Ready Player Two OUT NOW

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gangweedfan said:
I did not have a nerd-gasm from reading ready player one I had deep sense of shame coming from a hack like ernest cline being associated with rush. That entire section was cringe.
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Well, i did. Depends on how often you cranked 2112 to the point of pissing off your parents i guess. Yeah Cline is a hack, i won't deny that. Ready Player 1 as I said was bubblegum, no one's gonna confuse Ernest Cline for John Steinbeck or anything, but fuck me it was TASTY bubblegum.
 
Oh yeah, also, here's my favorite part.

Wade's girlfriend dumps him at the start of the book. A literal week after they started dating.

The tranny debuts with hints that she'll be his new girlfriend, but nah, she's barely in the book and gets killed delivering the Dorkslayer. It's not a setback in the slightest.
 
So, will this book even be enjoyable to someone that hasn't seen what Cline references? Like, instead of Ernest Cline actually providing a proper description, he just says "oh, yeah, what happened was just like what happened from this other, better thing," and moves the fuck on. I remember getting a kick out of the first when I was in college, but I only read it once. Reading excerpts from this one, it feels like there's less of a plot, and even more of Ernest just listing the products he's consumed, and a lot of what could be interesting is glossed over, like Wade going full authoritarian dictator, and straight up decimating anyone who dares talk shit about him. Actually interesting concepts about the way absolute power can corrupt an individual? Nah, son, here's three fucking chapters on Prince, and we're just going to gloss over all the horrible shit our main character is doing in favour of another fetch quest. Oh, and the Wonka-esque figure you remember fondly from the first one? Yeah, he was using cripples as human guinea pigs, and was a total shitbag lmao. Whenever I feel slightly insecure about my own writing abilities, I just read a bit of Ernest Cline and think "maybe my writing isn't all that great, but at least it's better than this."
 
Jar-Jar Fanboy said:
So, will this book even be enjoyable to someone that hasn't seen what Cline references?
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No.

Jar-Jar Fanboy said:
Reading excerpts from this one, it feels like there's less of a plot, and even more of Ernest just listing the products he's consumed, and a lot of what could be interesting is glossed over, like Wade going full authoritarian dictator, and straight up decimating anyone who dares talk shit about him. Actually interesting concepts about the way absolute power can corrupt an individual? Nah, son, here's three fucking chapters on Prince, and we're just going to gloss over all the horrible shit our main character is doing in favour of another fetch quest. Oh, and the Wonka-esque figure you remember fondly from the first one? Yeah, he was using cripples as human guinea pigs, and was a total shitbag lmao. Whenever I feel slightly insecure about my own writing abilities, I just read a bit of Ernest Cline and think "maybe my writing isn't all that great, but at least it's better than this."
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Okay, a bit more seriously, the big thing is that he still suffers from piling references over descriptions. So when I read it, I kept not picturing what he was talking about, and it got worse in the Prince chapters because he's basically fanboying harder for him than he did for Halliday last time.

The worst part is that he sends the tranny out of the book to find the legendary sword that can kill NPCs, only because it's going on in the literal fucking void of space [the OASIS apparently has a special zone to generate more zones infinitely so it never runs out of space].

Oh, and maybe this is a personal thing, but for whatever reason, he decided that the tranny should be in a group called 'Low Five'. Because the heroes were the 'High Five', you see.

To a degree, this quest is even worse than the last one, and I don't mean just due to the amount of effort spent.

See, the only two people even capable of taking part in the competition this time are Wade and Halliday's ex-best friend, Og. Og doesn't want to take part in it because he knows what Halliday did and is pissed off about it, but he's forced to. Everybody else in the world, apparently, is stuck watching this whole quest and can't do shit, as proven when Wade offers a billion dollars to whoever helps him get it, and it turns out the tranny figured the clue out by sheer luck because Wade's head is stuck up his anus and he's literally doing this because he doesn't want to think about his breakup. For three years.

Actually, if anyone read the first book, we have to follow the same Wade who had just been dumped by a girl who wasn't even his girlfriend, with the only difference being that instead of being ashamed he bought a suit to have cybersex with, he indulges in it now because it feels 'right' if you're actually experiencing it in the body of someone else. Apparently, this is what made him woke: getting to be the woman in the memories of a sex scene.
 
F48AD07D-5229-43E2-BBE7-C8D8E0F334AD.jpeg

Huh, I didn’t know Lowtax was in this.
 
GentlemanFaggot said:
Mobius? Isn't that name only used in the dead comics?

Cline better watch out, Ken Penders might have won the rights to that name and if so, the most litigiously powerful Sonic autist in the universe will be coming for him.
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Eh, sort off and kinda off. It was used in some of the games, so seems it may have been adopted by SEGA despite Penders being the shrilling wanker that he is. Also, pretty sure Penders is still busy losing his shit of anyone using more Echidna characters and not getting his comic off the ground.
 
gamercoffin.png
He's got a fucking tactical gamercoffin(TM) that instakills anyone who disturbs him while he's busy gaming.
This is homestuck level shit I'd come up with when I was 8 years old.

"NO MOTHER. I SHALL NOT BE GOING TO SCHOOL TODAY! GAMER SEX ANDROID! CAST MAGIC MISSILE!"
 
Coolio55 said:
View attachment 1749164
He's got a fucking tactical gamercoffin(TM) that instakills anyone who disturbs him while he's busy gaming.
This is homestuck level shit I'd come up with when I was 8 years old.

"NO MOTHER. I SHALL NOT BE GOING TO SCHOOL TODAY! GAMER SEX ANDROID! CAST MAGIC MISSILE!"
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Oh, this is ridiculous enough.

The reason why he needs this is because it lets him take part in a real world final battle despite being stuck in a Sord Ass Offline scenario where he's literally starting to suffer brain damage from overuse of the super VR device that Halliday's insane AI copy trapped everyone in. He uses it to destroy a whole army of real life drones with all those weapons in a few paragraphs. And he claims that it counts as much as him risking his life as his ex-girlfriend and his secret service bodyguard are, when I don't think he really gets at risk at any time.
 
Ready Player One was Cline's pathetic masturbatory fantasy about becoming rich and famous for knowing about He-Man and Family Ties, Ready Player Two "seems like", well it is his masturbatory fantasies about all the epic things he'd do once he owned the world and was in charge of everything.

Ready Player Two is all, from what I've skimmed, about the obnoxious protagonist from the first novel turning into a weird Silicon Valley sociopath tycoon except he's still portrayed as the protagonist who whines about people being mean to him online just cause he's a trillionaire who owns the world - which is unintentionally funnier than any of Cline's attempts at deliberate humor.

Ernest Cline is like if Moviebob and Chuck Wendig were fused into a single being.
 
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Coolio55 said:
View attachment 1749164
He's got a fucking tactical gamercoffin(TM) that instakills anyone who disturbs him while he's busy gaming.
This is homestuck level shit I'd come up with when I was 8 years old.

"NO MOTHER. I SHALL NOT BE GOING TO SCHOOL TODAY! GAMER SEX ANDROID! CAST MAGIC MISSILE!"
Click to expand...
It just sounds like he smashed together Heavily-Armed Pokey and the Absolutely Safe Capsule.
 
Commander X said:
Ready Player One was Cline's pathetic masturbatory fantasy about becoming rich and famous for knowing about He-Man and Family Ties, Ready Player Two "seems like", well it is his masturbatory fantasies about all the epic things he'd do once he was owned the world and was in charge of everything.

Ready Player Two is all, from what I've skimmed, about the obnoxious protagonist from the first novel turning into a weird Silicon Valley sociopath tycoon except he's still portrayed as the protagonist who whines about people being mean to him online just cause he's a trillionaire who owns the world - which is unintentionally funnier than any of Cline's attempts at deliberate humor.

Ernest Cline is like if Moviebob and Chuck Wendig were fused into a single being.
Click to expand...
I do have to hand it to the guy: He was able to write and publish a entire book all about getting back at the people who said his first book was stupid and that he is a shitty writer.
 
Ready Player One was kind of fascinating to me because I really thought it was meant as sort of a satire on modern escapism. I actually really liked bits of the setting in the real world, like a bus ride where all the passengers were glued into VR headsets while the world crumbled to shit around them, and thought it was leading to an epilogue where everyone breaks out of their stupor and tries to fix reality instead of playing with their stupid fucking bing bing wahoo 80s toys. Then in the second act the real world becomes irrelevant and it becomes abundantly clear that Ernest Cline is just the archetype of a soyboy redditor and this was his own pop culture fantasy, which is in a way an even funnier accidental statement on escapism.

Kind of want to read RP2 from this mindset, I'd be almost disappointed if it became at all self aware though.
 
I'll admit, I have not read Ready Player One and have no interest in doing so. I saw the movie on TV out of boredom last year and to be honest, don't remember too much about it aside from the ridiculous CGI.

But I really think the uproar over the book was an autistic shitfest from both sides and before the sequel came out, the autism was even worse from those who hated it than from those who liked it. At least at first, it felt that way.

I always figured Ready Player One was supposed to be a story of unironic and sincere escapism, and to be totally honest, I have no problem with that. Escapist fiction and escapism isn't inherently bad and I think a lot of people sperged out way too hard over that specific element.

Yes, Ernest Cline is a total hack but I think people got A-Loggy and overreacted to the fact it was just escapism and was entertainment for the sake of entertainment, with no real intent of being intellectual or "deep".

When it comes to escapist fiction, "Don't Like, Don't Read" should be in full effect and I honestly think that sincere and unironic enjoyment of escapist entertainment isn't a bad thing so long as you're varied and also enjoy other things as well. Not everything has to be intellectual, deep, or artsy. But not everything has to be a litany of consoomer BS as well. Everything in balance, as it were.

The real problem with Ready Player One wasn't that it was an escapist 80's nostalgia fest, but that Ernest Cline is an unironic Reddit beardo and a hack who tried to make it into something more than it was, up to and including writing this unnecessary sequel. A lot of the initial criticism from the woke clickbait mills like Vox and Buzzfeed really came off as "Liking things is for spergs"-tier pseudo-intelllectual smugness and was as equally cringe as the excerpts of Cline's writing posted in this thread

If he took the approach of "This is a book of escapist entertainment for entertainment's sake and if you're looking for some deep meaning in it, you've got some issues" and was up front about wanting to write a pop culture novel to read on a slow weekend for shits and giggles, I think it'd be a lot less cringe-inducing.

Instead, Ernest Cline is a textbook consoomer complete with the beard and glasses and isn't just content with writing an escapist entertainment novel. He decided to take his book seriously and then write an awful sequel as well.

Consequently, Ready Player One, its unwanted sequel, Ernest Cline, and the detractors of it are all a vortex of pretentious pseudo-intellectualism and smug stupidity.

Sincere and unironic enjoyment of genre fiction and escapism doesn't make one a consoomer

But only liking escapist entertainment and corporate franchises does make you one.


Hating fun for fun's sake doesn't make you a mature intellectual either. It's an equal yet opposite kind of immature pseudo-intellectualism cloaked in cynicism and ironic snark and is just the opposite side of the same coin that Joss Whedon, the Reddit beardos, and the consoomers are on.

Escapism, fun, and unironic sincere enjoyment of things is fine and not everything has to be some kind of serious and intellectual "deep" statement of artistic merit. It's okay to like things and have fun. But don't be a consoomer and be varied in your tastes.


TLDR - Ernest Cline is a sperg, the "liking things is for spergs" crowd are just as autistic and it's okay to have fun even if it's "immature" and escapist so long as you have other interests to balance it out. Variety is the spice of life.
 
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