Ready Player One

Why is this book so despised here?

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>the matrix

Because it is bad.

How so?

“I wish someone had just told me the truth right up front, as soon as I was old enough to understand it. I wish someone had just said: “Here’s the deal, Wade. You’re something called a ‘human being.’ That’s a really smart kind of animal. Like every other animal on this planet, we’re descended from a single-celled organism that lived millions of years ago. This happened by a process called evolution, and you’ll learn more about it But trust me, that’s really how we all got here. There’s proof of it everywhere, buried in the rocks. That story you heard? About how we were all created by a super-powerful dude named God who lives up in the sky? Total bullshit. The whole God thing is actually an ancient fairy tale that people have been telling one another for thousands of years. We made it all up. Like Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny. “Oh, and by the way … there’s no Santa Claus or Easter Bunny. Also bullshit. Sorry, kid Deal with it.”
― Ernest Cline, Ready Player One

Because why make a piece of art with passion and spirit when you can make wish fulfillment and lol XD 2geeky4u references?

Simple, well written, and concise.

And there was no passion and spirit in this book? It's chock full of it.

proof or gtfo. Give me one paragraph where you think the author spent more than 10 minutes on.

>Simple, well written, and concise

So Cline doesn't spend 20 pages writing something that could be spoken in 1 sentence. I'm tired of wading through lengthy circumlocutions from authors who could get their ideas through in a fraction of the time.

I don't despise it cause I never read it, but I avoid it, it seems very Big Bang Theory to me.

It's not. If you want a novella that can effectively convey outstanding ideas in a simple, direct way, this is the book for you. It's not just pop fiction. It's not big bang theory

It's not about length, just give me a paragraph with decent prose and just a little subtlety.

if i didnt have my dad pressuring me into reading beyond those first few chapters this is probably where i would have stopped.

But after that I enjoyed the book

What? God isn't real? Holy shit I got duped. Thanks for showing me the light, Cline.

No, it *is* about length. The excerpt above, for example, summarizes the emptiness felt inwardly by a growing number of the populace. That's something it would have taken Camus an entire fucking book to do.

repose en paix, robby...

Brevity is the soul of wit

Holy... I want More.

a friend of mine wanted me to read it and let me borrow it. he's a redditor, but that's beside the point.

it's literally a 300-page nostalgia wank fest. the incessant name-dropping, references to cult classics and 90's era "inside jokes" was cringe inducing. when Cline wasn't fondling my balls or nudging me with his elbow, he was stumbling clumsily through a predictable wish-fulfillment plot with predictable wish-fulfillment characters. shit was so flat it never left the ground.
If you're the sort to get hard over someone mentioning a thing you like, then sure it's likeable. Beyond that scrap of superficiality there are no redeeming factors.

I don't remember this.
Maybe because of the translation.

thank you for that post.

I'll let you get back to your Hemingway. Youre obviously way too sophisticated for this book

its ok if you like it, just like its ok if people didnt.

He's literally saying what every teenage redditor thinks is super intelligent without actually challenging new ideas. People have been doubting Christ for millennia.

I just don't like it when people give facetious and middle brow reasons for their dismissal of books I cherish

It's written for people who already think this way! Do you honestly believe Camus changed any minds with his philosophical fiction? I doubt it! His work attracted people of the same mindset, much the same as Cline has done. He's not pretending to be deep; and the allusions to reddit are growing tiresome.

It's seriously shit for the reasons he listed.

Lets just stop here. This is obviously bait and we have fallen for it. Fuck off, OP

When he wasn't listing unfair criticisms he was talking out of his ass in worthless generalities. Either way I'm convinced he's full of himself

You sound an awful lot like a /pol/ack. Anyone disagrees with you and you begin to think bait. Fuck off.

>It's a thread with 85% ad hominem

Exactly

>Books can't change people's minds, so this book shouldn't either
How old are you OP?

That isn't what I said.

The remaining is strawman 2bh

Is it not wish fulfillment? Is it not over saturated with pop culture references? I think that is fair criticism.

Why are you doing this, OP

Fulfillment implies that wade did no work to achieve his goals. Like he didn't risk his balls to achieve his lifelong goals.

And yes there is a lot of reference. If you don't know the source of a particular reference, what does it matter.

And thank you for trying to make an actual argument.

>It's written for people who already think this way! Do you honestly believe Camus changed any minds with his philosophical fiction?
So you're saying that we should only read books that fit in our politics and not be expected to be challenged by a good argument? Only liberals and losers think this way, fucko.

These arguments are fallacious and further prove my point. So what if I'm a liberal? My wife and her son love this book, so you should too.

Dumbass

That isn't what I said. At all. For fuck's sake.

There's a difference between a novel set out to change minds, and a novel intended to be amusement for people who already hold such views.

Is there a difference between books like Animal Farm, OFOTCN, or Invisible Man... And books like slaughterhouse 5 or Candide?

>Hemingway
>sophisticated
Hemingway is specifically known for his lack of sophistication.

anyway, I'm not seeing your point. you like the book, and that's fine, but enjoying a shit book doesn't magically imbue it with literary merit. I probably own more comics than I do novels, but I'm not going to run around pretending they're something they're not.
The book is flat out bad, it was specifically marketed towards millennial pseuds and hit its target demographic with remarkable accuracy. popsci and new atheism and gaming and classic movies and escapism and classic rock and all that self-indulgent trite has a huge audience, but anyone outside that circle isn't going to be affected by it and is more likely not to overlook the cheap plot and flat characters and shaky prose and edgy themes

Is Spielberg really gonna direct an adaptation. Sure would be neat!

Die hard conservative here. Nice try.

I'm saying there's more credit to give to the book than the people of Veeky Forums ever do. It doesn't merit such harsh criticisms. It's not a *shitty* book.

Just because you're not part of the target market (I myself don't fit into many, if any, of those things you listed) doesn't make it a shitty book. I'm not saying it's fantastic or a classic; this whole thread was asking the denizens of Veeky Forums why they go out of their way to hate on a book they don't find appealing

that's fair.
Veeky Forums hates it because it's an incredibly apt embodiment of reddit. it's the perfect validation of every reddit meme.

It's not the worst book I've read, it's not offensively bad, but it's charged with everything Veeky Forums hates and that sways any objectivity in the reaction. If not for the reddit memes this book would have flown completely under the radar as just another sci-fi/fantasy bestseller

I hope not. Good books make for shitty movies.

47 replies later and I finally got a straight answer. thank you.

I disagree with the comparisons to reddit, though, probably because I never go there.

I think the author was aiming for a target market that just happened to overlap with the kind of shit asses who love reddit. That doesn't detract from the book itself, though, and that certainly isn't his fault.

I can explain

It is likely that the average Veeky Forums poster often hears about the book in conversation with casual readers. They grow interest and look it up only to discover it is shallower and more broadly appealing than the books they read. Angry at being unable to find someone to discuss the books they actually want to talk about, the Veeky Forums posters search reviews by those same casual readers and make fun of them because they feel ostracized.

I read this and loved every minute of it. For me it was the type of book I couldn't wait to read more of every chance I could (I'm busy and balance a lot of different geek priorities).

This is the same argument as with video games. Sometimes I don't give a SHIT how "fine art" it is. Am I having fun playing it? Am I enjoying myself?

If the answer to that is a resounding yes, AND it was the author's intent to have an enjoyable story, sounds like a success to me.

Granted not all writing is written to be enjoyable. Some is meant to scare, some is meant to instruct, etc.

I'm not mad, I have only pity for all the pedantic twats in this thread who have allowed themselves to grow this old without maturing along the way. We need something like this for the art of writing in general: youtube.com/watch?v=J7E-aoXLZGY

I'm not part of the target market for fast food but I still know that's shit.

bad distracting attempt at analogy

You summed up how I feel about it. I know it's not amazing, or even particularly good, but damn I enjoyed it. It's a stupid pleasure, but shit he had Leopardon in it.

I got the book because it sounded good and I like old games and references to them, I wasn't exactly expecting Camus or Hemingway. And then the references never stopped fucking coming. Instead of making the plot more accessible or contributing to the telling of the story, they took me out of it and made the book feel cheap and patronizing. It's hackish, and that's before you get into the fact that the plot is a basic cyberpunk story with a YA feel that sucks some of the tension out. The conversational writing keeps it moving though, which is good, and the action bits are fun in that way that over the top anime is. I'm sure the final box office take will be $250M, which is good because his other book had very mixed reviews.

>abloo bloo pedantic twats
Being sincere about liking schlock doesn't make your approach correct, nor does it make others immature, it just means you have different tastes and priorities (and apparently many of them).

Not saying my view is "correct", or even that there exists a "correct" view. Rather just pointing out that the wholesale discounting of others' views (on EITHER side of the argument), including but not limited to—

—is, yes, immature in my opinion.

What in christ is going on in this thread. How about you take your ebin vidya game book and fuck off Cline. It's a piece of shit, everyone knows it's a piece of shit and anyone who enjoys it is a. Piece. Of. Shit.
Stop wasting everyone's time here and go do an AMA or kys or something you absolute bazinga-cunt.

ugh

>Veeky Forums hates it because it's an incredibly apt embodiment of reddit. it's the perfect validation of every reddit meme.

Making it a blight and a cancer on human culture as a whole.

Atrocious, nauseating and cringe.

>my wife and her son
>implying he's not yours as well
>shilling Big Bang Theory Star Wars because fantasy helps you cope with the fact your wife loves the result of another man cumming inside of her with no condom more than you

Welcome to the post-Reddit Veeky Forums

I think Veeky Forums is just incredibly jealous of almost every published author

It's not good. My favorite author is B. S. Johnson. B. S. stands for Bull Shit Johnson. Whoever wrote Ready Player One doesn't have the Johnson.

It took you this long?

I understand appreciate what the author is going for but there are facets within the book that should have been explored. For instance, some autistic billionaire forces an entire generation to like thinks from the 80's. He effectively stole that generations culture. Write something about that. That is more interesting to me than some contest MMO.

Wtf where did you find my 9th grade english paper?

I read it when I was 14. I kinda liked it but still cringed.

Wouldn't recommend desu

tl:dr

This
Top Kek

*teleports behind you* *unsheathes katana*
nothing personnel, kid

Why are you lifting pages from my diary desu?

The author insert is almost off the charts. It feels like I'm reading his own jerk off material.

B-B-B-B-B-B-B-B- BAIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIITTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

You'd know if you read it. I am someone that gives books a lot of leeway, but that one is incredibly bad.

I thought it was fun and enjoyably sentimental. Sometimes books are just entertainment and not much more.

>video game reference as the title

Why would you even bother? Video games are pure cancer to everything they touch

Too fun for you.

This board is spooked beyond reason. It's like a highschool jock calling others fags when all the secretly wants is to suck some cock, but with you retards and reddit.

Anyone who posts on both Veeky Forums and Reddit should just fuck back off to Reddit. We don't want them here.

Who is "we"? When did "we" have the meeting and decide what "we" want?

>Why is this book so despised here?

essential redditcore

You weren't invited because you go on reddit

Said by the character that talks like his monologues are Moby Dick

Him saying that is irony

because I saw someone read it while i was reading infinite jest

I for one am happy that people are pretending to like RPO now. Maybe these meme hate threads will stop and we can talk about literature again.

Just finished this a few days ago i'll give my opinion.

Parts of the book do actually work pretty well (I thought playing the lich in joust was pretty clever).

However that being said, there's way too much of the book where the author just wants to describe a reference and have it pass as good writing. References are better when they do not stop the story if you "get" or "don't get" them. Basically the author had to cover up his bad writing by making references which people might confuse with good writing. It was gratuitous and manipulative.

It's still good advice, even if we're meant to laugh at Polonius when he says it.

The message is 100% correct, all he has to do is write it better. The whole "sorry, kid. Deal with it" ending is bad.

Overall though there are worse passages. That's probably the high point of the book. Somebody should post the quotes where he rambles on and on about "nerd culture" for pages at a time.

You're smarter than 90% of Veeky Forums son. You actually understand that not everything is meant to be high art, that sometimes stories are simply meant to be stories.

lmao faggot. Everyone here started browsing reddit around 2007ish. Only newfags that joined 2009-2013 care about website wars. The ones that joined after that are the nazi's that don't care about any of it.

Is your social life really so bad you cannot find someone outside of Veeky Forums to discuss the pleb shit with?

ad hominem

"One enemy remained, two if got Ready Player One"
-Ernest Cline "Ready Player One"

Wow its probably the single worst novel of the 21st century.

its shounen shit

>DIRECT DIRECT DIRECT
What are you trying to shill here?

Have you read it?

There's good and bad entertainment. Lord of the Rings, the Metro series, ASoIaF and Discworld are good entertainment, while this crap, Fifty Shades, and Twilight are bad.

Just admit you've got shit taste. Nothing wrong with it, unless you're proud of it.

>Terrible prose
>Cliche, pretentious, with bad pacing
>Tryhard and childish
>LITERALLY "Muh 80's nostalgia" the book
>Loved by plebs and reddit for the above reason
>Best criticism I've seen was someone saying that the author wrote this to jerk himself off over his trivial knowledge of 80's entertainment
>The Matrix + Snow Crash + SAO in one badly written mess

If you like this you should end yourself

One problem with people like you is that you don't provide a definition of "good" or "bad". You just label two buckets and throw titles in either.

But the real problem with people like you is that you can't seem to understand that "good" or "bad" shouldn't be used in that way to begin with. It's a spectrum in the eye of the beholder.

Honest men admit this. Varying opinions are wonderful, especially when it comes to art appraisal. When you shut people down with the knee-jerk reaction of "he has shit taste" (whatever that's supposed to mean), you're no better than dogmatic religious apologists. "See no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil" is your internal mantra, and you'll never learn anything that way.

In other words, grow up.