RE: Eagle Time Reading List
11-22-2015, 06:04 AM
(This post was last modified: 11-22-2015, 06:05 AM by Palamedes.)
So it's sci fi, eh?
Don't have a lot of time right now and haven't had a chance to read any decent ones over the past few months, but I really enjoyed Ready Player One way back when I read it.
The basic setup is we've got a dystopian cyberpunk world that you almost never hear about because some reclusive neurotic genius built a (free) virtual reality MMORPG. Said RNG died shortly after getting it all up and running, but designed a series of quests to gain ownership of his creation based on the 80's retro gaming he loved as a kid. Years later and nobody's figured out anything about the first quest, the clue being too vague and the online world being too ludicrously massive.
Enter our hero, who after a surprisingly solid introduction and a later chapter that was designed to make him look cool and experienced but instead makes him come off like an asshole, is dicking around and building his decent characterization back up after that mistake accidentally becomes the first guy to find (and solve) the first puzzle. Of course he can't keep his trap shut (also a scoreboard pops up with only his name on it) so a race begins between people like him (free internet good guys) and some megacorp (privatization bad guys) to finish the remaining quests and get to the end.
It's not the perfect novel. Morality is extremely black and white, and there aren't any major surprises. The end's a little anticlimactic. All of that said, the characters are mostly solid (outside of that shit chapter I mentioned) and it's extremely good natured and fun. It was also an incredible breath of fresh air from the oppressive tide of (admittingly good) dark and/or edgy sci-fi that I had gotten into at the time.
~~~~~~~~
A similar novel, in the vein of games nostalgia, is Bedlam.
Dude McHeroguy gets trapped in a shitty old videogame, and has to figure out a way back into real life. Conceptually it's a little more solid than Ready Player One, as instead of an 'anything goes' virtual world everything is based on real (and one or two imaginary) videogames. It's also not quite as straightforward, and has quite a few clever bits. That said, it's not the one I'd recommend if you'd only read one of these. Though I didn't catch it until about halfway through, the novel has less of a celebratory attitude towards nostalgia as it does a douchy 'only pre-95 games are any good' one. I found the end to be a total bust as well, possibly one of the worst ones I've seen in a long time, and it's harder to ignore the flaws.
tl;dr: Ready Player One is good if you're into lighter fiction, would just like a change from more serious stuff, or enjoy goofy stories about video games. Bedlam is also a good read as long as you can deal with the slightly stuck-up narration and the end.
I have others (sci-fi and otherwise) but no time or ability to properly do a summary. Give me a shoutout if you want to talk about these or other books though, this is really nice for someone like me who wants to get back into reading after a couple of months of time/commitment issues. Except for you Schazer, since I already read Snow Crash and your summary more or less mirrors what I got out of it (way more fun by the way if you just had to read cyberpunk that came before it for those who are interested and also hate themselves).
Don't have a lot of time right now and haven't had a chance to read any decent ones over the past few months, but I really enjoyed Ready Player One way back when I read it.
The basic setup is we've got a dystopian cyberpunk world that you almost never hear about because some reclusive neurotic genius built a (free) virtual reality MMORPG. Said RNG died shortly after getting it all up and running, but designed a series of quests to gain ownership of his creation based on the 80's retro gaming he loved as a kid. Years later and nobody's figured out anything about the first quest, the clue being too vague and the online world being too ludicrously massive.
Enter our hero, who after a surprisingly solid introduction and a later chapter that was designed to make him look cool and experienced but instead makes him come off like an asshole, is dicking around and building his decent characterization back up after that mistake accidentally becomes the first guy to find (and solve) the first puzzle. Of course he can't keep his trap shut (also a scoreboard pops up with only his name on it) so a race begins between people like him (free internet good guys) and some megacorp (privatization bad guys) to finish the remaining quests and get to the end.
It's not the perfect novel. Morality is extremely black and white, and there aren't any major surprises. The end's a little anticlimactic. All of that said, the characters are mostly solid (outside of that shit chapter I mentioned) and it's extremely good natured and fun. It was also an incredible breath of fresh air from the oppressive tide of (admittingly good) dark and/or edgy sci-fi that I had gotten into at the time.
~~~~~~~~
A similar novel, in the vein of games nostalgia, is Bedlam.
Dude McHeroguy gets trapped in a shitty old videogame, and has to figure out a way back into real life. Conceptually it's a little more solid than Ready Player One, as instead of an 'anything goes' virtual world everything is based on real (and one or two imaginary) videogames. It's also not quite as straightforward, and has quite a few clever bits. That said, it's not the one I'd recommend if you'd only read one of these. Though I didn't catch it until about halfway through, the novel has less of a celebratory attitude towards nostalgia as it does a douchy 'only pre-95 games are any good' one. I found the end to be a total bust as well, possibly one of the worst ones I've seen in a long time, and it's harder to ignore the flaws.
tl;dr: Ready Player One is good if you're into lighter fiction, would just like a change from more serious stuff, or enjoy goofy stories about video games. Bedlam is also a good read as long as you can deal with the slightly stuck-up narration and the end.
I have others (sci-fi and otherwise) but no time or ability to properly do a summary. Give me a shoutout if you want to talk about these or other books though, this is really nice for someone like me who wants to get back into reading after a couple of months of time/commitment issues. Except for you Schazer, since I already read Snow Crash and your summary more or less mirrors what I got out of it (way more fun by the way if you just had to read cyberpunk that came before it for those who are interested and also hate themselves).