realistic to what one would expect: the heroes all have imperfections, trying to hide their shortcomings in the real-world, and live out the fantasies in Virtual Reality. Still, the misplaced teenage angst, and in-some cases, well-placed angst is enough to keep most people on-board with the realism to detail. Still, there are quite a few flaws, and some missed syntax that must’ve been overlooked by an editor that surely didn’t get all the geeky references.
I genuinely loved the book, I really did, and not for the reasons one would believe: I actually enjoyed the camaraderie between Aech and Parzival; however, I wasn’t a bit surprised by the big reveal. Cline seems an anxious, excited writer that has the pacing of an ADD riddled man-child, and with no disrespect to the man himself, his writing style clearly is not made any more approachable by an ill-fated editor. I hate to critique others’ writing styles with such cruelty, but I do not undermine the whole work, which is written with a sort of panache, which screams original. Although there is nothing truly original about this story, it is modeled in such a fashion that it reinvents itself dramatically from the original sources.
Ernst Cline’s Ready Player One is a superbly written first novel, and it stems to be perhaps his best first novel, although it is shown to be his first novel. There is nothing wrong with Ready Player One aesthetically, it is fun, it entertains, and it doesn’t overvalue what it is: a book about a virtual world. It’s release was at the best time for such a novel to exist (2010) and I was amped to read it back then, but I was unlucky to not have picked it up sooner. It is essentially a good novel, a very good first novel, and not one of those overly written books that underperform. Cline is a well-spoken writer, and knows his audience, as well as the subject matter, embarrassingly well, but this is proof that hobbies can be turned into good fortunes.
I liked the book, it was a fun escape from most other critical works of literature, but it doesn’t come off as a classically written discussion on the subject, nor should it! I would recommend people who are fans of media to give this one a read, and a re-read, to gaze over what they might’ve missed the first time through. Ernst Cline has here a formidable book, one that pleasures the senses, and redefines what it means to describe “interactive media”, and although spellbinding is a word often misconstrued as entertaining, the book is indeed spellbinding. Yes, even with its many flaws, misconceptions, poor judgment in character development, the book is still a feat, and deserves the credit many critics have given it, but so many have placed it as near-perfection, and quite frankly, that’s not the case. It’s a cult classic for sure, but to name it as the end-all-be-all of the genre is a bit undermining of other classic novels written in the same approach.
Ready Player One was a candidly fun read, perhaps too fun in some aspects that the underdeveloped main protagonist takes away from the overall story, and it saddens me so, because I loved the idea, I clearly loved the ideas posted in the novel, but I didn’t love Wade Watts, and I surely didn’t appreciate his worldviews, and his lack of empathy. I get why he is the way he is, but that should not be celebrated, rather it should be accepted, but to call him the hero of the story is a bit rude.
Also the stereotyping of Shinto seems okay, but definitely like Cline was trying to cliché the hell out of every generic samurai character, along with his approach to the evil corporate elitists, could he not stem away from such maddening clichés? These discrepancies luckily do not take away form the overall job of acceptable for this novel, and though Armada (Cline’s second novel) seems very unappealing, and need-I-remind my readership that I am perhaps more nerdy than Cline himself, I base it off of entertainment, rather than concept. I cannot debate Armada here, but I will say this: Ready Player One, if seen objectively, is a decent novel, and certainly well-balanced, but still could’ve used the improvement of a far-better, more knowledgeable editor. Seems Cline was given a startup editor, or worst, edited it himself, and that makes this work suffer most. Love or hate these facts, agree or disagree, the point is this book was satisfying where it had to be, but could’ve been so much better, and that’s saying a lot.
Thank you for reading the Malacast Editorial! I’m very happy I was able to get these posts done in the allotted time, because starting next week is the beginning of Year Eleven of the Malacast Editorial. I plan on changing some of the features, and the overall look of the blog, thanks to Blogger’s intuitive layout system. I am also planning to personalize the blog, so it is aesthetically distinct from other blogs. I have never attempted to do this before, and I may also finally remove the “blogspot” part from the blog.
Monday, August 10, 2015
Ready Player One: Review
Whenever I read a new piece of literature, that-is, something considered a “bestseller”, I’m not at all surprised to find books based on modern technology, or nonfiction work, as fiction seems to be dying, because let’s face it: this is the least creative generation to exist in a long, long time. I fear when people actually seem excited about a Jem movie, rather than showing excitement for something creatively unique as say a fiction novel about changelings. The point is that making the old seem original is a very difficult strategy, and it’s even more unique to find something exciting in nostalgia, even in the most nostalgic generation. We all want our childhood back, because for most of us think getting old sucks, and everything was better “back in the day”.
In-truth, things are very, very overrated, and today the games, technology even the films are aesthetically better, and well written, because we write our dialogue and scripts with such intelligence, which has not been seen in recent decades. With every other film being a superhero rehash, and every book being some sort of pompous nonsense of overwritten trash that’s as unimpressive as reality television, it’s hard to find a novel with all the brash characteristics of respect to the so-called glory days, and written in a way that speaks to not only the laymen, but also the majority of Gen Xers and Gen Yers respectively.
Ready Player One was considered a New York Times bestseller, and the sales back up those claims. The book is Ernst Cline’s debut novel, following his second novel, Armada, recently released last month. The book follows Wade Watts, an eighteen-year-old high-school student that lives in a nasty trailer park-like ghetto in Oklahoma called the Stacks. He spends most of his time in a virtual world called the Oasis, which is similar to most MMOs like World of Warcraft, but appears identical to Second Life. The point of the Oasis is to give most people an escape from the hellishly deteriorating reality, as most people rather stay away from the horrors that come from calorie corporations ruining society, and all the other hubbub of liberal dystopia. In-truth, the idea is old and boring, but the real story is the rather inventive way the story paces itself.
The point of the story is that the inventor of the Oasis has died, and instead of leaving all his assets to the company, or an heir, which he had none, has used an Easter Egg as a way of passing the torch of both his company, and his entire fortunes, which are equivalent in the billions. The story itself is sufficient; although the characters are very, very static, almost mirror projections of one-another. Think automatons, quite difficult to find any differential in them, and they aren’t very likeable. There is an acute pompous elitism in the characters that tends to alienate the whole audience who are not necessarily fans of gaming, but may have been fans of the 80s and 90s in general. The story does well to include a great deal of eighties trivia, but mostly it adds up to be an over glorified fan fiction tribute to most things from Ernst Cline’s childhood. There is a great deal of disconnection, almost robotic, and if that was the point, this was perhaps the most genuine tribute to gamers, and it paints them in a negative light. It makes them seem self-absorbed, greedy, maniacal, and out-of-touch with reality.
Indeed, Wade Watts is an obvious teenager with only teenage desires, but he doesn’t give much in the ways of progressive growth, or even hold much interest through the entirety of the novel. I don’t root for him. I really don’t see him as anything more as a placeholder for where a better character could’ve been thrown. There is not even any emotional attachment to the loss of his grandmother figure that was murdered by the “evil” corporation.
There are generic villains, unabashedly political, which is usually fine in my book, in-fact, if it’s done right, I personally enjoy it, even if it goes against my own philosophies. Yes, there are parts of this novel that are sheer genius; Cline does an outstanding job of piecing a great deal of my favorite media of my own childhood. He builds up story a great deal, making it almost impossible not to hold onto every single word. It is a definitely apparent that this is a first novel, and it’s overall, a well-written first novel. However, I think that even another decent edit could’ve benefited this work, rather than detract from the overall story.
The story follows the quest for the ultimate Easter Egg, the one that will grant the recipient the benefit of being the richest person in the world, and gaining control of the largest entertainment company the world has to offer. The story is like the Matrix meets Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, it references everything: The story itself is just like Raiders of the Lost Ark, actually more like The Temple of Doom. It’s also a very updated version, similar to the Prince and the Pauper.
Wade, along with Aech, and Art3mis are three of the High Five, which the story follows. Shinto is also added in with his brother, but they are just there so we can call the Top Five scorers the High Five. They have to gain keys and clear gates, which could be contributed to Zelda, or Baulder’s Gate, although there was no “X” Needs Food references that’d go with that reference. Still, without giving away most of the plot, the game becomes very real with the Sixers, named so for the first numeral of their screen names of the cliché evil corporation, become a serious antagonist.
The protagonists are the Gunters, or Egg-Hunters, which Parzival (Wade) Aech, and Art3mis consider themselves, and they sort of become generic, and rather dull. Still, the best part of the story comes not from the interactions, which are childish, and reek of obvious Asperger’s Syndrome, I was rather unimpressed by how blatantly generic they represent the bulk of gamers that interact with one-another.
I’m being brutal, and believe-it-or-not, I really did enjoy this book, I found it heartfelt, and because it’s written by a true fan, rather than someone trying to capitalize on the market trend of gaming, I respect it for what it was, and I don’t mean to mislead any of you into thinking this book was anything but fun. It was cliché, that’s a given, but it was a fun cliché, and as you all know, I hate to give away plots. Still, it was a very wooden plot, one many of us could’ve come up with, but it was well crafted, so I give it a pass, at least I’m not as harsh as I could be. Cline’s wording is his saving grace, it was accurate, although a bit difficult to believe that over forty years in the future from now, they’d be using the same doggerel language, and slang from Cline’s childhood. I’d hate to say Cline is living in the past, but well, he’s rather out-of-touch with today’s youth it seems.
Then-again, it is science fiction, not real-life, so I’d dare not judge the egalitarian usage of vernacular. Therein, I’d also like to state that this story is the makeshift design for a proper, and rather obvious Hollywood script, that would not be surprising to be made into a movie, although it missed the bar, as Pixels has come out first, and thus that’s the game of “Oh no! Too slow!”
However, the purpose of this book is to show a literal epic journey through the computer game, and it proves to be altruistically realistic to what one would expect: the heroes all have imperfections, trying to hide their shortcomings in the real-world, and live out the fantasies in Virtual Reality. Still, the misplaced teenage angst, and in-some cases, well-placed angst is enough to keep most people on-board with the realism to detail. Still, there are quite a few flaws, and some missed syntax that must’ve been overlooked by an editor that surely didn’t get all the geeky references.
I genuinely loved the book, I really did, and not for the reasons one would believe: I actually enjoyed the camaraderie between Aech and Parzival; however, I wasn’t a bit surprised by the big reveal. Cline seems an anxious, excited writer that has the pacing of an ADD riddled man-child, and with no disrespect to the man himself, his writing style clearly is not made any more approachable by an ill-fated editor. I hate to critique others’ writing styles with such cruelty, but I do not undermine the whole work, which is written with a sort of panache, which screams original. Although there is nothing truly original about this story, it is modeled in such a fashion that it reinvents itself dramatically from the original sources.
Ernst Cline’s Ready Player One is a superbly written first novel, and it stems to be perhaps his best first novel, although it is shown to be his first novel. There is nothing wrong with Ready Player One aesthetically, it is fun, it entertains, and it doesn’t overvalue what it is: a book about a virtual world. It’s release was at the best time for such a novel to exist (2010) and I was amped to read it back then, but I was unlucky to not have picked it up sooner. It is essentially a good novel, a very good first novel, and not one of those overly written books that underperform. Cline is a well-spoken writer, and knows his audience, as well as the subject matter, embarrassingly well, but this is proof that hobbies can be turned into good fortunes.
I liked the book, it was a fun escape from most other critical works of literature, but it doesn’t come off as a classically written discussion on the subject, nor should it! I would recommend people who are fans of media to give this one a read, and a re-read, to gaze over what they might’ve missed the first time through. Ernst Cline has here a formidable book, one that pleasures the senses, and redefines what it means to describe “interactive media”, and although spellbinding is a word often misconstrued as entertaining, the book is indeed spellbinding. Yes, even with its many flaws, misconceptions, poor judgment in character development, the book is still a feat, and deserves the credit many critics have given it, but so many have placed it as near-perfection, and quite frankly, that’s not the case. It’s a cult classic for sure, but to name it as the end-all-be-all of the genre is a bit undermining of other classic novels written in the same approach.
Ready Player One was a candidly fun read, perhaps too fun in some aspects that the underdeveloped main protagonist takes away from the overall story, and it saddens me so, because I loved the idea, I clearly loved the ideas posted in the novel, but I didn’t love Wade Watts, and I surely didn’t appreciate his worldviews, and his lack of empathy. I get why he is the way he is, but that should not be celebrated, rather it should be accepted, but to call him the hero of the story is a bit rude.
Also the stereotyping of Shinto seems okay, but definitely like Cline was trying to cliché the hell out of every generic samurai character, along with his approach to the evil corporate elitists, could he not stem away from such maddening clichés? These discrepancies luckily do not take away form the overall job of acceptable for this novel, and though Armada (Cline’s second novel) seems very unappealing, and need-I-remind my readership that I am perhaps more nerdy than Cline himself, I base it off of entertainment, rather than concept. I cannot debate Armada here, but I will say this: Ready Player One, if seen objectively, is a decent novel, and certainly well-balanced, but still could’ve used the improvement of a far-better, more knowledgeable editor. Seems Cline was given a startup editor, or worst, edited it himself, and that makes this work suffer most. Love or hate these facts, agree or disagree, the point is this book was satisfying where it had to be, but could’ve been so much better, and that’s saying a lot.
Thank you for reading the Malacast Editorial! I’m very happy I was able to get these posts done in the allotted time, because starting next week is the beginning of Year Eleven of the Malacast Editorial. I plan on changing some of the features, and the overall look of the blog, thanks to Blogger’s intuitive layout system. I am also planning to personalize the blog, so it is aesthetically distinct from other blogs. I have never attempted to do this before, and I may also finally remove the “blogspot” part from the blog.
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