[Review] Ready Player One - Ernest Cline

[digitaldiscipline]

You want to read this book. I say that because, if you're reading this, you're a computer user, probably a gamer, and almost certainly remember coin-op arcades, 80's movies, the earliest home console game systems, and may even have owned some dice with something other than six sides. You're Gen X, and know what "those kids today" are missing. This book is it, in a clever, catchy, nutshell.

This is a paean to the passions of our youth, dressed up in a dystopian future so that it's that much easier to swallow. It's The Last Starfighter by way of Snow Crash and The Matrix, wrapped around every late-night gaming chat you ever had... the kind that results in house rules like, "No quoting Monty Python while you're supposed to be in character."

It's the book I think I wanted to write when I was just out of college, but lacked the imagination to picture the MMORPG universes that have sprung up since, full of clever references to the shared experiences of a generation full of geeks, before being a geek was cool.

Comments

[bitogoth.livejournal.com]

i am officially intrigued...

[miamadness15.livejournal.com]

This is the common read for my students this year. I loved it. Spud just finished it (not even taking 2 days to read it!) and loved it. I don't think that my students will get half of it but who knows. I will have to talk about their reaction once we have their book reading groups in September. :)

[mckitterick.livejournal.com]

Exactly. I loved the hell outta it!

[ldybastet.livejournal.com]

Ooooh! I'll have to see if I can find that! :)

(Awww, I remember the no quoting Monty Python thing. LOL Thanks for bringing that back. *g*)

[curvemudgeon.livejournal.com]

Your ideas are intriguing to me and I would like to subscribe to your newsletter.