Andrew Call's Blog: Call's Creative Corner - Posts Tagged "ernest-cline"

Ready Player One by Ernest Cline

My rating: 2 of 5 stars


I know people who love this book. I really wanted to, but I came out the other end pretty disappointed.

Ready Player One is a book that panders/caters/speaks to hardcore role-playing gamers and '80s die-hards. If you don't fit into either group, there's a good chance you'll roll your eyes and even laugh out loud at how silly most of the book is. There are more '80s film/TV/game references packed into this book than you'll believe, and whole sections of the book are devoted to replaying (often word-for-word) movies like War Games and Monty Python and the Holy Grail. The writing is sub-par, at best, and the attitudes throughout are often immature and reeking of gaming "geek" and teen boy stereotypes. Plus, there's never a moment when the main character doesn't have exactly what he needs in his "inventory," and he seemed to have unlimited knowledge/skill no matter what he encountered.

It's fantasy wish fulfillment at its worst, and I kind of hated it for what it was at times. I don't know how Spielberg is going to make this thing into a movie for the masses, but I'm interested to see how it evolves.



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