Ready Player Two

I think all the complaints about the first book apply to this one, but extra. This is a big love fest of early video game trivia and other pop culture of the era. But this book throws in some AI apocalypse stuff too, to shake things up. Being a fan of this pop culture stuff, I enjoyed the book. However, I think the author should have looked at a map of Minneapolis, all his directions were backwards.

This book seems to share more of the inner struggles of Wade Watts but maybe it appears that way because I was so focused on, and enjoying the memories I had, from the 80s references. There also seems to me more references, and on much broader subjects, than the first so there was alot here that I couldn't match to a memory of my own.

There is the same ‘blow by blow' detail to explanations and during the quests as the first book and about half-way thru I began skimming to get back to the story line [plus the library's due date is looming].

The book presented some interesting food for thought on digital worlds and lives. I was definitely anxious about how some of this might play out in the real world.

It was a pleasure to hear Wil Wheaton read this story.

This is the second (and probably final) book in this near future, science fiction series. The writer explores the possibility that immersive virtual reality technology will continue to improve. While I look forward to those advances, I can't help being disappointed in how humanity uses this technology in this story. To my thinking, it is unlikely that many thousands of people would spend every waking minute researching and memorizing trivia of fantasy, science fiction, and pop culture from the past. To give a real world example, would you study every detail of the private lives of Bill Gates and Steve Jobs for the possibility of winning a prize? I wouldn't.

Awful book.
Pros:
Semi interesting ending.
A lot of action.
Same flavor as the first one if you liked it.

Cons:
Plot is very similar to the first one.
Boring, over the top pop culture references.
Exaggerated characters (everyone is super sarcastic, super rich, super smart, super strategic and have conquered all of humanity's problems as teenagers within a span of 3 years, all thanks to a VR game)

Executive Summary: I really loved [b:Ready Player One 9969571 Ready Player One (Ready Player One, #1) Ernest Cline https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1500930947l/9969571.SY75.jpg 14863741], but this one just isn't as good. If I had to sum it up in one or two sentences I'd say: More of the same/More of Ernest Cline's favorite things. Depending on when you talk to me I might give this a 3 or 4. I decided to round down when I first finished, so I kept it there, but we'll call it 3.5 stars.Audiobook: Wil Wheaton once again does a great job. I really like his narration, and he fits well for this series. I'm glad they were able to get him back again for this one. This is definitely a series that works well in audio for me.Full ReviewThere is a trend on the internet for some people to spend time mocking something other people love to what I'd consider excess. [b:Ready Player One 9969571 Ready Player One (Ready Player One, #1) Ernest Cline https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1500930947l/9969571.SY75.jpg 14863741] is one of those things. I love the book. I get that other people didn't and I'd agree that some of the criticism of that book is fair.What I don't get is why people spend so much time and energy hating on something. I probably never will. I bring this up because I've seen a lot of hate for this book too. I think it gives those folks something to once again revel in or something.A lot of the same criticism of the first book can easily be applied here. Mr. Cline is not a great writer. There are times when he just seems to be listing stuff he likes. His dialog is often clunky. There are parts of the book that come off as preachy, and parts that come off as ignorant. Personally I think Cline means well, but just falls flat in his execution. He'd probably benefit either from better editing, or consulting people who know more about the subject matter than he does. Probably both.So all of that probably gives the impression that I didn't like this book. Except I did. I liked it for the same reasons I liked [b:Ready Player One 9969571 Ready Player One (Ready Player One, #1) Ernest Cline https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1500930947l/9969571.SY75.jpg 14863741]. I like a lot of the same books, movies, TV and video games Mr. Cline does. I also really like the the idea of the Oasis and the ways it shows both some of the best and worst parts of the internet, social media and gaming/gamer culture.The book started a bit slow, but once it got going I found it pretty fun and kept looking for reasons to keep listening. That said, there isn't really any new ground covered here. I'm not sure what kind of story he could tell that wouldn't have involved another pop-culture influenced puzzle quest, but it would have been interesting to see him try.I'll probably continue to listen to [b:Ready Player One 9969571 Ready Player One (Ready Player One, #1) Ernest Cline https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1500930947l/9969571.SY75.jpg 14863741] every few years, and I'm sure every now and again I'll listen to this one after, but it's not going on my favorite list like its predecessor.So will you like this one? It depends on how much you liked the first one. If you loved it like I did, you'll probably like this one. If you thought the first one just OK, you may want to give this a pass.And if you're one of those people who spend more time dunking on [b:Ready Player One 9969571 Ready Player One (Ready Player One, #1) Ernest Cline https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1500930947l/9969571.SY75.jpg 14863741] than I do talking about how much I like it..well I'm sure there is plenty more here for you to dunk on. Enjoy I guess?

★ ★ ★ 1/2 (rounded up)
This originally appeared at The Irresponsible Reader.
—

Like Marty McFly, I woke up at exactly 10:26 a.m., to the song “Back in Time” by Huey Lewis and the News.

This was courtesy of my vintage flip-clock radio—a Panasonic RC-6015, the model Marty owns in the film. Id had it modified to play the same song at the same time Marty hears it, after he finally makes it back to the future.

I threw back the silk sheets of my king-size bed and lowered my feet to the preheated marble floor. The house computer saw that I was awake and automatically drew back the bedroom's wraparound window shades, revealing a stunning 180-degree view of my sprawling woodland estate, and of the jagged Columbus skyline on the horizon.

I still couldn't quite believe it. Waking up in this room, to this sight, every day. Not long ago, just opening my eyes here had been enough to put a grin on my face and a spring in my step.

But today, it wasn't helping. Today I was just alone, in an empty house, in a world teetering on the brink of collapse.

READY PLAYER TWO

Joust

Ninja Princess

The Great Space Coaster

Sega Ninja

Ninja Princess

Joust

* And no, it's not just because I'm not a Prince fan—I probably like more of his songs than Rush's. Which isn't saying a whole lot.

“Some people define themselves by railing against all of the things they hate, while explaining why everyone else should hate it too. But not me. I prefer to lead with my love—to define myself through joyous yawps of admiration, instead of cynical declarations of disdain. “

READY PLAYER TWO

Ready Player One

Ready Player One

Ready Player One

It is what it is. A sequel to a book that didn't require one. No where near as good as Ready Player One, but I expected as much going into this. Repetition throughout, and the author tends to skim in areas that would otherwise be excellent spots to expand. Felt rushed at times, and overall was what I expected. A sequel to a book that didn't require one.

I thought Ready Player One was the worst thing I'd ever read.

This book poised an intense philosophical question: what could be worse than the worst thing you could imagine? The answer is to take every bad thing from the original, dial it up to 11, and eliminate any possible element of enjoying the character you're reading about. This book is a war crime, and the battlefield is the brains of young adults. This book is an iceberg floating in the Atlantic and my brain was the Titanic. As I listened to this book, my brain cells were the doomed passengers that resorted to throwing themselves off the edge of the ship, hoping against hope that the freezing cold of the abyss would bring the sweet embrace of death just a few moments quicker.

Here is an actual sentence from this book:

“New applications for ONI continued to reveal themselves. For example, it became fashionable for new mothers to make ONI recordings while they were birthing their child so that in a couple decades, that child would be able to play back that recording and experience what it was like giving birth...to themselves.”

Read that sentence one more time. That is in a published book. I want you to really imagine the journey that sentence had to go on in order to make it from Ernest Cline's thoughts to your eyes. First he had to think that sentence was worth writing. Then he had to not cut it during whatever rudimentary editing process this man has (none??). Then he had to show this book to, at the very least, several people- his agent, his publisher, his editor (his editor is a fictional character, I've decided, because evidence indicates they couldn't actually exist, but bare with me). Then all of these people had to read this sentence and go, “Yep, that deserves to assault the eyes and ears of unsuspecting good Samaritans across the globe”. Then this book had to go out to advance reviewers. And these guys are the true heroes, because they weren't even contractually obligated to read this pile of crap. Upon reading this sentence, they should have returned their copies with a nice sticky note that said, “Nope, nope, nope”. But alas, they didn't and so now here we are. I truly don't understand. Does Cline not have a mother? A friend? Could he not have wondered to himself, “Is this something I would want? That anybody would want?”.

I digress. I'm picking on this sentence because it was so revoltingly strange that I wrote it down. I normally don't do that for audiobooks, because it involves having to backtrack several times. That's how bad it was. I was determined to make sure I captured the suffering accurately. But this level of criticism could be applied to almost any sentence in the book, they're all dumb. The amount of references in this book is seemingly doubled from the dizzying amount of references in the first one. The sheer unlikeably and creepiness of the main character is so questionable, I would have assumed it was intentional and that Cline was going to do a redemption arc, but I couldn't wait around to see. I DNF this book, much to my chagrin. Understand that I made it 46 minutes into the movie Cats, so I have quite the tolerance for pain. But this book was not even fun to hate. Anyway, I checked, and nope, no redemption arc, everyone just loves Wade even though he is LITERALLY the villain of this story. Take this quote:
“Now that my avatar worn the robes of Anarak, I was both Omnipotent and invulnerable, so there was literally nothing anybody could do to stop me. I gleefully zeroed out hundreds of trolls in this fashion. If someone talked shit about me, I found them and killed their avatar. If someone posted something hateful about Artemis, I found them and killed their avatar. If someone posted a racist meme about H or a video attacking Shoto's work, I found them and killed their avatar. Usually right after asking them the rhetorical question, ‘who run Bartertown?'”

You know in Titanic, when the ship is about to break in half, and that Evil Butler is standing in the middle and then the ship cracks open and he falls in? That was the neuron that was forcing me to continue reading this book, and he fell into the ruined carapace of my dying brain as I read this sentence. That is our HERO, folks. He never repents. He never compensates. He never faces consequences. He is our Ernest Cline insertion character, and he is infallible.

Skip this book, unless you like pain.

Con tutto l'entusiasmo possibile e immaginabile dopo aver adorato il primo libro pur con tutti i suoi difetti, mi sono buttato a capofitto sul sequel. Il tuffo però è stato sfortunato e sono caduto di testa sugli scogli.
Il primo problema è che questo libro non è niente di più di una minestra riscaldata e allungata all'inverosimile da chili su chili di politically correct che porteranno il caro lettore, anzi, carö lettorö, a un'indigestione di buonismo di quelle memorabili. Tale indigestione, tra l'altro, sarà probabilmente l'unica cosa che mi ricorderò di questo libro da qui a un anno.
Ora vediamo un po' più da vicino l'opera senza spoilerare troppo. La trama è simile a quella del primo (e già qui qualcosa non va), dove un gruppo di “supereroi” svolge una missione tanto segreta quanto improbabile in cui fin dall'inizio l'argomento principale è l'unico dilemma permesso nella società del XXI secolo: sono maschio o femmina? Come ormai succede nella maggior parte delle opere più pubblicizzate, ormai i personaggi non sono più caratterizzati dalla caratura morale, dalla bontà d'animo o dalle conseguenze delle loro azioni. No, ormai tutto ciò non conta più nulla. L'unica missione accettabile è quella di aderire ciecamente al nuovo bipensiero e l'unico dubbio che i personaggi possono permettersi riguarda il fatto di non essere sicuri, anzi, sicurö, appunto, di stare di qua o di là. Guai ad avere un dubbio su altro.
In ogni caso, butto giù il boccone amaro e mi dico, superato il pippone inizia l'azione. Sbagliato. Sbagliatissimo. Il twist della trama sta insieme con lo scotch, anzi, non sta insieme per niente, e si vede da un chilometro che il tutto è stato scritto in funzione di fare un secondo film, ma che la sceneggiatura originale rispettasse fin dall'inizio tutti i canoni per essere una bastonata sui denti di chi lo guarda ma che inspiegabilmente potrebbe fare successo al botteghino.
Passiamo poi ai personaggi. Il protagonista, Wade, è cambiato rispetto al primo libro. Nel primo libro era facile tifare per lui: il classico “sfigato” da videogame da anni Novanta che si innamora, viene ricambiato (che coraggio, l'autore, in questo caso), sfida i videogiochi e salva tutto e tutti. Nel secondo libro Wade è un miliardario simpatico come un calcio nelle parti basse (e la trasformazione potrebbe starci, tutto sommato) che vuole sempre avere ragione e ha sempre ragione. E qui il secondo (anzi il centesimo) problema. Nella vita vera, Art3mis (l'unico personaggio riuscito e credibile sia nel primo, che nel secondo libro) l'avrebbe lasciato affogare nella tazza dei cereali il terzo mattino di convivenza.
Non parliamo poi dei due “santoni” Og e Anorak - definirli grotteschi sarebbe troppo poco. Inoltre, dove nel primo libro il focus era molto sui videogiochi e sui giochi di ruolo, in questo secondo libro il focus è al 95% sui film. Non essendo un cinefilo, ma anche non essendo interessato ai film in generale, molte parti del libro per me sono state noiose e incomprensibili.
Il libro è stato di una noia mortale, non vedevo l'ora che finisse e ho fatto una fatica tremenda a portarlo a termine.
Incredibilmente, comunque, Wade sul finale si rivolge alla defunta madre chiamandola “mamma”. Ammetto che a quel punto ero sicuro che l'avrebbe chiamata “genitore 1”. Questo sussulto di vita, però, è insufficiente per andare oltre la stella.
In una recensione in inglese ho letto: This book should be reserved only for punishing society's most heinous criminals. Non potrei essere più d'accordo. Da una parte è un peccato perché la scrittura è sempre di ottimo livello, ma spero che l'autore prima di tutto non vada avanti con questa storia (ci sarebbero modi meno dolorosi di suicidarsi piuttosto che leggere un eventuale terzo libro) e, soprattutto, prenda un po' di coraggio e si pieghi leggermente meno all'egemonia del politically correct che ha permeato ogni singola pagina di questo terrificante libro.

This book was just a beat down. It was like someone reading the imdb trivia for 80's movies with some obscure video games (since the popular ones were in the first book) thrown in. Everything was described in excruciating details. This book left nothing for the reader to engage with. There was no way for the user to solve any mystery or puzzle. I listened to audiobook read by Will Wheaton and he has made career off his gamer/pop culture cred but he just is not a good narrator.