referencing a feeling created by another
August 8, 2017 7:34 PM Subscribe
It’s not hard to fracture the internet with a movie adaptation of a popular bad book. They’re made into movies all the time. They read like screenplays because they skip complex language that defies being replaced with pictures, and producers can’t resist a baked-in audience, which creates a baked-in counter-audience of critics. These people then meet online and ruin each others’ days. You could be forgiven, then, for expecting last month’s trailer for Steven Spielberg’s adaptation of Ernest Cline’s Ready Player One to break apart the internet entirely.
Instead, it felt like a quake in reverse, the aftershocks coming early, everyone waiting for the real carnage. Because the inevitable dislocation won’t just be about a schlocky book but an entire concept of schlocky book: the aggregating of shared consumer ephemera repackaged into another artless commodity and sold-crazy to a generation reared on abusively quoting at itself online.The Ready Player One backlash has begun - "But the response has been… not good. Indeed, while Cline’s novel is beloved by a certain subset of fandom-obsessed forum-dwellers, and its brand of hyper-referential nerd-canon reverence has become increasingly mainstream as a result of Marvel movies and shows like The Big Bang Theory, many people find its take on games and so-called genre art to be a dull, pandering tableau of reference points as an end unto themselves. The canon it builds is all-encompassing and free of any distinct taste or through-line; it’s merely “things nerds like,” all together, all at the same time."
oh look, A+ review - "Ready Player One borrows liberally from the same Joseph Campbell plot requirements as all the beloved franchises it references, but in such a loving, deferential way that it becomes endearing. "
The Backlash to Ready Player One Reveals the Blindspots of Entertainment Journalism
For all intents and purposes, a person who's never read the novel would assume that Ready Player One must be a good book if all the Google searches bring up such luminous results. But when the first trailer dropped, suddenly the book's detractors—as if lying in wait for this very moment—came out at full force, contradicting years of Google top searches to explain "Hey, Ready Player One is actually kind of bad?"Ready Player One is Basically Spy Kids 3-D: Game Over
And the "haters" ended up bringing some pretty damning evidence to prove their point: excerpts from the book itself."Descending the network of metal girders had always reminded me of old platform videogames like Donkey Kong or BurgerTime. I'd seized upon this idea a few years ealier when I coded my first Atari 2600 game (a gunter rite of passage, like a Jedi building his first lightsaber)."Quotes like the one above are littered everywhere in Ready Player One, which taken out of context offer the main indictment against Cline's novel. While the novel does an adequate job of capturing one boy's loneliness and detachment to his physical world, passages like the one above are no less strained and awkward. Cline's constant cycling of 80s nerd culture isn't just immediately exhausting, it's glaringly pandering to a specific type of reader who revels in the kind of performative bullshit that forces us to ask one another what the best Star Wars movie is, or if we can recite the Konami code by heart.
I remember watching Spy Kids 3D way back when and feeling a bit let down that it had this amazing premise of exploring a video game and instead of using that to create a world with interesting rules, it created a world without rules and with tons of unpredictability, which is the exact opposite of what a good video game has. Having skimmed Ready Player One at a friend's place, I'm pretty pessimistic about its movie version doing any better than Spy Kids 3D in that regard, and I think a lot of people will think it doesn't feel like a video game without really being able to put their finger on why.
I'm not going to pre-hate it, because I don't think my internet-commentator judgment on a film matters anyways, but I suspect there's a good chance I pick it up for a bad movie night sometime in the next 5 years.
posted by LSK at 7:57 PM on August 8, 2017 [1 favorite]
I'm not going to pre-hate it, because I don't think my internet-commentator judgment on a film matters anyways, but I suspect there's a good chance I pick it up for a bad movie night sometime in the next 5 years.
posted by LSK at 7:57 PM on August 8, 2017 [1 favorite]
*crosses arms* I don't care. I loved the book and god damn it, I am going to love the movie.
I hope.
posted by CoffeeHikeNapWine at 8:00 PM on August 8, 2017 [12 favorites]
I hope.
posted by CoffeeHikeNapWine at 8:00 PM on August 8, 2017 [12 favorites]
Ready Player One was a fun read, but I am literally the Gen. X target demo for the novel. The sheer volume of intellectual properties referenced in it were guaranteed to be a nightmare if it was ever filmed.
That said, I didn't see all of its flaws until I read Cline's second novel, Armada. It was the same thick pastiche of pop culture, but when it was charming in the first novel, it was a hard slog. It may be because Ready Player One managed to have a story line that worked with the pop culture flood, while it felt horribly forced in Armada.
I haven't gone back and tried to re-read Ready Player One since for fear that I will see the same glaring flaws in it.
posted by Badgermann at 8:03 PM on August 8, 2017 [7 favorites]
That said, I didn't see all of its flaws until I read Cline's second novel, Armada. It was the same thick pastiche of pop culture, but when it was charming in the first novel, it was a hard slog. It may be because Ready Player One managed to have a story line that worked with the pop culture flood, while it felt horribly forced in Armada.
I haven't gone back and tried to re-read Ready Player One since for fear that I will see the same glaring flaws in it.
posted by Badgermann at 8:03 PM on August 8, 2017 [7 favorites]
I 100% agree with you Badgerman, about Armada. It was painful to read. I actually wondered if it hadn't been written first, before Cline got a little better and then wrote RP1. I was so sad because I really wanted another ride like RP1 gave me (also Gen-X).
I recently re-read RP1 (after reading Armada) and for me at least, it stood up. I enjoyed the 2nd read.
posted by CoffeeHikeNapWine at 8:09 PM on August 8, 2017 [2 favorites]
I recently re-read RP1 (after reading Armada) and for me at least, it stood up. I enjoyed the 2nd read.
posted by CoffeeHikeNapWine at 8:09 PM on August 8, 2017 [2 favorites]
Why does Parzival like Art3mis? Because “her geeky demeanor and hyperkinetic speech pattern reminded me of Jordan, my favorite character in Real Genius.” How does he try to win her back? By holding a boombox over his head like Lloyd Dobler from Say Anything. What’s this town remind him of? “The place reminded me a lot of the town in the movie Footloose [where] the NPC citizens all looked like extras from a John Cougar Mellencamp video.”
With each new excerpt I read from this book I become more and more convinced that there actually is no book and that it's all just a big prank being played on me by the internet.
posted by Atom Eyes at 8:10 PM on August 8, 2017 [56 favorites]
With each new excerpt I read from this book I become more and more convinced that there actually is no book and that it's all just a big prank being played on me by the internet.
posted by Atom Eyes at 8:10 PM on August 8, 2017 [56 favorites]
Ready Player One was a fun read, but I am literally the Gen. X target demo for the novel.
It was a deeply weird book for me because I still remember it as a fun read? And I never finished it. I made it like halfway through and then drifted off. But--I still had fun. I think it's one of three books that I've ever liked but not finished, and two of them were things I read in 2016 when 2016 was being terrible and I realized I was not up to the ends of either Seveneves or Children of Earth and Sky, neither of which I judged likely to actually be restorative. But I'll get back to them.
I'm not sure if I'll get back to Ready Player One. And I'm not sure I mind. Maybe it's okay once in awhile to have a bit of fluff that just reminds you of better times in your life and it doesn't need to be better than that if it's good at what it does.
posted by Sequence at 8:20 PM on August 8, 2017 [2 favorites]
It was a deeply weird book for me because I still remember it as a fun read? And I never finished it. I made it like halfway through and then drifted off. But--I still had fun. I think it's one of three books that I've ever liked but not finished, and two of them were things I read in 2016 when 2016 was being terrible and I realized I was not up to the ends of either Seveneves or Children of Earth and Sky, neither of which I judged likely to actually be restorative. But I'll get back to them.
I'm not sure if I'll get back to Ready Player One. And I'm not sure I mind. Maybe it's okay once in awhile to have a bit of fluff that just reminds you of better times in your life and it doesn't need to be better than that if it's good at what it does.
posted by Sequence at 8:20 PM on August 8, 2017 [2 favorites]
I read this book last week on the recommendation of two friends.
In a related story, I no longer trust the book recommendations of two of my friends.
posted by Chrysostom at 8:24 PM on August 8, 2017 [72 favorites]
In a related story, I no longer trust the book recommendations of two of my friends.
posted by Chrysostom at 8:24 PM on August 8, 2017 [72 favorites]
RP1 was like having a guy come up to me and say HEY YOU ARE A GEN-X ER RIGHT YOU MUST LOVE THIS, AND THIS, AND THIS AND THIS!!! I'M GOING TO LIST ALL THE MEDIA SHIT YOU GREW UP WITH LIKE EVERY BIT OF IT IS FUCKING GREAT ART BECAUSE I LOOOOVE GEN-X! I LOVE THE 80S! RADICAL! TUBULAR! YOU SAID THAT, RIGHT, WHEN YOU WERE AN 80S TEEN???! YOU'RE GONNA LOVE THIS, LET ME SMASH IT INTO YOUR FACE!!!!
And then it all got stuffed into a plot that involved changing your shitty future through video games. I peaced out. Maybe the book later reached greatness and was a masterpiece of quiet meditation on nostalgia, reality and the tragedy of change, but...I doubt it.
It made me so tired. Nostalgia is fine, I have plenty of it, but I qualify it because I know that nostalgia is a feeling unrelated to the quality of what it's attached to. In other words, much of what you loved is shit, or at least mediocre. An excellent way to discover this is to try to watch it with your kid 30 years later and realize just how shitty it is compared to the new stuff now being made. He-Man was shit, ya'll. Dukes of Hazzard was shit...hell pretty much all TV in the 80s, compared to stuff being made now, was mediocre, formulaic pap. There were fucking laugh tracks. It was old and tired and predictable, even then, you were just too young to know it and you hadn't seen anything better yet.
The music and movies were better, and that's why we can still consume more of them now, but even so a lot of that stuff has faded and deserves to.
Anyway, that's my rant, I guess I'm part of the bloodthirsty mob.
Is it typical Gen X that I don't trust anything that flatters and panders me too much? Maybe!
posted by emjaybee at 8:24 PM on August 8, 2017 [53 favorites]
And then it all got stuffed into a plot that involved changing your shitty future through video games. I peaced out. Maybe the book later reached greatness and was a masterpiece of quiet meditation on nostalgia, reality and the tragedy of change, but...I doubt it.
It made me so tired. Nostalgia is fine, I have plenty of it, but I qualify it because I know that nostalgia is a feeling unrelated to the quality of what it's attached to. In other words, much of what you loved is shit, or at least mediocre. An excellent way to discover this is to try to watch it with your kid 30 years later and realize just how shitty it is compared to the new stuff now being made. He-Man was shit, ya'll. Dukes of Hazzard was shit...hell pretty much all TV in the 80s, compared to stuff being made now, was mediocre, formulaic pap. There were fucking laugh tracks. It was old and tired and predictable, even then, you were just too young to know it and you hadn't seen anything better yet.
The music and movies were better, and that's why we can still consume more of them now, but even so a lot of that stuff has faded and deserves to.
Anyway, that's my rant, I guess I'm part of the bloodthirsty mob.
Is it typical Gen X that I don't trust anything that flatters and panders me too much? Maybe!
posted by emjaybee at 8:24 PM on August 8, 2017 [53 favorites]
I can't speak for all Gen X-ers, but for me it's was always "I lived through the 80s once. I really don't need to do it again." and that's my response to just about any attempt to mine nostalgia from that decade. There are some bits that make me amazingly nostalgic, but fortunately those bits, like various SST bands or Church of the Subgenius, aren't ever included in the nostalgia-fests aimed at extracting money from my generation.
posted by honestcoyote at 8:33 PM on August 8, 2017 [27 favorites]
posted by honestcoyote at 8:33 PM on August 8, 2017 [27 favorites]
I didn't get very far in the book. Partly it was not being able to buy the premise of a dystopian, depressed world where everyone still has access to what must be a fantastically resource-consuming immersive AI universe, partly it was the cliched characters, but ultimately I just couldn't get over the writing. The last straw was this part:
"Halliday is at a high-school dance being held in a large gymnasium. He’s surrounded by teenagers whose clothing, hairstyles, and dance moves all indicate that the time period is the late 1980s.* Halliday is dancing, too—something no one ever saw him do in real life. Grinning maniacally, he spins in rapid circles, swinging his arms and head in time with the song, flawlessly cycling through several signature ’80s dance moves. But Halliday has no dance partner. He is, as the saying goes, dancing with himself."
Cline can name check every game and TV show and movie in existence, quote every song, but he can't actually use 80s reference in a place in the narrative where it would actually make sense, by, I don't know, describing the clothing and hair of the characters or naming an actual dance move that they perform?
(Although I just checked and this passage is on page 3, I think I held out all the way to page 20 before giving up...)
posted by phoenixy at 8:44 PM on August 8, 2017 [20 favorites]
"Halliday is at a high-school dance being held in a large gymnasium. He’s surrounded by teenagers whose clothing, hairstyles, and dance moves all indicate that the time period is the late 1980s.* Halliday is dancing, too—something no one ever saw him do in real life. Grinning maniacally, he spins in rapid circles, swinging his arms and head in time with the song, flawlessly cycling through several signature ’80s dance moves. But Halliday has no dance partner. He is, as the saying goes, dancing with himself."
Cline can name check every game and TV show and movie in existence, quote every song, but he can't actually use 80s reference in a place in the narrative where it would actually make sense, by, I don't know, describing the clothing and hair of the characters or naming an actual dance move that they perform?
(Although I just checked and this passage is on page 3, I think I held out all the way to page 20 before giving up...)
posted by phoenixy at 8:44 PM on August 8, 2017 [20 favorites]
Didn't they already make this movie and call it Pixels?
posted by Sys Rq at 8:46 PM on August 8, 2017 [8 favorites]
posted by Sys Rq at 8:46 PM on August 8, 2017 [8 favorites]
Ready Player One is the story of a white boy and a black girl competing for the same executive-level tech job, where literally the sole hiring criterion is "culture fit"
posted by aubilenon at 8:47 PM on August 8, 2017 [51 favorites]
posted by aubilenon at 8:47 PM on August 8, 2017 [51 favorites]
What emjaybee said. As a kid who came of age during the 1980s I liked a lot of the stuff RP1 references, but I really hated the book, to a point where I was angered by it. I suppose the name of the book that fan-services the kids ten years younger than me the way this one tried to will be the old modem screech, which will auto play when you open it, like a greeting card. It made The Martian seem like Dostoevsky.
posted by The Card Cheat at 8:49 PM on August 8, 2017 [5 favorites]
posted by The Card Cheat at 8:49 PM on August 8, 2017 [5 favorites]
I read Ready Player One when it first came out, but I don't remember a damn thing about it.
Not the plot, the main character's name, not anything.
Whenever people bring it up, I have to consciously remind myself it's not about Ensigns who don't want to go down with the ship.
Point being, Steven Spielberg usually makes movies that I watch, enjoy, and never think about again, so in that sense, he seems like a perfect director for this book.
posted by madajb at 8:49 PM on August 8, 2017 [4 favorites]
Not the plot, the main character's name, not anything.
Whenever people bring it up, I have to consciously remind myself it's not about Ensigns who don't want to go down with the ship.
Point being, Steven Spielberg usually makes movies that I watch, enjoy, and never think about again, so in that sense, he seems like a perfect director for this book.
posted by madajb at 8:49 PM on August 8, 2017 [4 favorites]
I'm a Gen Y/Millenial so a lot of the references were not necessarily current to me but more "oh I've heard of this" or "my sister would know this better" or even "this is somehow current to me because Malaysian pop culture is always 5-10 years behind". I enjoyed the book - it's a silly premise but I do like me some epic treasure hunting.
The movie seems like the sort that I'd watch on a flight, but I was surprised to find that my enjoyment of the book was rare amongst my peers.
Also I thought Armada was good at skewering its premise partway through. The lead character thinks it's suspicious that everything worked too much like a video game and that's what leads him to investigate the conspiracy.
posted by divabat at 8:54 PM on August 8, 2017
The movie seems like the sort that I'd watch on a flight, but I was surprised to find that my enjoyment of the book was rare amongst my peers.
Also I thought Armada was good at skewering its premise partway through. The lead character thinks it's suspicious that everything worked too much like a video game and that's what leads him to investigate the conspiracy.
posted by divabat at 8:54 PM on August 8, 2017
With each new excerpt I read from this book I become more and more convinced that there actually is no book and that it's all just a big prank being played on me by the internet.
I had not previously considered this possibility but it is not unattractive.
posted by PMdixon at 8:56 PM on August 8, 2017 [6 favorites]
I had not previously considered this possibility but it is not unattractive.
posted by PMdixon at 8:56 PM on August 8, 2017 [6 favorites]
There is a thing in this book where it becomes a popular game to recite the dialogue to popular movies from end-to-end. The book is clearly written by the kind of person who thinks that feat is especially meritorious.
I'm 40 years old and I love Star Wars and I despise this book.
posted by chrchr at 8:57 PM on August 8, 2017 [20 favorites]
I'm 40 years old and I love Star Wars and I despise this book.
posted by chrchr at 8:57 PM on August 8, 2017 [20 favorites]
I didn't lay on my bedroom floor for hours and hours and days and days as a child, creating slash fiction between G.I. Joes and Transformers and Tim Burton's Batman toys and Lego Pirates and Masters of the Universe and Micro Machines and Matchbox toys and Action Jacksons and whatever-the-hell-else just so Cline and then Spielberg could come along and limpdick my childhood fantasies in the eyesocket with some kind of whirling weightless phantasmagoria of nudge-nudge and fuckery.
What they have done here is essentially create rules for unsupervised solo play. By melting a billion fantasies into a single extruded fantasy they have sprayed piss and excreta all across the interior walls of our personal childhood universes. It's pre-imagination. Why bother developing your own? Here, we've done it for you, and this is the microtransaction mobile game to go with it.
Buy the tee
And you'll be
In a world of pre-imagination
Buy the book
And you'll see
Into that imagination
What a din!
A DeLore-in!
Travelling in
A CGI abomination
What you'll see
Will stymie
Your inclination
If you want to view paradise
Simply download this and consume it
This fantasy is pre-kneaded
Want to change the world?
Your creation's anteceded
There is no
Thing we know
Than to invest in pre-imagination
Living here
You'll concede
We've given you all you need
If you want to see magic lands
Put 3D glasses on to survey them
Want to buy some things, eBay them
Anytime you please and you can afterpay them.
(I may have had several wines at lunch.)
posted by turbid dahlia at 8:59 PM on August 8, 2017 [43 favorites]
What they have done here is essentially create rules for unsupervised solo play. By melting a billion fantasies into a single extruded fantasy they have sprayed piss and excreta all across the interior walls of our personal childhood universes. It's pre-imagination. Why bother developing your own? Here, we've done it for you, and this is the microtransaction mobile game to go with it.
Buy the tee
And you'll be
In a world of pre-imagination
Buy the book
And you'll see
Into that imagination
What a din!
A DeLore-in!
Travelling in
A CGI abomination
What you'll see
Will stymie
Your inclination
If you want to view paradise
Simply download this and consume it
This fantasy is pre-kneaded
Want to change the world?
Your creation's anteceded
There is no
Thing we know
Than to invest in pre-imagination
Living here
You'll concede
We've given you all you need
If you want to see magic lands
Put 3D glasses on to survey them
Want to buy some things, eBay them
Anytime you please and you can afterpay them.
(I may have had several wines at lunch.)
posted by turbid dahlia at 8:59 PM on August 8, 2017 [43 favorites]
There's nothing wrong with art based on nostalgia. Art being the operative word here. And Ready Player One is as artless as Big Bang Theory. I mean, look at this - the developer of Spelunky and Downwell decided to make their own 50-in-1 NESesque game. And that's awesome. It's referential and loving but it's something new. Or imagine the trailer for Stranger Things S2 but instead it's the kids sitting around a table in the basement saying "I love Ghostbusters! Thriller is rad! I can beat Dragon's Lair!"
The other thing that stand out about Ernest Cline's particular brand of Gen-X nerdom is that it is very male and very, very white. Out of all of the books he references only one is written by a woman (Anne McCaffrey) and none by PoC. Even the music references, of which there are many, reeks of MTV before Michael Jackson broke their color barrier. So fucking white. The most prominent PoC reference in the book I can recall is the goddamn Supaidaman.
So not only is RP1 a crappy book that's built on not talent or art but nothing but nostalgia, it's a hyper specific Gen-X white boy nostalgia.
posted by thecjm at 9:02 PM on August 8, 2017 [35 favorites]
The other thing that stand out about Ernest Cline's particular brand of Gen-X nerdom is that it is very male and very, very white. Out of all of the books he references only one is written by a woman (Anne McCaffrey) and none by PoC. Even the music references, of which there are many, reeks of MTV before Michael Jackson broke their color barrier. So fucking white. The most prominent PoC reference in the book I can recall is the goddamn Supaidaman.
So not only is RP1 a crappy book that's built on not talent or art but nothing but nostalgia, it's a hyper specific Gen-X white boy nostalgia.
posted by thecjm at 9:02 PM on August 8, 2017 [35 favorites]
I'm on the fence about Ready Player One. On the one hand, it looks pandering: nostalgia, like candy, can make you feel sick when you get too much of it all at once. On the other hand, I just ate a half pound of saltwater taffy and I feel great, so maybe the downsides are overstated.
The constant, forced allusions to a million pop culture properties were grating to read even in brief excepts, but I think film might be a better medium for that kind of thing. I imagine Spielberg will know well enough to keep most of it unobtrusive, like he did in the trailer, adding pop culture characters as blink-and-you miss it background details, like a constantly moving Where's Waldo. (Something you can't really do in a novel, where every word is in the foreground by necessity.)
posted by Green Winnebago at 9:08 PM on August 8, 2017 [3 favorites]
The constant, forced allusions to a million pop culture properties were grating to read even in brief excepts, but I think film might be a better medium for that kind of thing. I imagine Spielberg will know well enough to keep most of it unobtrusive, like he did in the trailer, adding pop culture characters as blink-and-you miss it background details, like a constantly moving Where's Waldo. (Something you can't really do in a novel, where every word is in the foreground by necessity.)
posted by Green Winnebago at 9:08 PM on August 8, 2017 [3 favorites]
Just going to add that I actually thought Spy Kids 3D was pretty fun, if a lesser entry in the Spy Kids oeuvre, and it had Ricardo Montalban in which, come on, knocks anything up a few grades.
posted by Artw at 9:09 PM on August 8, 2017 [3 favorites]
posted by Artw at 9:09 PM on August 8, 2017 [3 favorites]
Okay, fun game, when did you first want to throw the book* across the room?
For me it was the movie quoting game, and the revelation that afterwards movie quoting becomes a new popular artform.
* Kindle, so did not actually do this.
posted by Artw at 9:11 PM on August 8, 2017 [3 favorites]
For me it was the movie quoting game, and the revelation that afterwards movie quoting becomes a new popular artform.
* Kindle, so did not actually do this.
posted by Artw at 9:11 PM on August 8, 2017 [3 favorites]
The whole thing sounds a lot like Wreck-It Ralph to me.
posted by hippybear at 9:13 PM on August 8, 2017
posted by hippybear at 9:13 PM on August 8, 2017
Yeah, it's trash. But it's okay to like trash sometimes. Everyone has something they like that they know isn't very good.
I still think Snow Crash would have been a cooler VR film, but I guess Neal Stephenson is too busy going to space or something.
posted by FJT at 9:15 PM on August 8, 2017 [3 favorites]
I still think Snow Crash would have been a cooler VR film, but I guess Neal Stephenson is too busy going to space or something.
posted by FJT at 9:15 PM on August 8, 2017 [3 favorites]
Oh god no. Wreck it Ralph has a plot and characters.
posted by Artw at 9:15 PM on August 8, 2017 [34 favorites]
posted by Artw at 9:15 PM on August 8, 2017 [34 favorites]
I actually did enjoy the book, though I do remember not loving some of the clunky forced references. It's just not something that I feel I need to experience again, although I'm sure it will look cool. I will probably eventually rent it on VHS.
posted by Hazelsmrf at 9:22 PM on August 8, 2017 [4 favorites]
posted by Hazelsmrf at 9:22 PM on August 8, 2017 [4 favorites]
Even Spielberg knows that the entire conceit of this is awful. Guess he's paying for a heart operation or whatever:
"The movie won’t have any of my films in it. I’m not putting myself in this movie…They reference so many ’80s movies. I’m doing the whole pop culture thing. I’m just going to leave myself out of it. I can’t do that. Too self-referential."
Who is "they"? You mean "I"? You mean the "author"? It's a meal ticket. He probably directed it via Skype in three months. Better this than Indiana Jones 5, I'll concede.
posted by turbid dahlia at 9:23 PM on August 8, 2017 [4 favorites]
"The movie won’t have any of my films in it. I’m not putting myself in this movie…They reference so many ’80s movies. I’m doing the whole pop culture thing. I’m just going to leave myself out of it. I can’t do that. Too self-referential."
Who is "they"? You mean "I"? You mean the "author"? It's a meal ticket. He probably directed it via Skype in three months. Better this than Indiana Jones 5, I'll concede.
posted by turbid dahlia at 9:23 PM on August 8, 2017 [4 favorites]
Never trust an author who voluntarily refers to himself as a "gentleman adventurer".
posted by skycrashesdown at 9:24 PM on August 8, 2017 [6 favorites]
posted by skycrashesdown at 9:24 PM on August 8, 2017 [6 favorites]
NOTE: reasonable chance of never wanting anything to do with sex ever again if you read that.
posted by Artw at 9:31 PM on August 8, 2017 [15 favorites]
posted by Artw at 9:31 PM on August 8, 2017 [15 favorites]
Is that.. Is that real? Is this a joke? Maybe Atom Eyes is partially right and Ernest Cline is actually a big joke being played on us by internet.
posted by skycrashesdown at 9:31 PM on August 8, 2017 [3 favorites]
posted by skycrashesdown at 9:31 PM on August 8, 2017 [3 favorites]
Capitalism is portrayed as a disease unless it’s in the hands of the right people, which is indistinguishable from the view of capitalism espoused by the wrong people.
this isn't even one of the better lines!
I feel so let down, I came out of that book ready to set everything on fire and then I figured out everybody else also realised it was shit with no redeeming features and there was no need to say anything about it at all. I had expected it to be a Rainbow Rowell kind of thing, god knows why -- full of twee pandering but still really pretty good. but nope. that let-down feeling when I realized everybody else already knew what I knew regarding its awfulness is probably the essential thing that divides me from people who like the book, since to like it it helps to enjoy the feeling of having exactly the same favorites and unfavorites and experiences and ranked tastes as everybody else in your demographic, at exactly the same time, instead of feeling a little abashed and disgusted by the presumption that that is the case.
like everybody in on Camazotz coming out of their grey houses at the stroke of the same hour to bounce their red rubber balls in unison and go back inside at the same time to read Ready Player One and feel a small pleasant feeling of satisfaction, also in unison. references! they're pretty easy
posted by queenofbithynia at 9:39 PM on August 8, 2017 [11 favorites]
this isn't even one of the better lines!
I feel so let down, I came out of that book ready to set everything on fire and then I figured out everybody else also realised it was shit with no redeeming features and there was no need to say anything about it at all. I had expected it to be a Rainbow Rowell kind of thing, god knows why -- full of twee pandering but still really pretty good. but nope. that let-down feeling when I realized everybody else already knew what I knew regarding its awfulness is probably the essential thing that divides me from people who like the book, since to like it it helps to enjoy the feeling of having exactly the same favorites and unfavorites and experiences and ranked tastes as everybody else in your demographic, at exactly the same time, instead of feeling a little abashed and disgusted by the presumption that that is the case.
like everybody in on Camazotz coming out of their grey houses at the stroke of the same hour to bounce their red rubber balls in unison and go back inside at the same time to read Ready Player One and feel a small pleasant feeling of satisfaction, also in unison. references! they're pretty easy
posted by queenofbithynia at 9:39 PM on August 8, 2017 [11 favorites]
So, I sort of think that the early Gen-X nostalgia, which was sort of a feeling of having missed out combined with beginning to form one's own adulthood and shared rituals, made for pretty good reading. Douglas Coupland's first book Generation X: Tales For An Accelerated Culture really seemed to capture something for me and a lot of my peer group. It's full of pop culture references, but it's also is always focussed on the past. Peculiar book, but I enjoy it.
I have to say that as I've gotten older (I'm 49), I've found the nostalgia is becoming a bit... um... forced? Plus there's the whole thing where a segment of the Millennials seem to ADORE 80s culture so I end up with 20-somethings I know coming up to me all excited to have discovered Shelia E or The Goonies or something.
Stranger Things is a peculiar beast because it hits a sweet spot exactly between non-labored Gen-X nostalgia and Millennial geek 80s enthusiasm.
posted by hippybear at 9:48 PM on August 8, 2017 [10 favorites]
I have to say that as I've gotten older (I'm 49), I've found the nostalgia is becoming a bit... um... forced? Plus there's the whole thing where a segment of the Millennials seem to ADORE 80s culture so I end up with 20-somethings I know coming up to me all excited to have discovered Shelia E or The Goonies or something.
Stranger Things is a peculiar beast because it hits a sweet spot exactly between non-labored Gen-X nostalgia and Millennial geek 80s enthusiasm.
posted by hippybear at 9:48 PM on August 8, 2017 [10 favorites]
I'm not sure I should admit it but I enjoyed the book. I am, however, pretty much exactly of the age and background to get 99% of the references. I found it silly and a bit crudely written, but a fun 1-2 hour read. It's like stumbling over a tumblr post of story writing that isn't great, but I keep reading because I enjoy all of the 80s references and sheer unapologetic cheesiness.
Fully expecting the movie to be bad, of course.
Also I'm updating my list of possible visions of Hell to include "End up in a futuristic world where people achieve fame and power by quoting movies from the 2010s word for word, and find myself having to repeatedly watch "Ready Player One" and "The Emoji Movie" in order to memorize them."
posted by mmoncur at 10:00 PM on August 8, 2017 [5 favorites]
Fully expecting the movie to be bad, of course.
Also I'm updating my list of possible visions of Hell to include "End up in a futuristic world where people achieve fame and power by quoting movies from the 2010s word for word, and find myself having to repeatedly watch "Ready Player One" and "The Emoji Movie" in order to memorize them."
posted by mmoncur at 10:00 PM on August 8, 2017 [5 favorites]
Even though I'm a sucker for eighties nostalgia--one of the things that I loved about Atomic Blonde was how it didn't go light on the mostly-European synth-pop--there is such a thing as too much of a good thing. Part of what makes pop culture references work is that they're not entirely expected; Deadpool got this very well. The sheer density of them in RP1, by every single review or critique of the book that I've read, makes me want to read it less with each subsequent article. I liked this from the Deadspin piece:
posted by Halloween Jack at 10:06 PM on August 8, 2017 [13 favorites]
At times, you can almost sense a muffled scream trying to escape the page, the unthinkable recognition that memorizing movies and videogame speed-runs and every beat of a standup routine contains only the memory space required to store it—that it builds to nothing, achieves nothing, signifies nothing more than the story of somebody else. That you can watch Raiders of the Lost Ark 100 times, and on the 101st, it won’t reveal a greater truth or build a better you. That the passivity of life via filmstrip exacts no price because it confers no prize. That, maybe, the cold message of becoming a pop-culture savant is realizing that you’ve dedicated your life to the craft of memorizing how it happened to someone else—or as someone else happened to imagine it. That the Comic Book Guy was right to lament, “Oh, I’ve wasted my life.”It's the joke behind (to make a pop culture reference of my own) the Talking Heads song "Heaven", where your favorite song plays over and over again, and "Heaven is a place where nothing ever happens." It doesn't sound like heaven--kind of the opposite, in fact--but maybe it is to a certain sort of person.
posted by Halloween Jack at 10:06 PM on August 8, 2017 [13 favorites]
I described it as:
50% - HEY REMEMBER THIS???
45% - "As you know, Bob...."
5% - Potentially interesting plot
posted by Chrysostom at 10:06 PM on August 8, 2017 [15 favorites]
50% - HEY REMEMBER THIS???
45% - "As you know, Bob...."
5% - Potentially interesting plot
posted by Chrysostom at 10:06 PM on August 8, 2017 [15 favorites]
I have to say that as I've gotten older (I'm 49), I've found the nostalgia is becoming a bit... um... forced?
I'm the same age and I feel like we're starting to reach the equivalent of how everyone treated the 60s in the 90s -- remembering the tye dye and long hair and Volkswagen buses and Beatlemania but forgetting the massive civil unrest and Vietnam and racism and so on.
Reading Ready Player One I did feel like "Boy, this guy is having a way better time reliving the 80s than I had living them."
Remember in Back to the Future when Marty finds a place called "Cafe 80s" in the future world? I feel like someone's going to unironically open one of those any day now.
posted by mmoncur at 10:07 PM on August 8, 2017 [17 favorites]
I'm the same age and I feel like we're starting to reach the equivalent of how everyone treated the 60s in the 90s -- remembering the tye dye and long hair and Volkswagen buses and Beatlemania but forgetting the massive civil unrest and Vietnam and racism and so on.
Reading Ready Player One I did feel like "Boy, this guy is having a way better time reliving the 80s than I had living them."
Remember in Back to the Future when Marty finds a place called "Cafe 80s" in the future world? I feel like someone's going to unironically open one of those any day now.
posted by mmoncur at 10:07 PM on August 8, 2017 [17 favorites]
Usually I would say, well, Spielberg at least has a genius for staging action scenes. But then I remember how noisy and busy and cluttered and forgettable Tintin was and I despair.
posted by maxsparber at 10:11 PM on August 8, 2017 [1 favorite]
posted by maxsparber at 10:11 PM on August 8, 2017 [1 favorite]
I loved Fanboys. I loved Ready Player One. I have a signed copy of Armada. (Right next to my signed copies of the script of Clerks, Reamde, Sacre Bleu, and The Ghost Brigades). Hell, I bought a hardbound lettered copy of jscalzi's chapter-long golf joke. I've seen the movies, listened to the music, watched most of the tv, played some of the games. I am the target audience for this movie. At least I should be.
I'm not going to see it. I haven't watched the trailer. I know that I'm going to hate it. If/when Armada is made into a movie, I'll go see that. But when I read Ready Player One, and again when I listened to the audiobook, all I thought was "They're going to make this into a movie. And it will be bad." Because it is a giant pop culture love letter. It is already at maximum compression, getting it down to two hours with crippling IP rights limitations is going to suck 80% of the fun right off the top. The imagination has room for this, the screen does not.
Having Spielberg direct did make it easier to not have any hope for this project.
posted by monopas at 10:16 PM on August 8, 2017 [6 favorites]
I'm not going to see it. I haven't watched the trailer. I know that I'm going to hate it. If/when Armada is made into a movie, I'll go see that. But when I read Ready Player One, and again when I listened to the audiobook, all I thought was "They're going to make this into a movie. And it will be bad." Because it is a giant pop culture love letter. It is already at maximum compression, getting it down to two hours with crippling IP rights limitations is going to suck 80% of the fun right off the top. The imagination has room for this, the screen does not.
Having Spielberg direct did make it easier to not have any hope for this project.
posted by monopas at 10:16 PM on August 8, 2017 [6 favorites]
We're really in a post movie-adaptation age. With as many references as RP1 has, fans are bound to be disappointed by a 2/2.5 hr experience that doesn't capture all of them. They should have made a Stranger Things length series out of it and played fan-service throughout.
It's really not a badly written book, not Dan Brown bad anyway. It's an 80's movie plot made up of 80's cultural references set in an 80's imagined dystopia. I had fun reading it concurrently with my gamer teenager who loved it as he has loved no other book.
I never expect much from book to film adaptations or sequels, but i expect that Spielberg will make it worth my 14 bucks.
posted by OHenryPacey at 10:22 PM on August 8, 2017 [5 favorites]
It's really not a badly written book, not Dan Brown bad anyway. It's an 80's movie plot made up of 80's cultural references set in an 80's imagined dystopia. I had fun reading it concurrently with my gamer teenager who loved it as he has loved no other book.
I never expect much from book to film adaptations or sequels, but i expect that Spielberg will make it worth my 14 bucks.
posted by OHenryPacey at 10:22 PM on August 8, 2017 [5 favorites]
Tintin was a classic example of not actually understanding the spirit of a property as treasured by generations and instead taking its setting and "doing a thing with it".
I'd swear the only way they got the licensing deals for all those properties is simply by having Spielberg attached.
posted by hippybear at 10:22 PM on August 8, 2017 [1 favorite]
I'd swear the only way they got the licensing deals for all those properties is simply by having Spielberg attached.
posted by hippybear at 10:22 PM on August 8, 2017 [1 favorite]
I had fun reading it concurrently with my gamer teenager who loved it as he has loved no other book.
You have warmed the cockles of my heart. I adore when adults read books along with their kids. Reading is a thing that gets better with practice, and that's just awesome. Loving a book means more reading! Yay!
#ex-Title-1-reading-lab-aide
posted by hippybear at 10:24 PM on August 8, 2017 [2 favorites]
You have warmed the cockles of my heart. I adore when adults read books along with their kids. Reading is a thing that gets better with practice, and that's just awesome. Loving a book means more reading! Yay!
#ex-Title-1-reading-lab-aide
posted by hippybear at 10:24 PM on August 8, 2017 [2 favorites]
I read the book when it came out and could deal with the endless 80s references just fine (I am the target demographic) and thought the book as a whole was fine. I don't remember anything about it now except for one thing, the one thing that ruined the whole experience for me, and even still causes blinding rage when I remember it. The dude rolled a battle mage in his online game and thought it was a perfectly cool thing to do.
Man, I have been playing online games for 20 years, and have never in my life have I encountered a character claiming to be a battle mage that wasn't a giant steaming turd. Ah, I am angry again.
posted by Literaryhero at 10:27 PM on August 8, 2017 [9 favorites]
Man, I have been playing online games for 20 years, and have never in my life have I encountered a character claiming to be a battle mage that wasn't a giant steaming turd. Ah, I am angry again.
posted by Literaryhero at 10:27 PM on August 8, 2017 [9 favorites]
Can I start the backlash backlash?
I don't get the problem. Simple book that pandered to a certain nerdy subculture. It was totally unchallenging and didn't appear to be anything other than it was. Either it entertained you for a few hours (I'm in that category) or it didn't. I tried a couple of the OP articles and kind of zoned out because there's so little to say about it--it's so trite that even the criticism like "pop culture does too much self referencing" are cliches applicable to all sorts of mediocre crap.
It does however feed into the nostalgia thing for me to see people pile on geeks for enthusiastically enjoying something. Being told you like the wrong thing and in the wrong way was indeed a hallmark of the '70s and '80s geekdom.
posted by mark k at 10:49 PM on August 8, 2017 [13 favorites]
I don't get the problem. Simple book that pandered to a certain nerdy subculture. It was totally unchallenging and didn't appear to be anything other than it was. Either it entertained you for a few hours (I'm in that category) or it didn't. I tried a couple of the OP articles and kind of zoned out because there's so little to say about it--it's so trite that even the criticism like "pop culture does too much self referencing" are cliches applicable to all sorts of mediocre crap.
It does however feed into the nostalgia thing for me to see people pile on geeks for enthusiastically enjoying something. Being told you like the wrong thing and in the wrong way was indeed a hallmark of the '70s and '80s geekdom.
posted by mark k at 10:49 PM on August 8, 2017 [13 favorites]
Can I start the backlash backlash?
Yes, by all means. In particular that Deadspin article was the longest, most overwrought version of a "How dare they make a movie out of a book I didn't like, or possibly didn't even read" blog post I've ever seen.
posted by mmoncur at 11:55 PM on August 8, 2017 [3 favorites]
Yes, by all means. In particular that Deadspin article was the longest, most overwrought version of a "How dare they make a movie out of a book I didn't like, or possibly didn't even read" blog post I've ever seen.
posted by mmoncur at 11:55 PM on August 8, 2017 [3 favorites]
I haven't read the book, and from the brief excerpts I've seen, there's almost no chance I ever will, but if I'm following the premise correctly, there could be a decent movie here if the AI/Minority Report Spielberg shows up instead of Indiana Jones one. AI and Minority Report don't revel in some grand technological future, but show it as disturbing. In the trailer for Ready Player One, the fantasy world chock-a-block with nostalgic references and visual excess is matched by a real world of ridiculously dire circumstance. I have to assume any premise has to account for that latter element in some comparison to the former, where the VR fantasy is being used to dull the pain or hide the disparity present in the real world. How one addresses that, and nostalgia's role in helping to perpetrate the ignoration or acceptance of real poverty seems actually to be a potentially worthwhile subject to explore given our own eras endless fascination with such crap while the world burns around us.
If the movie celebrates hiding in the past and living virtually while reality suffers, then, yeah, it will likely just be another body on the funeral pyre, but if it actually challenges the current entertainment obsession and points towards it being a accessory to accepting a corporate future of ever increasing disparity, then it could be interesting. Spielberg as the director has the pull to do the latter, if he chose and has signaled some previous interest in examining, but he's also one of the main forces behind the entertainment industry's endless focus on nostalgia and spectacle, so his interest could signal either. Most likely it'll sit somewhere in between, as Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory did, strongly suggesting a dark undercurrent to its world, before providing a barely earned and minimally explained reprieve from that darkness in turning over the factory to Charlie at the end.
posted by gusottertrout at 11:58 PM on August 8, 2017 [2 favorites]
If the movie celebrates hiding in the past and living virtually while reality suffers, then, yeah, it will likely just be another body on the funeral pyre, but if it actually challenges the current entertainment obsession and points towards it being a accessory to accepting a corporate future of ever increasing disparity, then it could be interesting. Spielberg as the director has the pull to do the latter, if he chose and has signaled some previous interest in examining, but he's also one of the main forces behind the entertainment industry's endless focus on nostalgia and spectacle, so his interest could signal either. Most likely it'll sit somewhere in between, as Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory did, strongly suggesting a dark undercurrent to its world, before providing a barely earned and minimally explained reprieve from that darkness in turning over the factory to Charlie at the end.
posted by gusottertrout at 11:58 PM on August 8, 2017 [2 favorites]
My wife liked this book, but I think it's because she read the inability to think in anything but shallow cultural references and the plot's vindication of that myopic obsession as 100% dystopian--regardless of what the narrator thinks--and a plausible dystopia at that.
posted by straight at 12:18 AM on August 9, 2017 [12 favorites]
posted by straight at 12:18 AM on August 9, 2017 [12 favorites]
Yeah, exactly. I can't think of it any differently myself, so I'll be curious to see how the movie deals with that.
posted by gusottertrout at 12:23 AM on August 9, 2017
posted by gusottertrout at 12:23 AM on August 9, 2017
If/when Armada is made into a movie, I'll go see that.
They already did, it's called The Last Starfighter.
posted by Pendragon at 12:57 AM on August 9, 2017 [15 favorites]
They already did, it's called The Last Starfighter.
posted by Pendragon at 12:57 AM on August 9, 2017 [15 favorites]
Not only is RP1 a hermetic world of references frozen in a specific cultural moment, none of the characters show either the inclination or the ability to actually create anything new. None of them, in fact, advances at all beyond the stage of a child playing with their action figures. The same films, the same games, over and over again endlessly. They're all perfect consumers despite having access to a computational device of staggering power that could materialize anything they dream up. What we see them do with it, then, represents the absolute limit of their shrunken imaginations. It would be chilling if it weren't pathetic.
RP1, then, is a dystopia in which the central catastrophe--the total death of human creativity and the consequent end of culture as a productive enterprise--happens off-stage. Naturally, the characters are unaware that they're shallow ghosts rummaging around in a dead world. They don't have the vision to understand their own plight, or their limits. What's peculiar is that Ernest Cline also seems unaware of this obvious fact.
I actually suspect that the world of RP1 is what you dream up if, as some of my students do, you have a "pure remix" theory of creativity according to which no one can ever make up anything new, only recombine bits of what's already there. It's "Frankencreativity," stitching together the corpses of cultural products and bringing them to life with a bolt of corporate capital. RP1 is also a reductio of the stupider versions of this theory, although again, it's doubtful that Cline had this subtle debunking in mind when he wrote it.
posted by informavore at 1:41 AM on August 9, 2017 [45 favorites]
RP1, then, is a dystopia in which the central catastrophe--the total death of human creativity and the consequent end of culture as a productive enterprise--happens off-stage. Naturally, the characters are unaware that they're shallow ghosts rummaging around in a dead world. They don't have the vision to understand their own plight, or their limits. What's peculiar is that Ernest Cline also seems unaware of this obvious fact.
I actually suspect that the world of RP1 is what you dream up if, as some of my students do, you have a "pure remix" theory of creativity according to which no one can ever make up anything new, only recombine bits of what's already there. It's "Frankencreativity," stitching together the corpses of cultural products and bringing them to life with a bolt of corporate capital. RP1 is also a reductio of the stupider versions of this theory, although again, it's doubtful that Cline had this subtle debunking in mind when he wrote it.
posted by informavore at 1:41 AM on August 9, 2017 [45 favorites]
I'm the same age and I feel like we're starting to reach the equivalent of how everyone treated the 60s in the 90s -- remembering the tye dye and long hair and Volkswagen buses and Beatlemania but forgetting the massive civil unrest and Vietnam and racism and so on.
And electroclash and vaporwave are our equivalent of The Bangles and Lenny Kravitz. (Yes, entire genres in lieu of artists; with the collapse of the value of music, there are no more monolithic rock idols.)
posted by acb at 3:01 AM on August 9, 2017 [2 favorites]
And electroclash and vaporwave are our equivalent of The Bangles and Lenny Kravitz. (Yes, entire genres in lieu of artists; with the collapse of the value of music, there are no more monolithic rock idols.)
posted by acb at 3:01 AM on August 9, 2017 [2 favorites]
As mentioned above, I'm not a fan of 80's nostalgia. But I do like vaporwave. At least some of it. Vaporwave, the good parts of it anyways, does something great. Takes the superficial bits of 80s & early 90s cultural ephemera, and makes something new. Music that today's kids listen to while walking (or fantasizing about walking) through the abandoned mall, but has only the barest hints of what would have been popular with mall rats back in the day.
That's one of the better ways to do remix nostalgia culture. Make something which sounds new and yet somehow evokes the feeling and melancholy of the old.
posted by honestcoyote at 3:28 AM on August 9, 2017 [2 favorites]
That's one of the better ways to do remix nostalgia culture. Make something which sounds new and yet somehow evokes the feeling and melancholy of the old.
posted by honestcoyote at 3:28 AM on August 9, 2017 [2 favorites]
So not only is RP1 a crappy book that's built on not talent or art but nothing but nostalgia, it's a hyper specific Gen-X white boy nostalgia.
Which, you know, I've read worse books something similar could be said about, but when getting this from the library a few years ago I remember getting bored by the book's endless fellatio of me somewhere around page thirteen.
It felt like every other sentence should've had that gif of Captain America embedded that he understood that reference.
Doesn't help that the protagonist was such a tool either.
posted by MartinWisse at 3:29 AM on August 9, 2017 [5 favorites]
Which, you know, I've read worse books something similar could be said about, but when getting this from the library a few years ago I remember getting bored by the book's endless fellatio of me somewhere around page thirteen.
It felt like every other sentence should've had that gif of Captain America embedded that he understood that reference.
Doesn't help that the protagonist was such a tool either.
posted by MartinWisse at 3:29 AM on August 9, 2017 [5 favorites]
fuck the part where the main character talks about voting to reelect Wil Wheaton and Cory Doctorow as User Comittee Presidents
Actually, come to think of it, what Ready Player One most reminded me off was Doctorow's first novel, the one set in a Disney Park or something, which had the same breathless celebratory overtones of geek culture and I also couldn't finish.
posted by MartinWisse at 3:32 AM on August 9, 2017 [7 favorites]
Actually, come to think of it, what Ready Player One most reminded me off was Doctorow's first novel, the one set in a Disney Park or something, which had the same breathless celebratory overtones of geek culture and I also couldn't finish.
posted by MartinWisse at 3:32 AM on August 9, 2017 [7 favorites]
Ah yes, Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom. 50,000 words of Disney World and "Rocky Raccoon" references.
posted by Phssthpok at 3:44 AM on August 9, 2017 [5 favorites]
posted by Phssthpok at 3:44 AM on August 9, 2017 [5 favorites]
> Camazotz
That is the movie I can't wait to see.
And I expect to love it because of how different it is from how I imagined the book. Except better, because what experience did pasty white rural/suburban 10-or-whatever year old me have to go with? Cardboard cut-out witches, nothing so fabulous as Oprah.
Except the bouncing ball, come-in-for-dinner scene. Knew that well enough then already, and the trailer bit nails it.
posted by one weird trick at 3:44 AM on August 9, 2017 [3 favorites]
That is the movie I can't wait to see.
And I expect to love it because of how different it is from how I imagined the book. Except better, because what experience did pasty white rural/suburban 10-or-whatever year old me have to go with? Cardboard cut-out witches, nothing so fabulous as Oprah.
Except the bouncing ball, come-in-for-dinner scene. Knew that well enough then already, and the trailer bit nails it.
posted by one weird trick at 3:44 AM on August 9, 2017 [3 favorites]
I listened to the audiobook of RP1 (read by Wil Wheaton of course!). While I would not like this style of pop-culture reference to become a common thing, it seemed fine as a one-off. It was not the best book in the world but the story managed to have emotional depth and stayed interesting all the way through.
posted by Sand at 4:18 AM on August 9, 2017 [3 favorites]
posted by Sand at 4:18 AM on August 9, 2017 [3 favorites]
I've been aware of RP1 for a while, but I could never bring myself to read it. Everything I know about it makes me think of it as the literary equivalent of a Star Wars themed Monopoly set.
These quotes aren't exactly contradicting this impression.
posted by tocts at 4:25 AM on August 9, 2017 [8 favorites]
These quotes aren't exactly contradicting this impression.
posted by tocts at 4:25 AM on August 9, 2017 [8 favorites]
It was totally unchallenging and didn't appear to be anything other than it was
Okay, but that doesn't make it "good" or even "not terrible." I ready plenty of genre fiction and a bit of YA, and almost all of it is better-written and more "challenging" than RP1. I didn't know a whole lot about the book when I read it; I didn't know that it was, or would become, a Big Deal. So I just looked at my Goodreads notes on it: I suspected that I had just accidentally read a mediocre-at-best YA fantasy novel.
It's like a book written for kids who don't read much and don't have expectations of how words and plots fit together, except that it's ostensibly for middle-aged adults.
posted by uncleozzy at 4:31 AM on August 9, 2017 [7 favorites]
Okay, but that doesn't make it "good" or even "not terrible." I ready plenty of genre fiction and a bit of YA, and almost all of it is better-written and more "challenging" than RP1. I didn't know a whole lot about the book when I read it; I didn't know that it was, or would become, a Big Deal. So I just looked at my Goodreads notes on it: I suspected that I had just accidentally read a mediocre-at-best YA fantasy novel.
It's like a book written for kids who don't read much and don't have expectations of how words and plots fit together, except that it's ostensibly for middle-aged adults.
posted by uncleozzy at 4:31 AM on August 9, 2017 [7 favorites]
RP1 has been languishing somewhere down my to-read list, after having been recommended by someone I talked to once. After this thread, I think I can remove it. Not necessarily because it'd be atrocious, but because I can't justify spending the time reading it, given what it has to offer*.
* mostly irritainment, by the sound of it, but at this stage, life's too short to expose oneself to irritating media just to get to talk from personal experience about how bad it is. The media landscape is an endless Augean stables of mediocre and irritating content, and sweeping it out is a thankless and futile labour.
posted by acb at 4:40 AM on August 9, 2017 [3 favorites]
* mostly irritainment, by the sound of it, but at this stage, life's too short to expose oneself to irritating media just to get to talk from personal experience about how bad it is. The media landscape is an endless Augean stables of mediocre and irritating content, and sweeping it out is a thankless and futile labour.
posted by acb at 4:40 AM on August 9, 2017 [3 favorites]
I only came in here to defend Wreck it Ralph. It was endearing and felt like people who loved video games made it. And yes, great characters and a decent plot.
I couldn't finish RP1. I think I read maybe 50 pages and it felt like I was reading a Wikipedia article.
posted by like_neon at 5:41 AM on August 9, 2017 [9 favorites]
I couldn't finish RP1. I think I read maybe 50 pages and it felt like I was reading a Wikipedia article.
posted by like_neon at 5:41 AM on August 9, 2017 [9 favorites]
As someone who is introducing his kids to video games in mostly-chronological order (sorry, everything pre-Atari 2600), I enjoy some 80s nostalgia. I haven't read RP1, but those excerpts sound excruciating. The suffocating creativity-free dystopia view of its universe certainly sounds plausible.
posted by a snickering nuthatch at 5:47 AM on August 9, 2017 [1 favorite]
posted by a snickering nuthatch at 5:47 AM on August 9, 2017 [1 favorite]
Ready Player One was a fun read, but I am literally the Gen. X target demo for the novel.
I, too, am in this cohort, born in 1972.
I should have gone bananas over this book but as I read it, the REFERNECES and CALL-BACKS and DROPPED NAMES were so clangingly obvious and clumsy, and so frequent, that they filled the space where a good story ought to have been.
And the story that there was space for was tired and played-out: Tron did it better, and so long ago that it has been rebooted since then. It had the narrative heft of a late-series "Magic Tree House" paperback, with less suspense about the eventual outcome.
posted by wenestvedt at 5:59 AM on August 9, 2017 [5 favorites]
I, too, am in this cohort, born in 1972.
I should have gone bananas over this book but as I read it, the REFERNECES and CALL-BACKS and DROPPED NAMES were so clangingly obvious and clumsy, and so frequent, that they filled the space where a good story ought to have been.
And the story that there was space for was tired and played-out: Tron did it better, and so long ago that it has been rebooted since then. It had the narrative heft of a late-series "Magic Tree House" paperback, with less suspense about the eventual outcome.
posted by wenestvedt at 5:59 AM on August 9, 2017 [5 favorites]
sorry, everything pre-Atari 2600
You assembled a PDP-10 to play Space War on?
posted by acb at 6:11 AM on August 9, 2017 [2 favorites]
You assembled a PDP-10 to play Space War on?
posted by acb at 6:11 AM on August 9, 2017 [2 favorites]
It's like a book written for kids who don't read much and don't have expectations of how words and plots fit together, except that it's ostensibly for middle-aged adults.
Is this a new inverse of the young-adult genre? Adventure books at a child/teenager's reading level, larded with nostalgic referrences (and kept clean of psychological complexity, introspection or similar) as a refuge from adulthood for middle-aged readers?
posted by acb at 6:15 AM on August 9, 2017
Is this a new inverse of the young-adult genre? Adventure books at a child/teenager's reading level, larded with nostalgic referrences (and kept clean of psychological complexity, introspection or similar) as a refuge from adulthood for middle-aged readers?
posted by acb at 6:15 AM on August 9, 2017
"Tron did it better" is a thing I think about a lot of movies, actually.
posted by hippybear at 6:16 AM on August 9, 2017 [4 favorites]
posted by hippybear at 6:16 AM on August 9, 2017 [4 favorites]
Fuck this book, and fuck the part where the main character talks about voting to reelect Wil Wheaton and Cory Doctorow as User Comittee Presidents because they had always been so great at protecting everybody's user rights.
Fuck that part IN PARTICULAR.
That part was so cringey -- such a transparent ploy to get Wheaton and BoingBoing to promote the book.
posted by sevenyearlurk at 6:25 AM on August 9, 2017 [12 favorites]
Fuck that part IN PARTICULAR.
That part was so cringey -- such a transparent ploy to get Wheaton and BoingBoing to promote the book.
posted by sevenyearlurk at 6:25 AM on August 9, 2017 [12 favorites]
Two years on and I haven't changed my opinion of Ready Player One. It appears to be a book written with the belief that Mary Sue-ism is an operating principle. And, I suppose, if I look at what it is, rather than what I think it should be, what's most interesting about it is Cline's absolute impatience with any pretense of trying to imagine other minds and his choice instead to hoist the black flag of solipsism and commence with the pew-pew-pew-ing.
posted by octobersurprise at 6:26 AM on August 9, 2017 [4 favorites]
posted by octobersurprise at 6:26 AM on August 9, 2017 [4 favorites]
Most everyone here has already said what I wanted to mention about the limp nostalgia on every page, and how the book seems to want to glorify a slavish devotion to 80s culture above all else. Beyond that, what really puzzled me is how bad a job Cline does at extrapolating a future based on the present:
We're told the Oasis is one big VR environment where every game, every interest has it's own realm. There's an exploration area with spaceships from every franchise, a fantasy/rpg/D&D area, an entire world based on Blade Runner in there, etc. How in the hell was all this licensed? Did all corporate IP just collapse into one big pile? Because in my current world, which is only supposedly 40 or so years before RP1, Quicksilver and the Scarlet Witch can't be called "mutants" and your gamemod will be scattered to the winds if it looks to infringe on anything. And are there no trolls, no griefers? How is IOI the only ISP in business yet all their gunters get their asses handed to them on the reg?
posted by The Pluto Gangsta at 6:30 AM on August 9, 2017 [8 favorites]
We're told the Oasis is one big VR environment where every game, every interest has it's own realm. There's an exploration area with spaceships from every franchise, a fantasy/rpg/D&D area, an entire world based on Blade Runner in there, etc. How in the hell was all this licensed? Did all corporate IP just collapse into one big pile? Because in my current world, which is only supposedly 40 or so years before RP1, Quicksilver and the Scarlet Witch can't be called "mutants" and your gamemod will be scattered to the winds if it looks to infringe on anything. And are there no trolls, no griefers? How is IOI the only ISP in business yet all their gunters get their asses handed to them on the reg?
posted by The Pluto Gangsta at 6:30 AM on August 9, 2017 [8 favorites]
It's like a book written for kids who don't read much and don't have expectations of how words and plots fit together, except that it's ostensibly for middle-aged adults.
Dan Brown is basically 6th grade reading level. RP1 is pretty comparable.
posted by thecjm at 6:34 AM on August 9, 2017 [1 favorite]
Dan Brown is basically 6th grade reading level. RP1 is pretty comparable.
posted by thecjm at 6:34 AM on August 9, 2017 [1 favorite]
The idea that gamers are inherently anti fascist has been challenged somewhat by recent events also.
posted by Artw at 6:36 AM on August 9, 2017 [16 favorites]
posted by Artw at 6:36 AM on August 9, 2017 [16 favorites]
this would actually be a good movie if it filmed what happens in the book. what happens, not what whosis pretends is happening and sees happening in his dumb gameland. two hours of a miserable teen sitting in the corner of a room with VR paraphernalia on making little noises and talking to himself and running around, with a little episode late in the plot where he does a bunch of aerobic exercise in place.
well, it wouldn't be a good movie, it would be a terrible movie, nobody would watch it. but you could make it like hardest-to-watch parts of Welcome to the Dollhouse-style unbearable, looking reality a little too closely in the face, instead of regular old garbage pile terrible like the book. where is todd solondz when you need him
posted by queenofbithynia at 6:39 AM on August 9, 2017 [11 favorites]
well, it wouldn't be a good movie, it would be a terrible movie, nobody would watch it. but you could make it like hardest-to-watch parts of Welcome to the Dollhouse-style unbearable, looking reality a little too closely in the face, instead of regular old garbage pile terrible like the book. where is todd solondz when you need him
posted by queenofbithynia at 6:39 AM on August 9, 2017 [11 favorites]
I too have come to praise Wreck-It Ralph. Specifically, that part in Princess Vanellope's training montage when she gets the hang of driving and there's that moment that shows on her face that she has rediscovered who she really is.
posted by whuppy at 6:43 AM on August 9, 2017 [12 favorites]
posted by whuppy at 6:43 AM on August 9, 2017 [12 favorites]
Yeah, it's trash. But it's okay to like trash sometimes. Everyone has something they like that they know isn't very good.
Yeah, seriously. It's a trashy, fun book full of nostalgia crap. It was fun fluff. I get that some people won't like that.
What I don't get it the sheer level of vitriolic rage the book seems to engender in some people, in this very thread and elsewhere. The way some people talk about it you'd think Cline had written Mein Kampf II.
posted by Sangermaine at 6:45 AM on August 9, 2017 [11 favorites]
Yeah, seriously. It's a trashy, fun book full of nostalgia crap. It was fun fluff. I get that some people won't like that.
What I don't get it the sheer level of vitriolic rage the book seems to engender in some people, in this very thread and elsewhere. The way some people talk about it you'd think Cline had written Mein Kampf II.
posted by Sangermaine at 6:45 AM on August 9, 2017 [11 favorites]
nostalgia is a feeling unrelated to the quality of what it's attached to
And compulsory nostalgia-shaming--being made to feel inadequate for not remembering fondly that which was not that great to begin with--is bullshit.
posted by MonkeyToes at 7:01 AM on August 9, 2017 [1 favorite]
And compulsory nostalgia-shaming--being made to feel inadequate for not remembering fondly that which was not that great to begin with--is bullshit.
posted by MonkeyToes at 7:01 AM on August 9, 2017 [1 favorite]
What I don't get it the sheer level of vitriolic rage the book seems to engender in some people, in this very thread and elsewhere.
Well, he did write some shitty creeper "nice guy" stuff into it. Dude straight-up stalks a woman (a woman who's pretty, but doesn't know it!) when she cuts off contact with him, and this is portrayed as romantic and okay. Our "hero" is rewarded for this endearing persistence.
The fluffing of my generation that goes on in that book isn't so much a problem (except that people are reading it as the Best Thing Ever, which is annoying), but that book is reinforcing the m'ladyization of mankind, and yeah, that's shit.
posted by middleclasstool at 7:04 AM on August 9, 2017 [13 favorites]
Well, he did write some shitty creeper "nice guy" stuff into it. Dude straight-up stalks a woman (a woman who's pretty, but doesn't know it!) when she cuts off contact with him, and this is portrayed as romantic and okay. Our "hero" is rewarded for this endearing persistence.
The fluffing of my generation that goes on in that book isn't so much a problem (except that people are reading it as the Best Thing Ever, which is annoying), but that book is reinforcing the m'ladyization of mankind, and yeah, that's shit.
posted by middleclasstool at 7:04 AM on August 9, 2017 [13 favorites]
mild spoilers below
I am the target demographic, which was one of the reasons I wasn't a big fan. The plot revolves around a quiz game, like a mystery novel, but unlike a mystery novel it's all things that are knowable in real life. Either you aren't the target audience and you don't quite care about The Tomb of Horrors, are you are the target audience and you already know the answer is the Tomb of Horrors so the whole next chapter is kind of useless to you.
posted by tofu_crouton at 7:04 AM on August 9, 2017 [2 favorites]
I am the target demographic, which was one of the reasons I wasn't a big fan. The plot revolves around a quiz game, like a mystery novel, but unlike a mystery novel it's all things that are knowable in real life. Either you aren't the target audience and you don't quite care about The Tomb of Horrors, are you are the target audience and you already know the answer is the Tomb of Horrors so the whole next chapter is kind of useless to you.
posted by tofu_crouton at 7:04 AM on August 9, 2017 [2 favorites]
Can this really be worse than The Martian?
posted by gnuhavenpier at 7:10 AM on August 9, 2017
posted by gnuhavenpier at 7:10 AM on August 9, 2017
What I don't get it the sheer level of vitriolic rage the book seems to engender in some people,
it's not just rage! for those of us (those of me) who lived through the Twilight years and the unending CONCERN that some teenage girl, somewhere, might be daydreaming about insufficiently empowering sex with vampires, there is some unmixed delight in seeing the world's contempt supplies and moral panic stores finally being used on a book that is A. by a man, about boys, perceived as being for boys, and that B. actually comprehensively deserves it. I thought I would never live to see it.
posted by queenofbithynia at 7:14 AM on August 9, 2017 [11 favorites]
it's not just rage! for those of us (those of me) who lived through the Twilight years and the unending CONCERN that some teenage girl, somewhere, might be daydreaming about insufficiently empowering sex with vampires, there is some unmixed delight in seeing the world's contempt supplies and moral panic stores finally being used on a book that is A. by a man, about boys, perceived as being for boys, and that B. actually comprehensively deserves it. I thought I would never live to see it.
posted by queenofbithynia at 7:14 AM on August 9, 2017 [11 favorites]
Well, he did write some shitty creeper "nice guy" stuff into it. Dude straight-up stalks a woman (a woman who's pretty, but doesn't know it!) when she cuts off contact with him, and this is portrayed as romantic and okay. Our "hero" is rewarded for this endearing persistence.
Ironically enough, the person who originally recommended this book to me, and who changed her online handle on various forums to refer to one of the characters in it, was perhaps the most stridently left-wing person I have met; not so much a Social Justice Warrior as a Social Judge Dredd. She, for example, denounced Laurie Penny as right-wing, and would issue her online friends tasks concerning various political actions on pain of unfriending/blocking. And yet she loved this book.
posted by acb at 7:16 AM on August 9, 2017
Ironically enough, the person who originally recommended this book to me, and who changed her online handle on various forums to refer to one of the characters in it, was perhaps the most stridently left-wing person I have met; not so much a Social Justice Warrior as a Social Judge Dredd. She, for example, denounced Laurie Penny as right-wing, and would issue her online friends tasks concerning various political actions on pain of unfriending/blocking. And yet she loved this book.
posted by acb at 7:16 AM on August 9, 2017
Ready Player One is the story of a white boy and a black girl competing for the same executive-level tech job, where literally the sole hiring criterion is "culture fit"
Heh - I described it to someone the other day as "Willie Wonka for a videogame software company"...
posted by jkaczor at 7:16 AM on August 9, 2017 [2 favorites]
Heh - I described it to someone the other day as "Willie Wonka for a videogame software company"...
posted by jkaczor at 7:16 AM on August 9, 2017 [2 favorites]
The comparison to Dan Brown is apt; I had more than one person tell me that I needed to read The Da Vinci Code, and I did, because it didn't take long--it was basically the Cliff Notes version of Holy Blood, Holy Grail with a little goddess-worship stitched in, packaged in short, EZ2Read chapters. RP1, at least the little bit that I've read of it, seems much of a piece with that; there's very little challenging or original in it. I just checked to see if I had it in my Kindle library (I do, which tells you something, since my Kindle library isn't all that big), and how much I'd read of it. I was on the part where he's describing the stacked trailer homes in Oklahoma City; it's not even an original idea, and orders of magnitude less interesting than the description of the Bridge community in William Gibson's Bridge trilogy. I certainly didn't need a few pages of it, which is probably why I stopped reading the book, but I can see why some people would accept it in lieu of something a bit more challenging.
If the dislike of it seems excessive (although surely not "vitriolic rage", which I'd reserve for, say, women getting death threats for daring to game while female), it may be that the crap does in fact crowd out better work, especially when you're talking about movies, which have a limited number of venues to appear in. I can and did set aside RP1 the book, which I think was deeply discounted when I got it, so no big loss, but the movie will take up the slot (if not more than one) in the local multiplex theater that might have gone to a movie that I actually want to see. The Da Vinci Code movie and its sequels and wannabes (National Treasure, most particularly) certainly did the same for some time.
And then, there's the weariness of so many of these things that I loved just being turned into sausage, and not even very good sausage. I don't want a passing reference to Real Genius; I want a fucking sequel with every man jack and woman jill from the cast that they can pull in, to see how these now-middle-aged whiz kids are coping with the age of apps and such. Part of the reason why I liked Atomic Blonde is that it had all this Euro-synthpop in a movie which wasn't just about the end of the Cold War, but the end of the eighties as well. Do something really interesting with it instead of putting it in your fucking Vitamix with all the other references, like the T-shirt places that are methodically, joylessly remixing everything with everything else.
Also, that's my lawn you're standing on, punk.
posted by Halloween Jack at 7:18 AM on August 9, 2017 [4 favorites]
If the dislike of it seems excessive (although surely not "vitriolic rage", which I'd reserve for, say, women getting death threats for daring to game while female), it may be that the crap does in fact crowd out better work, especially when you're talking about movies, which have a limited number of venues to appear in. I can and did set aside RP1 the book, which I think was deeply discounted when I got it, so no big loss, but the movie will take up the slot (if not more than one) in the local multiplex theater that might have gone to a movie that I actually want to see. The Da Vinci Code movie and its sequels and wannabes (National Treasure, most particularly) certainly did the same for some time.
And then, there's the weariness of so many of these things that I loved just being turned into sausage, and not even very good sausage. I don't want a passing reference to Real Genius; I want a fucking sequel with every man jack and woman jill from the cast that they can pull in, to see how these now-middle-aged whiz kids are coping with the age of apps and such. Part of the reason why I liked Atomic Blonde is that it had all this Euro-synthpop in a movie which wasn't just about the end of the Cold War, but the end of the eighties as well. Do something really interesting with it instead of putting it in your fucking Vitamix with all the other references, like the T-shirt places that are methodically, joylessly remixing everything with everything else.
Also, that's my lawn you're standing on, punk.
posted by Halloween Jack at 7:18 AM on August 9, 2017 [4 favorites]
Meh - such drama! I read the book and enjoyed it as in-one-eye-and-out-the-other fluff, but I was in my 30's in the '80s (they were awesome) and am a casual gamer at best and therefore don't feel like anyone is crapping on my childhood.
posted by Standeck at 7:20 AM on August 9, 2017 [2 favorites]
posted by Standeck at 7:20 AM on August 9, 2017 [2 favorites]
not so much a Social Justice Warrior as a Social Judge Dredd.
Shit, I'd go to see that movie. All the fuckbois and MRA/PUA types and MAGAdroids crapping their pants at a woman literally being the feminazi of their nightmares.
posted by Halloween Jack at 7:23 AM on August 9, 2017 [9 favorites]
Shit, I'd go to see that movie. All the fuckbois and MRA/PUA types and MAGAdroids crapping their pants at a woman literally being the feminazi of their nightmares.
posted by Halloween Jack at 7:23 AM on August 9, 2017 [9 favorites]
CINEMATIC GAME CHANGER STEVEN SPIELBERG
posted by Nelson at 7:26 AM on August 9, 2017 [2 favorites]
posted by Nelson at 7:26 AM on August 9, 2017 [2 favorites]
We're told the Oasis is one big VR environment where every game, every interest has it's own realm. There's an exploration area with spaceships from every franchise, a fantasy/rpg/D&D area, an entire world based on Blade Runner in there, etc. How in the hell was all this licensed? Did all corporate IP just collapse into one big pile?
My imagining would be that in lieu of anything like UBI, parents are given options on which brand they'll rent out their children's imagination to at birth. So kids growing up in such an environment would only be licensed to play with brand specific items or creatures. The parents get an initial payment for each child to be sponsored by that brand, with the understanding that all items purchased by or for the child will be part of that corporate product line.
posted by gusottertrout at 7:26 AM on August 9, 2017 [5 favorites]
My imagining would be that in lieu of anything like UBI, parents are given options on which brand they'll rent out their children's imagination to at birth. So kids growing up in such an environment would only be licensed to play with brand specific items or creatures. The parents get an initial payment for each child to be sponsored by that brand, with the understanding that all items purchased by or for the child will be part of that corporate product line.
posted by gusottertrout at 7:26 AM on August 9, 2017 [5 favorites]
Can this really be worse than The Martian?
Wait.. I didn't get the memo... Is The Martian considered bad ?
posted by Pendragon at 7:29 AM on August 9, 2017 [9 favorites]
Wait.. I didn't get the memo... Is The Martian considered bad ?
posted by Pendragon at 7:29 AM on August 9, 2017 [9 favorites]
I enjoyed the book, I feel like it could make for an entertaining watch. It is by no means The Next Great American Novel, our generation's To Kill a Mockingbird, but I don't think it tried to be.
In reading through these comments, I think while the 80s nostalgia seems to be targeted directly at Gen X, and misses for some of them, the real target is former Gen Y-ers like me. Born to late for Gen X, too early for Millennial, I didn't come of age in the 80s. Instead I was young in the 80s, and most of the things that get nostalgically remembered about the 80s were for the big kids, the teenagers, the next older level of cool kids the whole time I was growing up. So delving into the sweet retro callouts of the RP1 world just lets me feel like I was actually old enough, cool enough to be a part of it.
posted by HycoSpeed at 7:29 AM on August 9, 2017 [1 favorite]
In reading through these comments, I think while the 80s nostalgia seems to be targeted directly at Gen X, and misses for some of them, the real target is former Gen Y-ers like me. Born to late for Gen X, too early for Millennial, I didn't come of age in the 80s. Instead I was young in the 80s, and most of the things that get nostalgically remembered about the 80s were for the big kids, the teenagers, the next older level of cool kids the whole time I was growing up. So delving into the sweet retro callouts of the RP1 world just lets me feel like I was actually old enough, cool enough to be a part of it.
posted by HycoSpeed at 7:29 AM on August 9, 2017 [1 favorite]
My imagining would be that in lieu of anything like UBI, parents are given options on which brand they'll rent out their children's imagination to at birth. So kids growing up in such an environment would only be licensed to play with brand specific items or creatures. The parents get an initial payment for each child to be sponsored by that brand, with the understanding that all items purchased by or for the child will be part of that corporate product line.
Eventually, this will include naming rights to the child (i.e., Frito). Hence, Idiocracy is set in the same timeline, only a bit later.
posted by acb at 7:30 AM on August 9, 2017 [1 favorite]
Eventually, this will include naming rights to the child (i.e., Frito). Hence, Idiocracy is set in the same timeline, only a bit later.
posted by acb at 7:30 AM on August 9, 2017 [1 favorite]
How in the hell was all this licensed? Did all corporate IP just collapse into one big pile?
It's a dumb book, don't go in expecting a rigorous exploration of anything. I mean, this is a world where there is apparently one single software/game company that makes a game that literally everyone in the world plays and one single ISP that controls almost everything in the world.
posted by Sangermaine at 7:30 AM on August 9, 2017 [2 favorites]
It's a dumb book, don't go in expecting a rigorous exploration of anything. I mean, this is a world where there is apparently one single software/game company that makes a game that literally everyone in the world plays and one single ISP that controls almost everything in the world.
posted by Sangermaine at 7:30 AM on August 9, 2017 [2 favorites]
Gonna call "vitriolic rage at people not loving Ready Player One" as equally weird as vitriolic rage at Ready Player One, tbh.
posted by ominous_paws at 7:34 AM on August 9, 2017 [2 favorites]
posted by ominous_paws at 7:34 AM on August 9, 2017 [2 favorites]
The Da Vinci Code movie and its sequels and wannabes (National Treasure, most particularly) certainly did the same for some time.
Look, the Da Vinci Code was dull and stupid, but National Treasure was gloriously stupid, in a way only Nick Cage movies can (sometimes) manage, and so I think it fills a valuable slot there.
posted by emjaybee at 7:40 AM on August 9, 2017 [17 favorites]
Look, the Da Vinci Code was dull and stupid, but National Treasure was gloriously stupid, in a way only Nick Cage movies can (sometimes) manage, and so I think it fills a valuable slot there.
posted by emjaybee at 7:40 AM on August 9, 2017 [17 favorites]
Nic Cage is a national treasure.
posted by uncleozzy at 7:41 AM on August 9, 2017 [6 favorites]
posted by uncleozzy at 7:41 AM on August 9, 2017 [6 favorites]
The way some people talk about it you'd think Cline had written Mein Kampf II.
Well, it's definitely not Mein Kampf II: Electric Boogaloo. It's not nearly that ambitious. It is mildly interesting as a phenomena: a book written and targeted at not just a demographic, but at a demographic within a demographic. I mean my little heart goes pop pop pop-up video at the '80s, but Ready Player One seems to presuppose that its readers not only like the '80s, but really like particular items from the '80s and like them in a particular way. I don't, but it's all harmless, and I even have a little admiration for his bills-paying skillage.
posted by octobersurprise at 7:43 AM on August 9, 2017
Well, it's definitely not Mein Kampf II: Electric Boogaloo. It's not nearly that ambitious. It is mildly interesting as a phenomena: a book written and targeted at not just a demographic, but at a demographic within a demographic. I mean my little heart goes pop pop pop-up video at the '80s, but Ready Player One seems to presuppose that its readers not only like the '80s, but really like particular items from the '80s and like them in a particular way. I don't, but it's all harmless, and I even have a little admiration for his bills-paying skillage.
posted by octobersurprise at 7:43 AM on August 9, 2017
Look, the Da Vinci Code was dull and stupid, but National Treasure was gloriously stupid, in a way only Nick Cage movies can (sometimes) manage
This is so true. Which means that Ready Player One must have Nicholas Cage in it. Throw in Christopher Walken, too, and I might even shell out for a ticket at the theater.
posted by octobersurprise at 7:48 AM on August 9, 2017
This is so true. Which means that Ready Player One must have Nicholas Cage in it. Throw in Christopher Walken, too, and I might even shell out for a ticket at the theater.
posted by octobersurprise at 7:48 AM on August 9, 2017
it's all harmless, and I even have a little admiration for his bills-paying skillage
See also: Steven Spielberg
posted by acb at 7:48 AM on August 9, 2017
See also: Steven Spielberg
posted by acb at 7:48 AM on August 9, 2017
Raise your hand if at least 50% of your vitriol is because this book sounds like a conversation you've had with an OK Cupid date about pop culture that they think you should know.
posted by tofu_crouton at 7:48 AM on August 9, 2017 [17 favorites]
posted by tofu_crouton at 7:48 AM on August 9, 2017 [17 favorites]
two hours of a miserable teen sitting in the corner of a room with VR paraphernalia on making little noises and talking to himself and running around, with a little episode late in the plot where he does a bunch of aerobic exercise in place.
Like a gamer version of My Dinner With Andre.
posted by octobersurprise at 7:51 AM on August 9, 2017 [3 favorites]
Like a gamer version of My Dinner With Andre.
posted by octobersurprise at 7:51 AM on August 9, 2017 [3 favorites]
Bleh. I read this. I think I am the target audience for this book . . . 45, white male, knew all the pop references. It is an awful book. Teen-fiction level of writing and plotting with so much suffocating nostalgia and references larded on top. I found the dystopia, plot, and characters really annoying and unbelievable. It was impossible for me to root for the protagonist because he was unlikable. I had borrowed both this book and Armada from the library at the same time, but after reading RP1 I couldn't even bring myself to crack Armada.
posted by fimbulvetr at 7:53 AM on August 9, 2017 [2 favorites]
posted by fimbulvetr at 7:53 AM on August 9, 2017 [2 favorites]
I don't know anything about the book (and mostly hated the '80s anyway) but the trailer looks terrible. It looks like Spielberg trying to be Zak Snyder.
posted by octothorpe at 7:55 AM on August 9, 2017
posted by octothorpe at 7:55 AM on August 9, 2017
Someone recommended this book to me because "this is a book for everyone that was a nerd in the 80s" and I read it over an interminable layover at O'Hare a few years back. I hated it. I'm pretty sure I left it in the seat back on the airplane and spent some time wondering why anyone thought I might like it. I mean, I kind of hated the 80s the first time around. And though I was a nerd, I was most definitely the wrong kind* of nerd. My biggest takeway from the big was that every single character would have been happier if they'd just gotten off the internet, gone outside and talked to an actual flesh and blood human being for a minute. And that seemed so obvious to me that I kept waiting for it conclude with a "they destroy the network and turn their attention to rebuilding in the world." But they didn't and I found it one of the most profoundly (unintentionally) sad books I've ever read.
*female, insufferable theatre kid, into Shakespeare, New Yorker cartoons, punk rockers, The Smiths and any literally excuse to wear a crinoline as outerwear.
posted by thivaia at 7:55 AM on August 9, 2017 [11 favorites]
*female, insufferable theatre kid, into Shakespeare, New Yorker cartoons, punk rockers, The Smiths and any literally excuse to wear a crinoline as outerwear.
posted by thivaia at 7:55 AM on August 9, 2017 [11 favorites]
I'm sure I'll be enjoying Ready Player One as much as I enjoy all of my favourite 1980s science fiction films, such as
1990: The Bronx Warriors
2010 (film)
2019, After the Fall of New York
2020 Texas Gladiators
20,000 Leagues Under the Sea (1985 film)
Absurd (film)
The Abyss
The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension
The Adventures of the Elektronic
The Aftermath (1982 film)
The Agency (film)
Airplane II: The Sequel
Akira (1988 film)
Alien 2: On Earth
Alien Dead
Alien from L.A.
Alien Nation (film)
Alien Seed
Alien Terminator
Alienator
Altered States
Amazon Women on the Moon
America 3000
The American Way (film)
Android (film)
Andy Colby's Incredible Adventure
Anna to the Infinite Power
The Apple (1980 film)
Arcadia of My Youth
Arena (1989 film)
The Atlantis Interceptors
The Aurora Encounter
...
posted by tobascodagama at 7:55 AM on August 9, 2017 [10 favorites]
1990: The Bronx Warriors
2010 (film)
2019, After the Fall of New York
2020 Texas Gladiators
20,000 Leagues Under the Sea (1985 film)
Absurd (film)
The Abyss
The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension
The Adventures of the Elektronic
The Aftermath (1982 film)
The Agency (film)
Airplane II: The Sequel
Akira (1988 film)
Alien 2: On Earth
Alien Dead
Alien from L.A.
Alien Nation (film)
Alien Seed
Alien Terminator
Alienator
Altered States
Amazon Women on the Moon
America 3000
The American Way (film)
Android (film)
Andy Colby's Incredible Adventure
Anna to the Infinite Power
The Apple (1980 film)
Arcadia of My Youth
Arena (1989 film)
The Atlantis Interceptors
The Aurora Encounter
...
posted by tobascodagama at 7:55 AM on August 9, 2017 [10 favorites]
Finally worked out what the furious pop-culture referencing here was making me think of - the luxury brand referencing in 50 Shades of Grey. Now, if we could only splice these two masterworks together...
posted by ominous_paws at 7:55 AM on August 9, 2017 [4 favorites]
posted by ominous_paws at 7:55 AM on August 9, 2017 [4 favorites]
Or the luxury-brand referencing in American Psycho...
oh no we're making pop culture references about pop culture references
we have to go deeper
posted by Halloween Jack at 7:58 AM on August 9, 2017 [10 favorites]
oh no we're making pop culture references about pop culture references
we have to go deeper
posted by Halloween Jack at 7:58 AM on August 9, 2017 [10 favorites]
RPO is a dumb but sort-of-fun book if you're in the exact target market, which I am.
Armada, was there really any need for Armada? I think not.
posted by signal at 7:59 AM on August 9, 2017 [2 favorites]
Armada, was there really any need for Armada? I think not.
posted by signal at 7:59 AM on August 9, 2017 [2 favorites]
Raise your hand if at least 50% of your vitriol is because this book sounds like a conversation you've had with an OK Cupid date about pop culture that they think you should know.
worst is when you do know, and in much more detail than they do, but have to pretend not to know because they cannot comprehend knowing but not caring because you also know OTHER, BETTER THINGS
signed, what's a harry potter
posted by queenofbithynia at 8:07 AM on August 9, 2017 [17 favorites]
worst is when you do know, and in much more detail than they do, but have to pretend not to know because they cannot comprehend knowing but not caring because you also know OTHER, BETTER THINGS
signed, what's a harry potter
posted by queenofbithynia at 8:07 AM on August 9, 2017 [17 favorites]
So, it's like American Psycho only for (one branch of) cultural capital instead of economic capital?
posted by acb at 8:08 AM on August 9, 2017 [1 favorite]
posted by acb at 8:08 AM on August 9, 2017 [1 favorite]
My feeling reading the book was the same you get when you're in a supermarket or restaurant or mall or elevator and they start playing bad '80s music (i.e.: most of it), a feeling that someone, somewhere, is desperately trying to sell something to my very specific demographic.
posted by signal at 8:15 AM on August 9, 2017 [3 favorites]
posted by signal at 8:15 AM on August 9, 2017 [3 favorites]
borrowed both this book and Armada from the library at the same time, but after reading RP1 I couldn't even bring myself to crack Armada
I think you did yourself a favour - while I enjoyed RP1 for a quick fun read (target market - even though I didn't actually play many video games in the 80's), Armada was far worse - frankly, I felt it was like something he had written prior to RP1 which had been rejected, but now that he had a hit, publishers would bite. (or be forced)
And yes - in both, the writing style is very "YA" - but seems even worse with Armada.
posted by jkaczor at 8:18 AM on August 9, 2017 [1 favorite]
I think you did yourself a favour - while I enjoyed RP1 for a quick fun read (target market - even though I didn't actually play many video games in the 80's), Armada was far worse - frankly, I felt it was like something he had written prior to RP1 which had been rejected, but now that he had a hit, publishers would bite. (or be forced)
And yes - in both, the writing style is very "YA" - but seems even worse with Armada.
posted by jkaczor at 8:18 AM on August 9, 2017 [1 favorite]
all of my favourite 1980s science fiction films
• Metalstorm: The Destruction of Jared-Syn
• Voyage of the Rock Aliens (Pia Zadora!)
• Yor, the Hunter from the Future
("Yoooorrr?" "Rooooy." "Yoooorrr?" "Rooooy.")
posted by octobersurprise at 8:21 AM on August 9, 2017
• Metalstorm: The Destruction of Jared-Syn
• Voyage of the Rock Aliens (Pia Zadora!)
• Yor, the Hunter from the Future
("Yoooorrr?" "Rooooy." "Yoooorrr?" "Rooooy.")
posted by octobersurprise at 8:21 AM on August 9, 2017
*female, insufferable theatre kid, into Shakespeare, New Yorker cartoons, punk rockers, The Smiths and any literally excuse to wear a crinoline as outerwear.
Sigh? Nerd? In the 80's... from the sounds of that, you were one of the cool kids ;-)
(Ah yes, the 80's "your group is not my group" trap that I have to keep reminding myself doesn't really apply outside of pop culture...)
posted by jkaczor at 8:22 AM on August 9, 2017
Sigh? Nerd? In the 80's... from the sounds of that, you were one of the cool kids ;-)
(Ah yes, the 80's "your group is not my group" trap that I have to keep reminding myself doesn't really apply outside of pop culture...)
posted by jkaczor at 8:22 AM on August 9, 2017
The backlash stems from people in this thread--including me--having had acquaintances recommend the book, and the subsequent realization that everything is horrible.
It's similar to the angry sorrow that rises when you remember that Big Bang Theory is beloved of many others of your species. If it was just a shitty show, or a shitty book, no harm, no foul--but the fact that these have passed referenda on What Is Worthwhile is what's queasy-making.
posted by sandettie light vessel automatic at 8:30 AM on August 9, 2017 [10 favorites]
It's similar to the angry sorrow that rises when you remember that Big Bang Theory is beloved of many others of your species. If it was just a shitty show, or a shitty book, no harm, no foul--but the fact that these have passed referenda on What Is Worthwhile is what's queasy-making.
posted by sandettie light vessel automatic at 8:30 AM on August 9, 2017 [10 favorites]
My imagining would be that in lieu of anything like UBI, parents are given options on which brand they'll rent out their children's imagination to at birth.
(Go play Tacoma, it's out now on Steam and GOG.)
posted by tobascodagama at 8:35 AM on August 9, 2017 [2 favorites]
(Go play Tacoma, it's out now on Steam and GOG.)
posted by tobascodagama at 8:35 AM on August 9, 2017 [2 favorites]
The comparison to (or hopefully contrast from) The Martian is an interesting one. Because these two book really crystallize the two sides of the geek coin. You've got The Martian which is the ultimate "a nerd with a screwdriver, some time, and some drive can do anything. Especially if everyone else would leave me alone" book. RP1 represents the "I love genre stuff, especially from my childhood, unabashedly, and use references to that loved media as a way to interact with others" wing of the nerd party. It's Big Bang Theory to The Martian's Mythbusters.
posted by thecjm at 8:39 AM on August 9, 2017 [9 favorites]
posted by thecjm at 8:39 AM on August 9, 2017 [9 favorites]
Sigh? Nerd? In the 80's... from the sounds of that, you were one of the cool kids ;-)
I did get kicked out of the one and only game of Dungeons and Dragons I ever tried to play (by a boy I had a pretty major crush on) because I wouldn't stop complaining about the feudal system and trying to get them to reconfigure the game so we could roll for more equitable economic policy and voting rights. I don't know if that made me cool or not, but it effectively took the number of people I could sit with at lunch from 4 or 5 down to about zero for much of 1988.
posted by thivaia at 8:45 AM on August 9, 2017 [22 favorites]
I did get kicked out of the one and only game of Dungeons and Dragons I ever tried to play (by a boy I had a pretty major crush on) because I wouldn't stop complaining about the feudal system and trying to get them to reconfigure the game so we could roll for more equitable economic policy and voting rights. I don't know if that made me cool or not, but it effectively took the number of people I could sit with at lunch from 4 or 5 down to about zero for much of 1988.
posted by thivaia at 8:45 AM on August 9, 2017 [22 favorites]
I loved The Martian, but I'm personally much more in the second camp I described. I'm not an engineer and very much a xennial who is RP1's target demo. A big part of the frustration with RP1 is that it is both bad and popular . I don't think it's as bad as Big Bang Theory because Cline is clearly a nerd, and I genuinely believe the people who write BBT actually and actively hate nerds. I'd love it if RP1 was "my" The Martian but it's Just. So. Bad.
posted by thecjm at 8:45 AM on August 9, 2017 [1 favorite]
posted by thecjm at 8:45 AM on August 9, 2017 [1 favorite]
Had a total opportunity to go truly 80's meta but Danny Elfman is not doing the score, fail.
posted by sammyo at 8:45 AM on August 9, 2017 [1 favorite]
posted by sammyo at 8:45 AM on August 9, 2017 [1 favorite]
So: nerd-as-tendency vs. nerd-as-subculture?
posted by acb at 8:46 AM on August 9, 2017 [3 favorites]
posted by acb at 8:46 AM on August 9, 2017 [3 favorites]
My favorite take down of RP1 so far is from the I Don't Even Own a Television podcast, complete with sarcastic reading from the book.
posted by signal at 8:54 AM on August 9, 2017 [7 favorites]
posted by signal at 8:54 AM on August 9, 2017 [7 favorites]
A big part of the frustration with RP1 is that it is both bad and popular . I don't think it's as bad as Big Bang Theory because Cline is clearly a nerd, and I genuinely believe the people who write BBT actually and actively hate nerds
How big is the fandom of RP1 anyways? I admit, I read the book around maybe a year after it came out (2012), liked it, talked about it at a book club and then never picked it up ever again. I wouldn't really consider myself a fan, since I literally haven't thought about it for years since. Is RP1 even that popular? Or is popularity defined more as public awareness that this a book that exists rather than some sort of deep fandom that something like Batman or Star Wars has?
posted by FJT at 9:01 AM on August 9, 2017
How big is the fandom of RP1 anyways? I admit, I read the book around maybe a year after it came out (2012), liked it, talked about it at a book club and then never picked it up ever again. I wouldn't really consider myself a fan, since I literally haven't thought about it for years since. Is RP1 even that popular? Or is popularity defined more as public awareness that this a book that exists rather than some sort of deep fandom that something like Batman or Star Wars has?
posted by FJT at 9:01 AM on August 9, 2017
I mean, I kind of hated the 80s the first time around.
And you were right to do so.
posted by Atom Eyes at 9:04 AM on August 9, 2017 [5 favorites]
And you were right to do so.
posted by Atom Eyes at 9:04 AM on August 9, 2017 [5 favorites]
I for one think narrative arts are prime for a massive and bloody anti-campbellian purge. All the formulaic authors and script writers against the wall, an uprising of absurdity, digression, surprise, and gratuitous beauty that doesn't move the plot forward.
Figure me, I saw Endless Poetry last night and am clearly still under the influence.
posted by idiopath at 9:09 AM on August 9, 2017 [7 favorites]
Figure me, I saw Endless Poetry last night and am clearly still under the influence.
posted by idiopath at 9:09 AM on August 9, 2017 [7 favorites]
I liked it fine and won't ever reread it, which is my ultimate test for disposable books since I am a Re-reader. It wasn't well written but I wasn't so bad that I had to put it down. But although I am kinda in the target demo (born in 75) I spent most of the 1980s as a book reading nerd, not a gamer or movie nerd, so a lot of the references were new to me and I wasn't tired of them already. I will probably see the movie on an airplane or something, and won't defend the book as anything but about an hour's worth of entertainment, but I'm not mad at it.
Fwiw, I read the Martian after enjoying the movie and that was also fun-ish but even less well written.
posted by PussKillian at 9:12 AM on August 9, 2017 [1 favorite]
Fwiw, I read the Martian after enjoying the movie and that was also fun-ish but even less well written.
posted by PussKillian at 9:12 AM on August 9, 2017 [1 favorite]
I think thecjm above has it spot on (each time).
As a white Gen-Xer (god help me) nerd, the book was too white for me. Even I had exposure to hip hop & African American culture in my largely white remote community growing up and its absence in the book seems bordering on offensive. While I managed to finish the book I did have two moments where I nearly gave up on it - when Rush's 2112 figured prominently and the "twist" reveal of Aech's identity.
I don't particularly feel it is crapping on my youth so much as idolizing a small, dysfunctional part of a whole era without any nuance. Yes, yes it is fluff - it is entirely eating from the snack food aisle. But I think to me it reads entirely like a dystopia which I don't think is what the author entirely intends. The characters find salvation and joy in the dystopia of the Oasis and are not particularly interested in doing anything about their Real Life Problems.
How in the hell was all this licensed? Did all corporate IP just collapse into one big pile?
Cline is not particularly interested in World Building so... stuff happens?
As for the movie... As I read the book I kind of imagined the Oasis to look like Second Life. But crappier. I'd prefer the movie to look like that. Imagine a long shot of a Second Life character playing an arcade cabinet alternating with shots IRL of a chubby white kid twitching & muttering to himself - that'd be my movie. Spielberg, though talented, is not the most subtle of directors. I can't see him choosing to present the Oasis as anything other then an "awesome" action film with balls-to-the-wall set pieces linked together with some extraneous dialogue.
posted by Ashwagandha at 9:13 AM on August 9, 2017 [6 favorites]
As a white Gen-Xer (god help me) nerd, the book was too white for me. Even I had exposure to hip hop & African American culture in my largely white remote community growing up and its absence in the book seems bordering on offensive. While I managed to finish the book I did have two moments where I nearly gave up on it - when Rush's 2112 figured prominently and the "twist" reveal of Aech's identity.
I don't particularly feel it is crapping on my youth so much as idolizing a small, dysfunctional part of a whole era without any nuance. Yes, yes it is fluff - it is entirely eating from the snack food aisle. But I think to me it reads entirely like a dystopia which I don't think is what the author entirely intends. The characters find salvation and joy in the dystopia of the Oasis and are not particularly interested in doing anything about their Real Life Problems.
How in the hell was all this licensed? Did all corporate IP just collapse into one big pile?
Cline is not particularly interested in World Building so... stuff happens?
As for the movie... As I read the book I kind of imagined the Oasis to look like Second Life. But crappier. I'd prefer the movie to look like that. Imagine a long shot of a Second Life character playing an arcade cabinet alternating with shots IRL of a chubby white kid twitching & muttering to himself - that'd be my movie. Spielberg, though talented, is not the most subtle of directors. I can't see him choosing to present the Oasis as anything other then an "awesome" action film with balls-to-the-wall set pieces linked together with some extraneous dialogue.
posted by Ashwagandha at 9:13 AM on August 9, 2017 [6 favorites]
Is The Martian considered bad ?
Personally, I loved the movie--though I would have liked to see anyone but Matt Damon in the title role. Tilda Swinton! Idris Elba! Literally anyone else! Because I loved the movie, I read the book. This turned out to be entirely unnecessary, because everything in the book is also in the movie, because it was transparently designed to be turned into a movie. Lo and behold, Mark Watney is also the most irritating part of the experience in the book.
posted by zeusianfog at 9:15 AM on August 9, 2017 [1 favorite]
Personally, I loved the movie--though I would have liked to see anyone but Matt Damon in the title role. Tilda Swinton! Idris Elba! Literally anyone else! Because I loved the movie, I read the book. This turned out to be entirely unnecessary, because everything in the book is also in the movie, because it was transparently designed to be turned into a movie. Lo and behold, Mark Watney is also the most irritating part of the experience in the book.
posted by zeusianfog at 9:15 AM on August 9, 2017 [1 favorite]
The Martian doesn't relate to this at all. The Martian is competence porn. The heroes succeed in a real world and succeed because of their knowledge and experience with a real world (and creativity with same), not their mastery of tropes, quotes, and pop culture references.
For the latter, look no further than Galaxy Quest, where everything revolves around knowledge of and actualization of popular culture, from the Thermidores, to Cap'n Tim to Ima Mack with his GQ Tech Manuals. But GQ takes place in a universe where that works.
posted by Herodios at 9:15 AM on August 9, 2017 [14 favorites]
For the latter, look no further than Galaxy Quest, where everything revolves around knowledge of and actualization of popular culture, from the Thermidores, to Cap'n Tim to Ima Mack with his GQ Tech Manuals. But GQ takes place in a universe where that works.
posted by Herodios at 9:15 AM on August 9, 2017 [14 favorites]
...the truth is that 99 times out of 100, I'm with Hitchcock on this one. Draw up one of those faintly ludicrous but fascinating lists of the 20 greatest novels, and then do the same for movies: do they match up, at all? Of course not. Joyce's Ulysses might well be on the first list, but Joseph Strick's Ulysses (1967) certainly won't be on the second. Pride and Prejudice could possibly be on the first, but neither Robert Z Leonard's nor Joe Wright's adaptations will make the second. And none of these examples is a travesty, exactly, although we could all name some of those if we wanted to: film history – especially recent film history – is littered with examples where a good novel has been transformed, not into an average movie, but an outright disaster: Captain Corelli's Mandolin and The Bonfire of the Vanities spring immediately to mind.
Looking a little more closely at what Hitchcock said gives us a clear explanation of why this is so often the case. The question Truffaut specifically put to him was whether he would ever consider making a screen adaptation of a great novel such as Crime and Punishment. To which the director answered: "Well, I shall never do that, precisely because Crime and Punishment is somebody else's achievement. And even if I did, it probably wouldn't be any good." "Why not?" Truffaut asked. "Well, in Dostoevsky's novel there are many, many words and all of them have a function." "You mean that theoretically," Truffaut prompted, "a masterpiece is something that has already found its perfection of form, its definitive form." "Exactly," Hitchcock answered, "and to really convey that in cinematic terms, substituting the language of the camera for the written word, one would have to make a six to ten-hour film. Otherwise, it won't be any good."
Ready Player One was a well-edited page turner—an aggressively mediocre book. I think Spielberg will probably make a really good movie out of it.
posted by vibrotronica at 9:40 AM on August 9, 2017 [1 favorite]
Looking a little more closely at what Hitchcock said gives us a clear explanation of why this is so often the case. The question Truffaut specifically put to him was whether he would ever consider making a screen adaptation of a great novel such as Crime and Punishment. To which the director answered: "Well, I shall never do that, precisely because Crime and Punishment is somebody else's achievement. And even if I did, it probably wouldn't be any good." "Why not?" Truffaut asked. "Well, in Dostoevsky's novel there are many, many words and all of them have a function." "You mean that theoretically," Truffaut prompted, "a masterpiece is something that has already found its perfection of form, its definitive form." "Exactly," Hitchcock answered, "and to really convey that in cinematic terms, substituting the language of the camera for the written word, one would have to make a six to ten-hour film. Otherwise, it won't be any good."
Ready Player One was a well-edited page turner—an aggressively mediocre book. I think Spielberg will probably make a really good movie out of it.
posted by vibrotronica at 9:40 AM on August 9, 2017 [1 favorite]
mastery of tropes, quotes, and pop culture references.
is a form of competency, in a way, in a... oh I can not even... never mi..
posted by sammyo at 9:46 AM on August 9, 2017
is a form of competency, in a way, in a... oh I can not even... never mi..
posted by sammyo at 9:46 AM on August 9, 2017
Speaking of fantasy wish fulfillment, the 1980s, and Steven Spielberg, I recall seeing an episode of a teevy show called Steve Spielberg (himself!) presents Amazing Stories, entitled "Gather Ye Acorns".
Synopsis: "A tree troll encourages an 18-year-old to follow his dreams."
Yeah, the kid (played by Mark Hamill™) -- his dreams consist in buying all kinds of genre related gimcracks™, gewgaws™, tchotchkes™, and other junk and hording them.
"Don't get an education and take action in the world, follow your dream of retreat into living vicariously through the vending of many many pieces of corporate trademarked fantasy swag."
Naturally, his collection of action figures™ and lunchboxes™ turns out to be "worth more" (in dollars) than he could ever have made as a mere doctor, lawyer, engineer, scientist, teacher, etc.
Steven Spielberg presents Apologia Story.
posted by Herodios at 9:49 AM on August 9, 2017 [6 favorites]
Synopsis: "A tree troll encourages an 18-year-old to follow his dreams."
Yeah, the kid (played by Mark Hamill™) -- his dreams consist in buying all kinds of genre related gimcracks™, gewgaws™, tchotchkes™, and other junk and hording them.
"Don't get an education and take action in the world, follow your dream of retreat into living vicariously through the vending of many many pieces of corporate trademarked fantasy swag."
Naturally, his collection of action figures™ and lunchboxes™ turns out to be "worth more" (in dollars) than he could ever have made as a mere doctor, lawyer, engineer, scientist, teacher, etc.
Steven Spielberg presents Apologia Story.
posted by Herodios at 9:49 AM on August 9, 2017 [6 favorites]
I did get kicked out of the one and only game of Dungeons and Dragons I ever tried to play (by a boy I had a pretty major crush on) because I wouldn't stop complaining about the feudal system and trying to get them to reconfigure the game so we could roll for more equitable economic policy and voting rights. I don't know if that made me cool or not, but it effectively took the number of people I could sit with at lunch from 4 or 5 down to about zero for much of 1988.
Welcome home, thivaia.
posted by leotrotsky at 9:50 AM on August 9, 2017 [7 favorites]
Welcome home, thivaia.
posted by leotrotsky at 9:50 AM on August 9, 2017 [7 favorites]
an uprising of absurdity, digression, surprise, and gratuitous beauty that doesn't move the plot forward.
Oh you read Too Like the Lightning too
posted by PMdixon at 9:52 AM on August 9, 2017 [6 favorites]
Oh you read Too Like the Lightning too
posted by PMdixon at 9:52 AM on August 9, 2017 [6 favorites]
What I don't get it the sheer level of vitriolic rage the book seems to engender in some people, in this very thread and elsewhere. The way some people talk about it you'd think Cline had written Mein Kampf II.
I think we loathe it so much because it forces us to look at something we disavow in ourselves. Like, I read it, and figured out every stupid reference and puzzle at least ten pages before the protagonist, and felt a little slimy and pathetic about it -- like I was just being pandered to too much.
posted by vogon_poet at 9:58 AM on August 9, 2017 [5 favorites]
I think we loathe it so much because it forces us to look at something we disavow in ourselves. Like, I read it, and figured out every stupid reference and puzzle at least ten pages before the protagonist, and felt a little slimy and pathetic about it -- like I was just being pandered to too much.
posted by vogon_poet at 9:58 AM on August 9, 2017 [5 favorites]
From the previous Hitchcock link
"Exactly," Hitchcock answered, "and to really convey that in cinematic terms, substituting the language of the camera for the written word, one would have to make a six to ten-hour film. Otherwise, it won't be any good."
I'm poorer at examples than D&D or triva but there are certainly some films that take some essence of a great novel and also some long description can be distilled to a flash cut of a grimace or romantic smile. But that hypothetical great pairing probably is the exception that proves the rule.
Hugest future video game ever is the big geek theme like alien visitors that plinks key spilebergian talents.
posted by sammyo at 9:58 AM on August 9, 2017
"Exactly," Hitchcock answered, "and to really convey that in cinematic terms, substituting the language of the camera for the written word, one would have to make a six to ten-hour film. Otherwise, it won't be any good."
I'm poorer at examples than D&D or triva but there are certainly some films that take some essence of a great novel and also some long description can be distilled to a flash cut of a grimace or romantic smile. But that hypothetical great pairing probably is the exception that proves the rule.
Hugest future video game ever is the big geek theme like alien visitors that plinks key spilebergian talents.
posted by sammyo at 9:58 AM on August 9, 2017
look no further than Galaxy Quest, where everything revolves around knowledge of and actualization of popular culture, from the Thermidores, to Cap'n Tim to Ima Mack with his GQ Tech Manuals. But GQ takes place in a universe where that works.
And, just as importantly, the people who have to demonstrate mastery of GQ esoterica fucking hate the show; it ate their careers with typecasting, and they have to put on the stupid latex appliances and push-up bras and pretend like they still give a shit and mouth the catchphrases at the cons. And they don't like each other much, and hate the show's ex-star who acts like an ass when he even bothers to show up. And that doesn't even change (at least immediately) when doing so will literally save the day. They practically have to be dragged kicking and screaming into doing so.
posted by Halloween Jack at 10:32 AM on August 9, 2017 [8 favorites]
And, just as importantly, the people who have to demonstrate mastery of GQ esoterica fucking hate the show; it ate their careers with typecasting, and they have to put on the stupid latex appliances and push-up bras and pretend like they still give a shit and mouth the catchphrases at the cons. And they don't like each other much, and hate the show's ex-star who acts like an ass when he even bothers to show up. And that doesn't even change (at least immediately) when doing so will literally save the day. They practically have to be dragged kicking and screaming into doing so.
posted by Halloween Jack at 10:32 AM on August 9, 2017 [8 favorites]
Fry: "Now say 'nuclear wessels'!"
Walter Koenig: "No!"
posted by explosion at 10:36 AM on August 9, 2017 [6 favorites]
Walter Koenig: "No!"
posted by explosion at 10:36 AM on August 9, 2017 [6 favorites]
I found Ready Player One to be solid, dumb fun for people who are into certain things, similar to how I feel about Gail Carriger's Parasol Protectorate books, which are solid, dumb fun for people who are into certain other things. Not everything needs to be Robbe-Grillet, and I don't go to every book looking for the same experience. Robertson Davies (who was obsessed with the cheapest, trashiest Victorian melodrama while simultaneously being a kind of cantankerous avatar for Great Western Literature) used to say that to read only good books was intellectually unhealthy, that one would eventually become bloated and sick in a way that was analogous to what would happen if one ate only the richest foods. He advised that every reader should have some trash in their diet, and I tend to agree with him. Ready Player One was a bit of trash when I needed a bit of trash, and I don't begrudge it, or Cline, the success it found from being that.
Armada, on the other hand, is *at best* thinly-veiled Last Starfighter fanfic, and should clearly have remained a trunk novel.
posted by Fish Sauce at 10:39 AM on August 9, 2017 [4 favorites]
Armada, on the other hand, is *at best* thinly-veiled Last Starfighter fanfic, and should clearly have remained a trunk novel.
posted by Fish Sauce at 10:39 AM on August 9, 2017 [4 favorites]
I found Ready Player One to be solid, dumb fun for people who are into certain things
I like things. I like a lot of the same things Cline appears to. What I don't like is the feeling that the author is sitting next to me saying "Eh? Get it? EHHHH?" and jabbing me with his elbow on every fucking page.
posted by Etrigan at 10:42 AM on August 9, 2017 [14 favorites]
I like things. I like a lot of the same things Cline appears to. What I don't like is the feeling that the author is sitting next to me saying "Eh? Get it? EHHHH?" and jabbing me with his elbow on every fucking page.
posted by Etrigan at 10:42 AM on August 9, 2017 [14 favorites]
(Although I just checked and this passage is on page 3,
I guess I didn't get that far
posted by philip-random at 10:47 AM on August 9, 2017 [1 favorite]
I guess I didn't get that far
posted by philip-random at 10:47 AM on August 9, 2017 [1 favorite]
Robertson Davies (who was obsessed with the cheapest, trashiest Victorian melodrama while simultaneously being a kind of cantankerous avatar for Great Western Literature) used to say that to read only good books was intellectually unhealthy, that one would eventually become bloated and sick in a way that was analogous to what would happen if one ate only the richest foods.
Robertson Davies was all right and I am friendlier to the likes of him than to the likes of Ernest Cline, but his disposition and literary judgment would have been much improved by the occasional kick in the shins by the likes of me. too bad for him he never got one.
I like a plenty of garbage books but not ones that make me feel like garbage after. if I want to be sickened by my own sins I actually do want high-quality literature to do the job.
posted by queenofbithynia at 10:56 AM on August 9, 2017 [6 favorites]
Robertson Davies was all right and I am friendlier to the likes of him than to the likes of Ernest Cline, but his disposition and literary judgment would have been much improved by the occasional kick in the shins by the likes of me. too bad for him he never got one.
I like a plenty of garbage books but not ones that make me feel like garbage after. if I want to be sickened by my own sins I actually do want high-quality literature to do the job.
posted by queenofbithynia at 10:56 AM on August 9, 2017 [6 favorites]
Every single person I know who has read RP1 has hated it, so despite being bang-on for it's demographic I've avoided it... but I guess I'm going to have to at least give it go to see what all the fuss is about before the film comes along. I see how long I last (Back in the day I tried The Da Vinci Code for similar reasons and could not get past page one)
posted by fearfulsymmetry at 11:01 AM on August 9, 2017
posted by fearfulsymmetry at 11:01 AM on August 9, 2017
Oh and that pr0n poem is god awful... was bored waiting for something earlier and googled around to not only find a horrific live reading, but apparently there's a whole album of his Spoken Word stuff.
posted by fearfulsymmetry at 11:03 AM on August 9, 2017
posted by fearfulsymmetry at 11:03 AM on August 9, 2017
Video of 2011 live reading of said poem by the author at something called Wootstock 3.0.
posted by Atom Eyes at 11:16 AM on August 9, 2017
posted by Atom Eyes at 11:16 AM on August 9, 2017
If you're still deciding whether you want to read this schlockfest for yourself, please take half a step to the right at your local bookstore and pick up something by Peter Clines. His Ex-Heroes series (superheroes in a zombie apocalypse) hits every pop-culture-mashup trigger you might have without being all "AHHH LOOK AT ALL THIS STUFF I AM REFERENCING", and his other, more horror-tinged novels are also pretty good.
posted by Etrigan at 11:22 AM on August 9, 2017 [2 favorites]
posted by Etrigan at 11:22 AM on August 9, 2017 [2 favorites]
Not everything needs to be Robbe-Grillet
Actually, if Ready Player One were a little better—or maybe a little worse—it could be Robbe-Grillet: a freely associative surface facade of repetitive allusions to pop cultural objects entirely devoid of any pretense of psychological depth or interiority of character. All would be strange and vague. Now I might pick that up!
posted by octobersurprise at 11:28 AM on August 9, 2017 [4 favorites]
Actually, if Ready Player One were a little better—or maybe a little worse—it could be Robbe-Grillet: a freely associative surface facade of repetitive allusions to pop cultural objects entirely devoid of any pretense of psychological depth or interiority of character. All would be strange and vague. Now I might pick that up!
posted by octobersurprise at 11:28 AM on August 9, 2017 [4 favorites]
I think this is why I never got into Haryy Potter. I would say I was a little too old, but that certainly hasn't stopped anyone my age or older. But the movies came out before the book series was done. The Lego sets were so exactly realized that they just reminded me of the time I spent swapping out alien and knight parts to make crude approximations of Lego X-Men guys. A lit of people found room to play in that world, but I did not.
The modest classic, Bridge to Tarabithia was made into a faithful movie about childhood friendship and opening up worlds out of class and poverty, but sold as a CGI fantasy to compete with this type of thing. Cross marketing considerations made the pretty good Hunger Games book into a gaudy, Twilight-love-triangle movie treatment trilogy. I'm cautiously interested to see what happens with a Wrinkle in Time.
Luckily, the internet is a playground for mashups that the kids know how to use. I'm hoping they become immune to to things like Batman v Superman and Bay's TMNT and grow up into a generation that rejects copyrighted cannon in favor of shared mythology.
posted by es_de_bah at 11:40 AM on August 9, 2017 [1 favorite]
The modest classic, Bridge to Tarabithia was made into a faithful movie about childhood friendship and opening up worlds out of class and poverty, but sold as a CGI fantasy to compete with this type of thing. Cross marketing considerations made the pretty good Hunger Games book into a gaudy, Twilight-love-triangle movie treatment trilogy. I'm cautiously interested to see what happens with a Wrinkle in Time.
Luckily, the internet is a playground for mashups that the kids know how to use. I'm hoping they become immune to to things like Batman v Superman and Bay's TMNT and grow up into a generation that rejects copyrighted cannon in favor of shared mythology.
posted by es_de_bah at 11:40 AM on August 9, 2017 [1 favorite]
In terms of alternative books, I'd very much recommend Austin Grossman's YOU. Grossman, brother of the guy who wrote the Magician series and veteran video game writer (System Shock, Deus Ex, Dishonored), wrote his own book that was set in the early years of video games and also features a deceased nerd who has a secret hidden in his creation, but that's as far as the similarity goes--Grossman eschews easy nerdbait namechecking in favor of creating a fictional game series which keeps some consistency (and that secret) even as the underlying technology evolves. There are also real, well-rounded characters.
posted by Halloween Jack at 11:50 AM on August 9, 2017
posted by Halloween Jack at 11:50 AM on August 9, 2017
Oh, man, thanks for the link to that podcast, signal. That was a fantastic take-down of RP1.
Just reading the wikipedia summary of Armada made me cringe. I do not regret passing on that book. I note, with some dismay, that Armada has also been optioned for a movie.
posted by fimbulvetr at 11:56 AM on August 9, 2017
Just reading the wikipedia summary of Armada made me cringe. I do not regret passing on that book. I note, with some dismay, that Armada has also been optioned for a movie.
posted by fimbulvetr at 11:56 AM on August 9, 2017
If we're throwing around alternative book recommendations, I'd say that Mogworld is a pretty good one in a similar vein. It's about an NPC in a WoW-with-the-serial-numbers-filed-off MMO, with a bit of a meta plot about the game's developers layered in as well.
I've frankly soured on Yahtzee as a personality since his vaguely non-committal takes on Gloobergrape, but it's a pretty decent yarn anyway.
posted by tobascodagama at 12:01 PM on August 9, 2017
I've frankly soured on Yahtzee as a personality since his vaguely non-committal takes on Gloobergrape, but it's a pretty decent yarn anyway.
posted by tobascodagama at 12:01 PM on August 9, 2017
I like things. I like a lot of the same things Cline appears to. What I don't like is the feeling that the author is sitting next to me saying "Eh? Get it? EHHHH?" and jabbing me with his elbow on every fucking page.
This! Lovecraft is getting a bit of a pop culture boost nowadays, but there is a huge chance that in any given Lovecraftian fiction, the characters will run into a character named Howard Philips or something at which point the characters all turn towards the reader and flash big ole thumbs up. Unsurprisingly, it's the authors who are trying to pry the genre away from the exclusive realm of White Dudes that are able to refrain from this self-referential crutch.
posted by robocop is bleeding at 12:01 PM on August 9, 2017 [1 favorite]
This! Lovecraft is getting a bit of a pop culture boost nowadays, but there is a huge chance that in any given Lovecraftian fiction, the characters will run into a character named Howard Philips or something at which point the characters all turn towards the reader and flash big ole thumbs up. Unsurprisingly, it's the authors who are trying to pry the genre away from the exclusive realm of White Dudes that are able to refrain from this self-referential crutch.
posted by robocop is bleeding at 12:01 PM on August 9, 2017 [1 favorite]
TiL that my favorite place on the Internet hates three books (_RP1_, _Armada_, and _The Martian_) that I not only enjoyed quite a lot but have reread a few times apiece, and now I might need a good cry in the corner.
... and also my $5 back
... ok, that part is a joke
posted by hanov3r at 12:02 PM on August 9, 2017 [6 favorites]
... and also my $5 back
... ok, that part is a joke
posted by hanov3r at 12:02 PM on August 9, 2017 [6 favorites]
We* decided that The Martian is okay to like.
we = me
there is no cabal
posted by cooker girl at 12:25 PM on August 9, 2017 [5 favorites]
we = me
there is no cabal
posted by cooker girl at 12:25 PM on August 9, 2017 [5 favorites]
Every single person I know who has read RP1 has hated it, so despite being bang-on for it's demographic I've avoided it... but I guess I'm going to have to at least give it go to see what all the fuss is about before the film comes along. I see how long I last (Back in the day I tried The Da Vinci Code for similar reasons and could not get past page one)
posted by fearfulsymmetry at 2:01 PM on August 9 [+] [!]
It's gonna feel a lot like reading The Da Vinci code in the sense that you will sit there wondering why SO MANY PEOPLE YOU USED TO TRUST recommended a festering pile of garbage written at a 3rd grade reading level.
posted by edbles at 12:28 PM on August 9, 2017 [5 favorites]
posted by fearfulsymmetry at 2:01 PM on August 9 [+] [!]
It's gonna feel a lot like reading The Da Vinci code in the sense that you will sit there wondering why SO MANY PEOPLE YOU USED TO TRUST recommended a festering pile of garbage written at a 3rd grade reading level.
posted by edbles at 12:28 PM on August 9, 2017 [5 favorites]
I haven't read the Martian and I kind of wanted to see the movie so don't cry hanov3r.
If it helps, I have liked some real dreck in my time, because it scratched a particular itch.
This is just the wrong dreck for me.
But it also irritates me, because people keep assuming I like it, because Hey It's About the 80s and You Were Alive Then! Yes, but I was more than the sum of what I consumed then.
And thus I rant.
posted by emjaybee at 12:34 PM on August 9, 2017
If it helps, I have liked some real dreck in my time, because it scratched a particular itch.
This is just the wrong dreck for me.
But it also irritates me, because people keep assuming I like it, because Hey It's About the 80s and You Were Alive Then! Yes, but I was more than the sum of what I consumed then.
And thus I rant.
posted by emjaybee at 12:34 PM on August 9, 2017
In defense of the Da Vinci Code, it was at least throwing out ideas that were new and exciting to its intended audience. You like drugstore novels? Well guess what, maybe Christianity isn't at its root as terrible and misogynist as you think! Maybe secret cabals made it that way for their benefit!
RP1 is more like: You like video games! Well guess what... vIdEo GaMeS!!!!!!!
posted by tofu_crouton at 12:35 PM on August 9, 2017 [4 favorites]
RP1 is more like: You like video games! Well guess what... vIdEo GaMeS!!!!!!!
posted by tofu_crouton at 12:35 PM on August 9, 2017 [4 favorites]
"I, too, used to play Joust."
posted by Chrysostom at 12:43 PM on August 9, 2017 [7 favorites]
posted by Chrysostom at 12:43 PM on August 9, 2017 [7 favorites]
The Martian is the reddit thread turned book turned film that it's okay to like.
If he writes another book in the exact same voice we can start on him then.
posted by Artw at 12:50 PM on August 9, 2017 [8 favorites]
If he writes another book in the exact same voice we can start on him then.
posted by Artw at 12:50 PM on August 9, 2017 [8 favorites]
Also Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom has sort of interesting things to say about reputation based value systems and collaborative creative projects so I'd pull that one out of the the pit too.
Just you, RP1, just you... You stay down there.
posted by Artw at 12:52 PM on August 9, 2017 [5 favorites]
Just you, RP1, just you... You stay down there.
posted by Artw at 12:52 PM on August 9, 2017 [5 favorites]
I like things. I like a lot of the same things Cline appears to. What I don't like is the feeling that the author is sitting next to me saying "Eh? Get it? EHHHH?" and jabbing me with his elbow on every fucking page.
Hmm, but whether or not you feel the elbowing is based on a few factors. For someone that swims in the same pop culture pool that Cline also swims in and maybe throughout their life has already had these references repeated ad nauseum, I can see how it can be excessive. But for someone else that doesn't swim in the same pool and hasn't encountered the same references numerous times, then there's a lower signal-to-noise ratio. For this person, the elbow may be jabbing them every third page or every 10th page or every 20th page. In those situations it might not feel as annoying.
posted by FJT at 12:56 PM on August 9, 2017 [1 favorite]
Hmm, but whether or not you feel the elbowing is based on a few factors. For someone that swims in the same pop culture pool that Cline also swims in and maybe throughout their life has already had these references repeated ad nauseum, I can see how it can be excessive. But for someone else that doesn't swim in the same pool and hasn't encountered the same references numerous times, then there's a lower signal-to-noise ratio. For this person, the elbow may be jabbing them every third page or every 10th page or every 20th page. In those situations it might not feel as annoying.
posted by FJT at 12:56 PM on August 9, 2017 [1 favorite]
Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom is better when you realize Doctorow thinks Whuffie is a terrible idea.
posted by Pope Guilty at 1:19 PM on August 9, 2017 [3 favorites]
posted by Pope Guilty at 1:19 PM on August 9, 2017 [3 favorites]
If anything is a video game disguised as a book it's The Martian. It's just a series of increasingly difficult puzzles, where the hero uses skills, information, tools, and allies gained from previous puzzles to solve the next one. If he fails a puzzle he dies, but at the end he wins! You can look past the not-great writing and paper-thin characters because each new level is fun and interesting.
posted by theodolite at 1:19 PM on August 9, 2017 [3 favorites]
posted by theodolite at 1:19 PM on August 9, 2017 [3 favorites]
here lemme spoil the ending warning spoilers
LOVE INTEREST: I have been afraid to show my true face to you, for though my virtual reality avatar is hot, in truth I am disfigured and ugly
HERO: that's OK I am a nice guy and I love you anyway
LOVE INTEREST: see, I look exactly like my sexy avatar but I have a portwine birthmark :(
HERO: no problem you are still conventionally attractive in every other way! yay I am rewarded for being a nice guy who is not shallow
SIDEKICK: surprise! you have a black friend!
HERO: cool, my adventure was not embarrassingly super whitebread after all! I had a black friend all this time!
OGDEN: But Wade, don't forget what happened to the boy who suddenly got everything he always wanted.
HERO: What happened?
OGDEN: He wrote fucking Armada
posted by prize bull octorok at 1:47 PM on August 9, 2017 [27 favorites]
LOVE INTEREST: I have been afraid to show my true face to you, for though my virtual reality avatar is hot, in truth I am disfigured and ugly
HERO: that's OK I am a nice guy and I love you anyway
LOVE INTEREST: see, I look exactly like my sexy avatar but I have a portwine birthmark :(
HERO: no problem you are still conventionally attractive in every other way! yay I am rewarded for being a nice guy who is not shallow
SIDEKICK: surprise! you have a black friend!
HERO: cool, my adventure was not embarrassingly super whitebread after all! I had a black friend all this time!
OGDEN: But Wade, don't forget what happened to the boy who suddenly got everything he always wanted.
HERO: What happened?
OGDEN: He wrote fucking Armada
posted by prize bull octorok at 1:47 PM on August 9, 2017 [27 favorites]
what I posted on FB after finishing this damn book:
RP1 was mindless action that was ripe for film adaptation. But it was a letdown for me. I was expecting a *Family Guy* style riff on gaming culture, but got unbearable *The Big Bang Theory* pandering instead. Every chance to elaborate on a reference was squandered. Challenges and their solutions felt like they were found with google, not by the author identifying with them or even having a plan. The tropes against women were really distracting. Maybe the worst part was name-dropping Cory Doctorow and Will Wheaton for no apparent reason. The concept sounded so cool and the setup was pretty good, but it went downhill quickly. I guess I would have preferred a story that didn't cheat by using the reader's knowledge of video game culture, and instead was an homage to gaming history.
I did learn how Joust is supposed to work, though, so it wasn't a complete waste of time.
posted by stobor at 1:49 PM on August 9, 2017 [2 favorites]
RP1 was mindless action that was ripe for film adaptation. But it was a letdown for me. I was expecting a *Family Guy* style riff on gaming culture, but got unbearable *The Big Bang Theory* pandering instead. Every chance to elaborate on a reference was squandered. Challenges and their solutions felt like they were found with google, not by the author identifying with them or even having a plan. The tropes against women were really distracting. Maybe the worst part was name-dropping Cory Doctorow and Will Wheaton for no apparent reason. The concept sounded so cool and the setup was pretty good, but it went downhill quickly. I guess I would have preferred a story that didn't cheat by using the reader's knowledge of video game culture, and instead was an homage to gaming history.
I did learn how Joust is supposed to work, though, so it wasn't a complete waste of time.
posted by stobor at 1:49 PM on August 9, 2017 [2 favorites]
Maybe the worst part was name-dropping Cory Doctorow and Will Wheaton for no apparent reason.
(Probably in the hopes of getting linked from Boing Boing or Wheaton's Twitter account and oh look...)
posted by tobascodagama at 2:11 PM on August 9, 2017
(Probably in the hopes of getting linked from Boing Boing or Wheaton's Twitter account and oh look...)
posted by tobascodagama at 2:11 PM on August 9, 2017
The Martian is the best '"Oh fuck! What's happened now?! How the fuck am I going to get out this predicament?!" *Hero knuckles down and techs the tech and sciences the science* "Right that's that that solved, but... Oh fuck! Wha-" etc etc' novel that I've read.
posted by fearfulsymmetry at 2:20 PM on August 9, 2017 [5 favorites]
posted by fearfulsymmetry at 2:20 PM on August 9, 2017 [5 favorites]
tobascodagama: yes, I should have written 'no apparent literary reason'
Other motives were very transparent.
posted by stobor at 2:37 PM on August 9, 2017 [1 favorite]
Other motives were very transparent.
posted by stobor at 2:37 PM on August 9, 2017 [1 favorite]
also, ctrl+f 'toxic masculinity'
0 results found
I guess I shouldn't have been surprised that a book about a fandom would reflect, not shatter or criticize, some of the worst corners of that fandom.
posted by stobor at 2:43 PM on August 9, 2017
0 results found
I guess I shouldn't have been surprised that a book about a fandom would reflect, not shatter or criticize, some of the worst corners of that fandom.
posted by stobor at 2:43 PM on August 9, 2017
In 1984 there was an ABC Afterschool Special called Summer Switch which was pretty much a father-son remake of Freaky Friday. It wasn't good.
The ending features son-in-dad's-body having to pitch a movie to some studio types. The pitch is a 1984 twelve-year-old's idea (or really an adult screenwriter's idea of a twelve-year-old's idea) of what would make a cool movie, with the proper disregard for why Darth Vader and Godzilla probably can't be in a movie together, which culminates in Robert Klein stomping around on a conference table making rocket noises and spitting this ill-prepared book-report of a movie pitch which is transparently awful, and of course the studio types eat it up.
When I read one of the "this is where I quit" pages of RP1 posted on twitter the other week, that scene was the first thing I thought of.
posted by Mister Moofoo at 4:04 PM on August 9, 2017 [1 favorite]
The ending features son-in-dad's-body having to pitch a movie to some studio types. The pitch is a 1984 twelve-year-old's idea (or really an adult screenwriter's idea of a twelve-year-old's idea) of what would make a cool movie, with the proper disregard for why Darth Vader and Godzilla probably can't be in a movie together, which culminates in Robert Klein stomping around on a conference table making rocket noises and spitting this ill-prepared book-report of a movie pitch which is transparently awful, and of course the studio types eat it up.
When I read one of the "this is where I quit" pages of RP1 posted on twitter the other week, that scene was the first thing I thought of.
posted by Mister Moofoo at 4:04 PM on August 9, 2017 [1 favorite]
All I can say is that I hated Jonathan Strange and Dr Norrell as much as the haters in this thread have hated RP1, and hope that i will be joined in my vitriol by as many fellow right thinking folks when that adaptation hits the screen.
posted by OHenryPacey at 4:32 PM on August 9, 2017 [2 favorites]
posted by OHenryPacey at 4:32 PM on August 9, 2017 [2 favorites]
Not to spoil it for you but the adaptation of Jonathan Strange and Dr Norrell wasn't bad.
posted by Ashwagandha at 4:43 PM on August 9, 2017 [10 favorites]
posted by Ashwagandha at 4:43 PM on August 9, 2017 [10 favorites]
Uh… really not seeing the connection between RP1 and Strange & Norrell. RP1 is reference after reference after reference, with little to no context or connection between them other than "remember this? and this? and this?" The book version of Strange & Norrell does require the reader to be comfortable with digressive, meandering, period-style writing (/me thanks providence that I read and loved The Forsyte Saga as a teen) but it's not reference-reference-reference-doesn't-this-make-me-look-clever.
And as Ashwagandha suggests, the dramatization was good. I actually recommend it as a gateway into the book, since most folks will probably bounce off the text unless they've already come to love the characters thanks to Bertie Carvel and Eddie Marsan and Enzo Cilenti and Charlotte Riley and Alice Englert and Edward Hogg and Ariyon Bakare and…
posted by Lexica at 4:52 PM on August 9, 2017 [2 favorites]
And as Ashwagandha suggests, the dramatization was good. I actually recommend it as a gateway into the book, since most folks will probably bounce off the text unless they've already come to love the characters thanks to Bertie Carvel and Eddie Marsan and Enzo Cilenti and Charlotte Riley and Alice Englert and Edward Hogg and Ariyon Bakare and…
posted by Lexica at 4:52 PM on August 9, 2017 [2 favorites]
Uh… really not seeing the connection between RP1 and Strange & Norrell.
Strange & Norrel is basically an extended fight about styles of fan fic? :-)
posted by Artw at 4:58 PM on August 9, 2017
Strange & Norrel is basically an extended fight about styles of fan fic? :-)
posted by Artw at 4:58 PM on August 9, 2017
OHenryPacey: All I can say is that I hated Jonathan Strange and Dr Norrell as much as the haters in this thread have hated RP1
Me too.
Friends loved it, the Internets recommended it. I would have thrown it across the room partway through the first chapter, except that it was a library book and quite hefty, and I have a bad shoulder.
The television adaptation came along. Friends loved it, the Internets would not shut up about it. Good cast. I think I made it through 1.5 episodes before I gave up.
posted by monopas at 5:34 PM on August 9, 2017 [1 favorite]
Me too.
Friends loved it, the Internets recommended it. I would have thrown it across the room partway through the first chapter, except that it was a library book and quite hefty, and I have a bad shoulder.
The television adaptation came along. Friends loved it, the Internets would not shut up about it. Good cast. I think I made it through 1.5 episodes before I gave up.
posted by monopas at 5:34 PM on August 9, 2017 [1 favorite]
Lovecraft is getting a bit of a pop culture boost nowadays...
A bit? Surely you jest. Everywhere I go (both online and off) it's like stumbling through an HPL minefield. 15 years ago I would've sworn it'd be hitting a saturation point soon, but no.
Not that I disagree with the sentiment of the remainder of your post, mind you.
posted by Krulth at 5:37 PM on August 9, 2017 [1 favorite]
A bit? Surely you jest. Everywhere I go (both online and off) it's like stumbling through an HPL minefield. 15 years ago I would've sworn it'd be hitting a saturation point soon, but no.
Not that I disagree with the sentiment of the remainder of your post, mind you.
posted by Krulth at 5:37 PM on August 9, 2017 [1 favorite]
Cross marketing considerations made the pretty good Hunger Games book into a gaudy, Twilight-love-triangle movie treatment trilogy.
That's what I expected those movies to be, but I thought they consistently exceeded my expectations. Good performances, smart dialog and plotting, and did several clever, thoughtful things with the constant dichotomy of acting authentically vs. performing for the cameras. I hadn't read the books, though.
posted by straight at 6:28 PM on August 9, 2017 [1 favorite]
That's what I expected those movies to be, but I thought they consistently exceeded my expectations. Good performances, smart dialog and plotting, and did several clever, thoughtful things with the constant dichotomy of acting authentically vs. performing for the cameras. I hadn't read the books, though.
posted by straight at 6:28 PM on August 9, 2017 [1 favorite]
Lovecraft is getting a bit of a pop culture boost nowadays...
Here's where I step in and unabashedly recommend The Night Ocean by Paul La Farge.
posted by thivaia at 9:02 PM on August 9, 2017
Here's where I step in and unabashedly recommend The Night Ocean by Paul La Farge.
posted by thivaia at 9:02 PM on August 9, 2017
What I don't get it the sheer level of vitriolic rage the book seems to engender in some people, in this very thread and elsewhere
This isn't vitriol, it's entertainment, because there are few things as fun as ripping on a bad book that has gotten too succesful for its own good and which takes itself too seriously, if you can do it in front of an audience that knows it's a bad book, even if they liked it enough to finish it. If it was just a bad, pandering book it wouldn't be fun, but since it's a bad, pandering book that got succesful because people have shit tastes, it needs bashing.
Now, you're not judged on whether you liked Ready Player One, but you will be judged if you think it's a good book, which I haven't seen anybody do here. Personally, I wanted to like the book, as it looked to be written for me, somebody who was nostalgic for the eighties in the mid-nineties already. As always, be careful what you wish for.
What made me drop the book was the writing, which was clunky and awful and never content to not explain away a reference. The podcast linked to above had a good example, about our hero flying a Firefly series ship that was modelled after the Serenity from Firefly: WE GET THAT. YOU DON'T NEED TO EXPLAIN THAT. Without all these asides and infodumps and elbow nudgings the book could've been a third slimmer.
And to be honest, even if the writing was better, the sheer fact that only eighties nerd culture is called out -- no rap, no metal, nothing much actual eighties teens were interested in -- with all the whitebreadness this implies, would be enough for me not to read this.
There's also an element of fremdschämen in all this of course, the sheer ernestness of the writing and protagonist making you cringe when you read an excerpt: for eighties geeks, Cline is the living embodiment of our worst nerd tendecies, never grown out of the idea that quoting Monty Python is the height of wit.
Comparing him to Andy Weir is unfair. As established, Cline is a poor man's Doctorow, while Weir, if anything, reminds me of Charlie Stross.
posted by MartinWisse at 11:06 PM on August 9, 2017 [14 favorites]
This isn't vitriol, it's entertainment, because there are few things as fun as ripping on a bad book that has gotten too succesful for its own good and which takes itself too seriously, if you can do it in front of an audience that knows it's a bad book, even if they liked it enough to finish it. If it was just a bad, pandering book it wouldn't be fun, but since it's a bad, pandering book that got succesful because people have shit tastes, it needs bashing.
Now, you're not judged on whether you liked Ready Player One, but you will be judged if you think it's a good book, which I haven't seen anybody do here. Personally, I wanted to like the book, as it looked to be written for me, somebody who was nostalgic for the eighties in the mid-nineties already. As always, be careful what you wish for.
What made me drop the book was the writing, which was clunky and awful and never content to not explain away a reference. The podcast linked to above had a good example, about our hero flying a Firefly series ship that was modelled after the Serenity from Firefly: WE GET THAT. YOU DON'T NEED TO EXPLAIN THAT. Without all these asides and infodumps and elbow nudgings the book could've been a third slimmer.
And to be honest, even if the writing was better, the sheer fact that only eighties nerd culture is called out -- no rap, no metal, nothing much actual eighties teens were interested in -- with all the whitebreadness this implies, would be enough for me not to read this.
There's also an element of fremdschämen in all this of course, the sheer ernestness of the writing and protagonist making you cringe when you read an excerpt: for eighties geeks, Cline is the living embodiment of our worst nerd tendecies, never grown out of the idea that quoting Monty Python is the height of wit.
Comparing him to Andy Weir is unfair. As established, Cline is a poor man's Doctorow, while Weir, if anything, reminds me of Charlie Stross.
posted by MartinWisse at 11:06 PM on August 9, 2017 [14 favorites]
I tried to read a few excerpts from RP1, but it just made me feel cynical and dismissive , like Wednesday Addams from The Addams Family, or Peter Venkman from Ghostbusters, which is a shame, as i had hoped for childlike enjoyment and passion, like Gomez Addams from The Addams Family, or Ray Stantz from Ghostbusters. Shaka, when the walls fell, I though to myself sadly, my hopes shrinking to a nanoscopic size like the ship from off of Innerspace or the children from Honey I Shrunk The Kids. Would I never be let back into the restaurant of carefree uncritical enjoyment? Was I doomed to be trapped outside, my face metaphorically pressed up against it sadly like Louis Tully from Ghostbusters?
posted by Jon Mitchell at 2:17 AM on August 10, 2017 [28 favorites]
posted by Jon Mitchell at 2:17 AM on August 10, 2017 [28 favorites]
Is the character called Wade Watts as a sort of dumb homophone of the tired pull back and reveal gag "Wait, What?!"?
Or is it not that?
On the subject of badly written books being turned into films, sometimes a book will have interesting ideas but bad writing. Films don't need to use the actual words, so you can actually craft something decent from them.
Like, Da Vinci code, the actual words are clunky and utilitarian, but the idea is broadly speaking filmic and exciting.
50 Shades has bad writing but also just so so many character problems, so that's going to be harder to make a good film.
I thought the trailer looked pretty exciting, if dumb. Also, there are a bunch of videos explaining all the references. Look at those stickers, look at that robot it's from this other thing. But yeah, fine. I don't care. "Reference" is nothing. Reference and subversion maybe, reference and twist? You need something that makes the callback gag more than just a "Hey, remember this" and I guess the concern is that there isn't any of that.
I think you could still make a neat film out of it.
posted by Just this guy, y'know at 6:25 AM on August 10, 2017
Or is it not that?
On the subject of badly written books being turned into films, sometimes a book will have interesting ideas but bad writing. Films don't need to use the actual words, so you can actually craft something decent from them.
Like, Da Vinci code, the actual words are clunky and utilitarian, but the idea is broadly speaking filmic and exciting.
50 Shades has bad writing but also just so so many character problems, so that's going to be harder to make a good film.
I thought the trailer looked pretty exciting, if dumb. Also, there are a bunch of videos explaining all the references. Look at those stickers, look at that robot it's from this other thing. But yeah, fine. I don't care. "Reference" is nothing. Reference and subversion maybe, reference and twist? You need something that makes the callback gag more than just a "Hey, remember this" and I guess the concern is that there isn't any of that.
I think you could still make a neat film out of it.
posted by Just this guy, y'know at 6:25 AM on August 10, 2017
My favorite take down of RP1 so far is from the I Don't Even Own a Television podcast
Thanks for introducing me to this podcast, by the way. It's pretty great.
posted by uncleozzy at 6:28 AM on August 10, 2017 [1 favorite]
Thanks for introducing me to this podcast, by the way. It's pretty great.
posted by uncleozzy at 6:28 AM on August 10, 2017 [1 favorite]
if people are comparing the reference pandering of the book and possibly the movie to what goes on in big bang theory then I'm already reflexively cringing and hope this fails because bbt is bad and everyone involved should feel bad.
posted by numaner at 12:28 PM on August 10, 2017 [1 favorite]
posted by numaner at 12:28 PM on August 10, 2017 [1 favorite]
if people are comparing the reference pandering of the book and possibly the movie to what goes on in big bang theory then I'm already reflexively cringing and hope this fails because bbt is bad and everyone involved should feel bad.
Big Bang Theory is ostensibly a comedy so the intention of those references is to be "funny". In Ready Player One they are meant to be serious (and often very important and you are meant to care deeply about them) rather than comedy. Which I think makes it more unbearable.
posted by Ashwagandha at 12:43 PM on August 10, 2017 [1 favorite]
Big Bang Theory is ostensibly a comedy so the intention of those references is to be "funny". In Ready Player One they are meant to be serious (and often very important and you are meant to care deeply about them) rather than comedy. Which I think makes it more unbearable.
posted by Ashwagandha at 12:43 PM on August 10, 2017 [1 favorite]
Comparing him to Andy Weir is unfair.
I hadn't realised this but the 2016 print version of Ready Player One has a piece of short fan fiction by Andy Weir that acts as some kind of prequel to Ready Player One. So there's a connection.
posted by Ashwagandha at 12:49 PM on August 10, 2017
I hadn't realised this but the 2016 print version of Ready Player One has a piece of short fan fiction by Andy Weir that acts as some kind of prequel to Ready Player One. So there's a connection.
posted by Ashwagandha at 12:49 PM on August 10, 2017
Look, "The Martian" is self-aware enough to actually have the protagonist declare, "I'm going to have to science the shit out of this."
On the other hand, "Ready Player One" believes that is is a powerful story set against a vibrant and textured backdrop of deft and subtle allusions, when actually it's a tiring trail of the same product names, one after the other.
Honestly, read "We Are Legion (We Are Bob)" if you want a better scifi story with a slightly lighter hand on the contemporary nerd culture faucet.
posted by wenestvedt at 12:56 PM on August 10, 2017
On the other hand, "Ready Player One" believes that is is a powerful story set against a vibrant and textured backdrop of deft and subtle allusions, when actually it's a tiring trail of the same product names, one after the other.
Honestly, read "We Are Legion (We Are Bob)" if you want a better scifi story with a slightly lighter hand on the contemporary nerd culture faucet.
posted by wenestvedt at 12:56 PM on August 10, 2017
Comparing him to Andy Weir is unfair. As established, Cline is a poor man's Doctorow, while Weir, if anything, reminds me of Charlie Stross.
posted by MartinWisse at 2:06 AM on August 10 [13 favorites −] Favorite added! [!]
Speaking of mefi's own cstross "Halting State" is the book I recommend back at people when they gush about the hot mess that is RP1, if they want to read a book about the implications about living in a reality adjacent world that has let's say I don't know a plot and maybe some character development.
posted by edbles at 1:07 PM on August 10, 2017 [3 favorites]
posted by MartinWisse at 2:06 AM on August 10 [13 favorites −] Favorite added! [!]
Speaking of mefi's own cstross "Halting State" is the book I recommend back at people when they gush about the hot mess that is RP1, if they want to read a book about the implications about living in a reality adjacent world that has let's say I don't know a plot and maybe some character development.
posted by edbles at 1:07 PM on August 10, 2017 [3 favorites]
(Probably in the hopes of getting linked from Boing Boing or Wheaton's Twitter account and oh look...)
I followed the link. Immediately after the headline was a google ad:
Free Writing Tool
Improve grammar, word choice, and sentence structure in your writing. It's free!
I love that google's adman AI is getting a sense of humour.
posted by Sparx at 2:30 PM on August 10, 2017 [1 favorite]
I followed the link. Immediately after the headline was a google ad:
Free Writing Tool
Improve grammar, word choice, and sentence structure in your writing. It's free!
I love that google's adman AI is getting a sense of humour.
posted by Sparx at 2:30 PM on August 10, 2017 [1 favorite]
man Susanna Clarke is brilliant and all but although I can see hating her writing for a number of different reasonable reasons, the comparison bewilders me because she does not write either like A. she thinks the reader is an idiot or like 2. she thinks the reader is brilliant, just like she is, but unfortunately unbeknownst to her she is an idiot. two things which I hate whether or not I can distinguish which is which in any individual book's case, such as RP1.
and the only great book by an author in the latter class is The Young Visiters, a work of genius written by a small child, which is not the same as an idiot but close enough. all I'm saying is a book about social climbing written by an alleged nine-year-old is better than Ready Player One in every important respect. they are both about unreasoning feverish obedience to value systems and social forms the characters don't really understand, in which repeating key magic phrases is just as good as thinking about them. but The Young Visiters is also very clever. god, this is actually a very perceptive comparison, look at me.
anyway Clarke openly steals a lot of mythology from sources that aren't as obscure as she thinks they are, but she's got style. she also makes a whole lot of stuff up out of her head. even if it is too precious or boring for some, she does do it.
posted by queenofbithynia at 3:36 PM on August 10, 2017 [5 favorites]
and the only great book by an author in the latter class is The Young Visiters, a work of genius written by a small child, which is not the same as an idiot but close enough. all I'm saying is a book about social climbing written by an alleged nine-year-old is better than Ready Player One in every important respect. they are both about unreasoning feverish obedience to value systems and social forms the characters don't really understand, in which repeating key magic phrases is just as good as thinking about them. but The Young Visiters is also very clever. god, this is actually a very perceptive comparison, look at me.
anyway Clarke openly steals a lot of mythology from sources that aren't as obscure as she thinks they are, but she's got style. she also makes a whole lot of stuff up out of her head. even if it is too precious or boring for some, she does do it.
posted by queenofbithynia at 3:36 PM on August 10, 2017 [5 favorites]
I just found the plot of the Martian to be great fun but the actual writing and characterization to be the worst I had ever read. It felt so clunky and amateurish early on that I stopped reading and checked online to the history of it and wasn't very surprised to find it had been self published.
Weir apparently knows his science but gives no indication that he has ever met a human being.
posted by gnuhavenpier at 5:21 AM on August 11, 2017 [2 favorites]
Weir apparently knows his science but gives no indication that he has ever met a human being.
posted by gnuhavenpier at 5:21 AM on August 11, 2017 [2 favorites]
As a book it's a pretty great movie.
posted by Artw at 5:59 AM on August 11, 2017 [4 favorites]
posted by Artw at 5:59 AM on August 11, 2017 [4 favorites]
I didn't enjoy The Martian either but it's kinda perfect as a series of little science/math puzzles with a little narrative to tie them together.
posted by chrchr at 7:15 AM on August 11, 2017 [1 favorite]
posted by chrchr at 7:15 AM on August 11, 2017 [1 favorite]
Honestly, read "We Are Legion (We Are Bob)" if you want a better scifi story with a slightly lighter hand on the contemporary nerd culture faucet.
I have added this to my to-read pile, and I thank you.
posted by middleclasstool at 8:42 AM on August 11, 2017 [1 favorite]
I have added this to my to-read pile, and I thank you.
posted by middleclasstool at 8:42 AM on August 11, 2017 [1 favorite]
As a book it's a pretty great movie.
posted by Artw at 1:59 PM on August 11 [4 favorites −] Favorite added! [!]
Totally. The reason I picked it up was that I saw it was Ridley Scott was making a film of it. I was certain the book would be best way to discover the story. Wrong!
posted by gnuhavenpier at 10:05 AM on August 11, 2017
posted by Artw at 1:59 PM on August 11 [4 favorites −] Favorite added! [!]
Totally. The reason I picked it up was that I saw it was Ridley Scott was making a film of it. I was certain the book would be best way to discover the story. Wrong!
posted by gnuhavenpier at 10:05 AM on August 11, 2017
> "What I don't get it the sheer level of vitriolic rage the book seems to engender in some people"
Ready Player One killed my family.
posted by kyrademon at 10:12 AM on August 11, 2017 [4 favorites]
Ready Player One killed my family.
posted by kyrademon at 10:12 AM on August 11, 2017 [4 favorites]
In fairness if you give Scott garbage to wirk with he will deliver garbage - there has to be something of value there and the book more than delivered on that front.
posted by Artw at 10:25 AM on August 11, 2017
posted by Artw at 10:25 AM on August 11, 2017
> "Weir apparently knows his science ..."
Eh. It was all I could do not to shout, "YOU HAVE JUST KILLED YOURSELF WITH YOUR PERCHLORATE-SOAKED DEATH-POTATOES!" at the main character. And that wasn't the only issue.
posted by kyrademon at 10:31 AM on August 11, 2017 [2 favorites]
Eh. It was all I could do not to shout, "YOU HAVE JUST KILLED YOURSELF WITH YOUR PERCHLORATE-SOAKED DEATH-POTATOES!" at the main character. And that wasn't the only issue.
posted by kyrademon at 10:31 AM on August 11, 2017 [2 favorites]
I started to read The Martian but it felt like I should have a spreadsheet open in order to really appreciate it , and I couldn't really be bothered.
posted by signal at 6:25 PM on August 11, 2017 [1 favorite]
posted by signal at 6:25 PM on August 11, 2017 [1 favorite]
It's pretty breezy and fun, TBH, in a Mythbustery kind of way.
posted by Artw at 6:29 PM on August 11, 2017
posted by Artw at 6:29 PM on August 11, 2017
(Mars doesn't have enough atmosphere that a windstorm could do more than pick up dust though)
posted by Artw at 6:30 PM on August 11, 2017
posted by Artw at 6:30 PM on August 11, 2017
Oh yeah? Then how do the Ice Warriors kite surf?
posted by ActingTheGoat at 6:34 PM on August 11, 2017 [4 favorites]
posted by ActingTheGoat at 6:34 PM on August 11, 2017 [4 favorites]
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Talk about the Stranger Things 2 trailer probably...
posted by Artw at 7:50 PM on August 8, 2017 [25 favorites]