John Rabbit
Banned
it was actually WarGames.
and then Blade Runner.
and then Monty Python and the Holy Grail.
i hate that i remember this.
Ready Player One guy is coming out with his new book...
- Thread starter Schattenjäger
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it was actually WarGames.
and then Blade Runner.
and then Monty Python and the Holy Grail.
i hate that i remember this.
That's the whole plot, though. Everyone in the world is racing to solve really obvious 80s references and Purrz3v4l or whatever is the only one that can consistently do it, but there's also some half-assed "teamwork!" message (because that is a reference in itself, of course) and there are some token puzzles he can't solve by himself.
Think of it like this. If you ever found yourself in the position of having to save the world by solving a series of esoteric RPO references, you'd be set!
outunderthestars
Banned
Man, so many people in here just to shit on an author.....
You're not supposed to have FUN reading books. You're supposed to find as many faults as you can and then write a report. DUH.
-ImaginaryInsider
Member
RPO had too much positive critical praise, which usually creates a GAF "it's the worst thing ever" reply avalanche. Mad Max seems to be the only thing in recently memory that has avoided it, but I'm sure we're a few months away from a backlash thread.
Nexus Zero
Member
It's way better if you imagine Cline saying it out loud. He is essentially a nerd David Brent.
Scousefury
Member
Never seen this picture before, but that jacket makes an appearance in Armada.
He even has a Last Starfighter emblem on his jacket.......
Boo this man
And Ready Player One is pretty much Willy Wonka.
Guy's not exactly the most original, but it's entertaining.
I gave up on the Diamond Age. It was kinda boring, even though the future tech was cool. Cryptonomicon was fucking LOL stupid. Biggest paperback I've ever seen.
if you read more you'd realize there are tremendously fun books that also have the benefit of being competently written
i say "competently" because RPO is dismally poor in every respect
LOL
it's one thing to enjoy RPO despite it's many, many, many flaws but to pretend it is a secretly good book recieving "backlash" is 😂😂😂
Seriously. Same thing happened with 50 Shades of Grey.
RPO was a fun read, but only when I sped up over the 80's bits that didn't appeal to me.
I've never played Adventure or Zork so I would read a little fast and loose over those bits and still get enough out of it to progress the story.
I can't wait to see what the movie does though. It should be really good if it trims the excess.
I've never played Adventure or Zork so I would read a little fast and loose over those bits and still get enough out of it to progress the story.
I can't wait to see what the movie does though. It should be really good if it trims the excess.
Wouldn't this cause time to collapse in on itself, creating a horrifying singularity?
"Fun" isn't a good way to gauge the quality of something. I had a lot of fun getting mondo high and watching The Room in a packed theater with my friends, that doesn't mean its a good movie. Monopoly can be fun with the right people, but it's almost universally considered a bad game by most designers. If you had fun with RPO, that's fine! Everyone is allowed to like and enjoy anything they want. But this mindset of "why criticize X? can't you guys just have fun!" is incredibly lazy and adds literally nothing to the conversation.
Also, your comparison to Timecop doesn't make any sense to me. If there was a version of Scary Movie, but for pong and pacman and ghost busters, that would be the closest film analog to RPO.
reelbigtink
Member
Too much negativity in this thread. RPO was incredibly fun and I had a better time reading it than Snow Crash.
Also it isn't lazy to call something fun. That's what it is. And dogging an author is childish. Just don't read his junk if you don't like it.
Also it isn't lazy to call something fun. That's what it is. And dogging an author is childish. Just don't read his junk if you don't like it.
I work in the book industry. I probably read more than you do.
"Can't you guys just have fun?"
"If you don't like it, don't read it!"
Do you have any other dumb platitudes you'd like to drop while you're here? Let me help you out.
"It's a popcorn mov-book. You just have to turn your brain off and enjoy it!"
"If you think it's so bad, why don't you write a better book?"
-ImaginaryInsider
Member
RPO has popped up numerous times in our monthly book thread, many times people have commented on reading it due to "the buzz" i.e. all the positive reviews. After reading it some liked it, but others seemed extra annoyed and even angry that it got so much praise. I'm not saying the book is a modern masterpiece, or that good reviews make it good... only that things that get a lot of hype will most likely get shit on here extra hard at some point.
I think that's a pretty reasonable point, but maybe I haven't read enough Proust yet to know.
Muskieratboi
Member
"Dude Ripped off our story..."
I felt really, REALLY clever by the time I'd finished the first couple of pages of RPO. Truly an awful piece of writing. The premise itself is half baked, and so much dumb stuff happens (the absurdity of the trailer park high-rises is particularly cringeworthy). Stuff just got shoehorned in there for the sake of some gimpy references. It didn't feel like a cohesive, thought out world. Just some stuff the author thought up and threw in there.
It was shite.
It was shite.
It's not a very good or reasonable point at all actually. Bloodborne was incredibly well received and everyone on GAF seemed to have a boner for that game while it was in vogue. Mistborn is pretty popular, and everyone in the "what are you reading?" thread j/o's over that book all the time. The same goes for Marvel movies and TV shows like Breaking Bad. It's really stupid to dismiss criticism of RPO as just being misguided hate from bandwagoning downers looking to shit on something popular.
PeskyToaster
Member
Those quotes Patrick liked. I need to wash my hands or something.
I watched a lot of YouTube videos of cute geeky girls playing '80s cover tunes on ukuleles. Technically, this wasn't part of my research, but I had a serious cute-geeky-girls-playing-ukuleles fetish that I can neither explain nor defend.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jLKnCeeAW48
Sounds like the same kind of wish fulfillment, meandering and pandering story as Ready Player One, which I first read two months ago and also disliked.
I'm sure a lot of people will like it, though. The "normal loser person who daydreams" who becomes the "special chosen one" seems to be a trope that works out.
I'm sure a lot of people will like it, though. The "normal loser person who daydreams" who becomes the "special chosen one" seems to be a trope that works out.
Jesus, this thread.
Knowing that people like Stephanie Mayers and whatever the fuck the 50 shades lady is called could make successful books renewed my faith on eventually being able to publish something.
Now this thread makes me feel afraid that, when and if i do, Gaf will mercilessly trash it.
Like, chill guys, it's just a dude trying to write something he thought was fun.
Im not a "real" writer, i just want to write about magic and unicorns ;__;
That masturbation one....
You know what, i changed my mind, carry on gaf. Jeez!
Knowing that people like Stephanie Mayers and whatever the fuck the 50 shades lady is called could make successful books renewed my faith on eventually being able to publish something.
Now this thread makes me feel afraid that, when and if i do, Gaf will mercilessly trash it.
Like, chill guys, it's just a dude trying to write something he thought was fun.
Im not a "real" writer, i just want to write about magic and unicorns ;__;
That masturbation one....
You know what, i changed my mind, carry on gaf. Jeez!
Criticism comes with the work, don't turn into that author who had a fucking meltdown because someone rated his book a 1 out of 5 when the time comes and you will be fine.
Don't worry about what cynical people think. Just write what you love and learn from the feedback you get. Now's a better time than ever.
Work gets criticized, especially if you're asking to be paid for it.
Check this thread out about the author who freaked out at a 1-star review: http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=1060029
I paid money for Ready Player One and spent time reading it, and I felt it was a waste and/or unfulfilling. That's just how it is. As a creator, I think it might be best to take some of it into account, but also ignore a lot of it and do what you want (if it's working). Clearly, RPO was a great success, despite the criticism from certain audiences.
-ImaginaryInsider
Member
I'm not dismissing all critism of RPO, there are plenty of legit reasons to dislike the book or to (rightly) prefer Snow Crash or Neuromancer, but I'm not sure portraying the book as literary eyeball cancer in a sentence fragment reply is a criticism I shouldn't be skeptical of. I don't doubt criticism that involves the quality of writing or the those who don't like the 80's reference shtick, but some of the negativity seems unusually intense, and that's the part I question.
I understand this, i actualy love getting critiques, but what i meant is that now i don't feel as confident as back when i only had to think that even hacks make million sellers.
Beagle's The Last Unicorn is a goddamn amazing work of fiction.
Please don't let our opinions on this book dissuade you from writing cool, fun stuff. Hell, Stephanie Meyers isn't any worse than this book, so this one should also give you faith you can get published. Hop into the writing gaf community thread if you haven't already.
There's nothing unusual about it. RPO is that bad.
Krauser Kat
Member
RPO was much better as an audio book that i got for free from the library... still worth the read.
Ape Gone Insane
Member
Nah, not even that. It's mostly always luck.
Ivan Amiibo
Banned
Sounds like the corniest thing ever.
Ok, let's go over it a bit more concretely.
There are a number of different aspects of writing, and any given author will generally be good at some aspects and indifferent or weak at other aspects. Broadly you can divide these into two categories: the sorts of things commercially successful authors typically do well, and the sorts of things literary authors typically do well. Most of the former are going to fall under what I'd call "storytelling": fun characters, an interesting plot that's well-structured and has a few surprises, reeling in the reader over the course of the story and keeping them hooked. Most of the latter are going to be things like high quality prose, interesting themes, deep characters, etc.
To be a successful author, you want to lean on your strengths and shore up your weaknesses. If you're Brandon Sanderson you lean heavily on magic systems and on plotting and structure, because those are your strengths and can make up for the often weak characters and middling prose. If you're Steven Brust you lean heavily on dialogue and voice and maybe that helps you get by with a plot that's a touch thin. You still work on the things you're weaker at, try to get to a level where you're good enough so that they at least aren't detracting from your story, but you keep emphasizing those strengths, because those are what elevate your story. (This doesn't always work, and it doesn't always go unnoticed. Readers do criticize Sanderson's characters and Brust's plots, and so on.)
So what's the difference between the authors I mentioned above and Cline? Well, let's look at the weaknesses of Ready Player One. Paper-thin characters, a simplistic "evil corporation" plot that doesn't really go anywhere interesting, a standard near-future-with-VR setting that we've seen loads of iterations on since Neuromancer in the 80s. Dull dialogue, mediocre prose, a romance that relies on a tired trope. What does it lean on to make up for those weaknesses? Essentially two things: a decent amount of "page-turniness" and a shitload of 80s references that keeps the reader awash in nostalgia.
It's the latter that I think is causing the problem here (along with the sheer quantity of weak points). If an author leans on a skill to compensate for a weakness, that's one thing. If an author leans on something that feels to (some) readers like pandering... yeah, that's going to kick in a reflexive negative reaction for a lot of people. And indeed, you find a lot of people sneering about the 80s references and talking about how its just pandering nonsense.
RPO could've escaped this to some extent if the weaknesses had been fewer or less weak, or if there had been additional strengths in the writing that it could lean on, apart from the 80s references. There weren't, and it didn't.
Looking at the descriptions of the new book, it looks like more of the same: it's going to lean heavily on nostalgia. Will the writing be better? Maybe, I guess. But I'm not very hopeful. Barring Cline discovering a writing strength that he didn't know he had, I wouldn't anticipate any major changes in his writing.
Laura Hudson wrote a piece about Armada over at Slate.
Serious Bill-Paying Skillage: Ernest Cline’s Armada is everything wrong with gaming culture wrapped up in one soon-to-be–best-selling novel.
Sounds dreadful to me, and the little bits of Ready Player One I've seen excerpted and read about sounded bad enough already.
Serious Bill-Paying Skillage: Ernest Cline’s Armada is everything wrong with gaming culture wrapped up in one soon-to-be–best-selling novel.
That's just the opening. Needless to say, she thinks it's a pretty damned problematic novel, even more than his previous one.
Sounds dreadful to me, and the little bits of Ready Player One I've seen excerpted and read about sounded bad enough already.
OrlanisWorks
Banned
- Status