"Ready Player Two" by Ernest Cline

 

Publisher:  Ballantine Books

Copyright: 2020

ISBN: 9781524761332

While I really enjoyed "Ready Player One", I found this sequel to be extremely hard to get into. One reason for this was the gigantic information dump that is essentially the first two chapters. Most authors have heard the phrase "Show Don't Tell", but unfortunately this essential rule of thumb for writing wasn't followed in this sequel to the first book.

The story takes off directly after Ready Player One ends, but as mentioned above the seemingly endless backstory of what happened over the next few years to the various winners of the game completely caused me to lose interest in the book.

The premise seemed good, but ...

"Fantasy World-Building: A Guide toDeveloping Mythic Worlds and Legendary Creatures" by Mark A. Nelson

Published: Mineola, New York: Dover Publications, Inc
Copyright: 2019
ISBN: 9780486828657
Physical Details: vii, 151 pages : illustrations (chiefly colour) ; 28 cm

I read this book when I was looking for resource material about world-building. While Fantasy World-Building is a very interesting book that would be a fascinating resource for anyone who is into gaming design, and it would be a great for illustrators and graphic artists, however most of it wasn't able assist me with my research to any great extent.

The author discusses finding ideas, and how to borrow these ideas and concepts from history. He goes into detail with regard to habitat, climate, terrain, wildlife, and much more. I was however quite interested with regard to his insights on societies, and such.

I would recommend this book to anybody who is into illustration, gaming, or who would like to get into this field.

"Armada" by Ernest Cline

Publisher:New York : Crown, [2015]
Edition:First edition.
Copyright Date:©2015
ISBN: 9780804137256
Characteristics: 355 pages

As in "Ready, Player One" the general storyline is connected to the gaming world (one of Mr. Cline's passions), but this time rather than old style arcade games, the author puts you in the seat of a first-person flight simulator, and in the body of Zack Lightman, a high school student in Oregon that finds out rather suddenly that it isn't just a game.

At first he thinking he's hallucinating when he glances out the window in math class, and sees an unidentified flying object. But the problem is he can identify it. It is a ship he has encountered and destroyed hundreds of times when playing a game called Armada. It's a Sobrukai Glave fighter, which should only exist as so many pixels on his computer - but this one is real, and it wasn't likely to be dropping in to say hello.

What going on? Zack doesn't know and keeps things quiet, while slowing thinking he's going crazy, until a couple of days later at school he and everybody is shocked when real life proof lands in front of him and the rest of the student body and he is recruited to defend the Earth.

Armada is a fantastic second novel, and personally I can't wait to see what Mr. Cline has in store for his next book. Rumour has it that may be being made int a movie as well.

"Ready Player One" by Ernest Cline

Publisher:New York : Crown Publishers, [2011]
Edition:First edition.
Copyright Date:©2011
ISBN: 9780307887443
Characteristics: 374 pages

I've read this book a couple of times, but never got around to reviewing it until now. Why? I have no idea, because I think it is a great novel (Ernest Cline's first by the way), and well worth the read.

The story is set in a dystopian but not too distant future (2044) where the planet has essentially gone to hell in many ways including: environmentally and socially. The unemployment rate is ridiculous, and so on. Pretty much everybody now lives and interacts though a virtual utopian world called OASIS. One of the inventors of OASIS has died, and has left his entire fortune to the one person who can solve a series of puzzles that he has built into the OASIS (an easter egg to those who are gamers). However, these puzzles can only be solved by an intimate knowledge of 1980s culture.

At the start of the story it has been a number of years since the inventor had died, and virtually everybody thought the puzzles would never be solved. But when the protagonist Wade Watts, stumbles onto the solution to the first clue and solves the problem. This triggers some unfortunate events such as his discovery that there are numerous people in the world willing to kill to learn the secret he has uncovered, and where this leads him is a fascinating look into 1980s culture in the form of video games, television, music, etc.

This book is well worth the read. It was made into a movie that was released in 2018 starring Tye Sheridan, Olivia Cooke, and Ben Mendelsohn, but I haven't seen it yet so I can only hope that Mr. Spielberg has done a good job.