Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2018/12/27/good-sale-on-kindle-editions-o.html
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Don’t bother. I know it was a darling book but post gamergate it really feels more creepy than joyful. Also the love interest is played in totally 80s stalkerish way which umm just no.
That said there are a lot of really good books in the many other titles.
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And because the writing (and I can’t stress this enough) SUCKS!
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Enh. It was fair to middlin’. Pulp novel adventure fun but not awful.
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Ain’t this the truth.
It reads like a fanfict of someone that once read about 80s in a teen magazine and decided it would be a great think to jot down in his trapper keeper.
But then I realized the author was, in fact, alive in the 80s and is my age…and honestly…it made it much worse. Granted there are FAR worse YA writers out there that pander to their audience as if they are dullards and talk about cryptocurrencies and privacy and pretty much browbeat their readers into what would be brainwashing if it weren’t such a bad attempt, but damn…this is barely one step above that level of writing.
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I’ve read worse stuff. And considering Spielberg liked it enough to option it, at least he thought it had redeeming value. And with a 72 on Rotten Tomatoes, a lot of people liked it well enough.
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I may not have been so harsh on it when it came out but the whole we are the defenders of the true geek culture part just really make me go ‘NO!’ now. And seriously the love plot was seriously like a 80s stalkerish she will love me comedy movie. Just no, we don’t need to reinforce that shit in popular culture any more.
Also the two parts I thought were ripe for real story exploration were living in The Stacks, and the corporate indentured servitude but it just get a passing over chapter or two.
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I think it was meant to be lighter fare. Not everything needs to be a manifesto. Even Stephenson doesn’t dwell too much on the ins and outs of storage container dystopia in Snow Crash. I agree with you that the book could have been better, but it doesn’t creep me out like it does you. But then, it was basically written specifically for my demographic… Nostalgia porn for the male geek who came of age in the 80s.
As for the rest of the books on the link Mark posted, I unfortunately didn’t see many that I’d really recommend to anyone.
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That would be me too.
I read a lot of pulpy fun stuff so the writing itself wasn’t awful for me just the subject matter. I dunno maybe it’s because I have revisited more than a bit of my 80’s childhood geeky culture and most of it isn’t all that great on reflection.
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I gave Ready Player One a good faith try. Considering I was an '80s kid, it should’ve been exactly My Thing. But I overdosed on the nonstop nostalgia bullshit after only a few chapters.
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Uh yeah, it has other qualities, the writing itself not among them.
I was happy enough to be reading about gaming that I even went on to read “Armada”.
There are those that hone their craft and those that instead wallow in it.
I really enjoyed Dark Matter. It had a unique twist I had never seen before in sci-fi stories of this genre.
Well I haven’t read Ready Player One, so I can’t join in the pile-on (although I did buy it in a similar Kindle sale at some point in the past - just haven’t got around to reading it yet).
I have, however, read Dark Matter, and it’s pish. It’s easily read, fast-paced pish, but it’s still pish - it’s like Dan Brown without the research. Pre-dumbed down to save the screenplay writers some effort when it gets the inevitable Hollywood/Netflix treatment.
And.
It’s also.
Written in really.
Short paragraphs.
Which is quite.
Annoying.
It’s also obviously only called Dark Matter because Crouch liked the title. No bearing on any of the events in the book whatsoever. I’m fairly sure he ripped the ending off of another book too, but I can’t remember what.
Everyone should read Michelle Paver’s Dark Matter (link to Amazon UK) though - it’s a wonderfully creepy ghost story that I bought at the same time as the Blake Crouch abomination.
Ready Player One is no better than thousands of humdrum Kindle Unlimited freebie SF books. in fact, there’s stuff on there blows it out the water.
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I’m at least in theory the target demographic too and I have to admit the entire premise just turns me off.
If it were executed well enough I might enjoy it anyway, but based on what I’ve read about both the book and the movie I’m going to pass.
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Well, one is supposed to gain sophistication and complexity as one ages (at least until the brain gives up and goes pfffft).
Meh. I will still happily watch Ultraman, Johnny Sokko, Godzilla or anything with people in monster suits causing mayhem to scale model cities.
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