Yeah, I’m late to the party on this one. Actually, I’m usually late to the party–one of these days I’m gonna show up before the party starts and pass out from tequila before you all even walk through the door and you’re gonna be shocked. (Just kidding, I hate tequila.) Anyway, I’ve been curious about this book since I first started hearing about it on CBR, and now with the imminent release of the major motion picture, I decided I’d better jump on it in […]
Comfort re-read #1.
Comfort re-read this over the weekend when The Dark Tower was kicking my ass. It did its job admirably. Well, actually, I will confess that the bleak atmosphere of Cline’s 2045 wasn’t as comforting as it usually is because all the bleakness and decay felt a lot less imaginary and removed than it has in the past. But the gamified storyline and the sheer pleasure of solving puzzles and having adventures and beating the corrupt bad guy in order to win the day was still really fucking […]
Into the OASIS
I actually first read this book, Ready Player One, by Ernest Cline, a couple of years ago. And, at that time, I only gave it four stars. I thought it was good, and sometimes even great, but uneven. Although I was familiar with a lot of the RPG gaming references and 80s movie references, the arcade and video game references were, for the most part, completely over my head. And the references to Japanese cartoon and robots were on a different planet. So, I didn’t […]
More space than fantasy is not as much my thing
I loved Ready Player One, so when I saw another book by Ernest Cline, I grabbed it. Armada is very similar, but not quite as great. It’s got the fun mix of characters, a good geeky premise, and adventure, but it just doesn’t quite have the sparkle that the other story does. I wonder if maybe I didn’t love Armada as much because I was comparing it to its predecessor, and the significant parallels between the books make that really easy to do. Both books […]