Ready Player One

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Bob78164
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Ready Player One

#1 Post by Bob78164 » Sat Mar 31, 2018 10:30 am

I saw Ready Player One. The book is one of the very few I’ve read multiple times, a glorious homage to the 1980s that was aimed directly at my particular subculture of geeks. John Scalia famously and aptly described the book as a “nerdgasm.”

The movie was good. Good enough that I’m glad I bought tickets three days in advance and saw it opening night. Certainly good enough that I hope it makes Ernest Cline very, very rich (at least, for a science fiction writer). But the process of adapting the book for the screen lost several aspects of the book that made it so special for me. I’m glad they made the movie and I’m glad I saw it. I just wish they’d been able to be more faithful to the book. —Bob
"Question with boldness even the existence of a God; because, if there be one, he must more approve of the homage of reason than that of blindfolded fear." Thomas Jefferson

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Re: Ready Player One

#2 Post by silverscreenselect » Sat Mar 31, 2018 12:29 pm

I did not read the book, but I didn't think a whole lot of the movie. I just had a hard time buying into the entire premise of a world in which everybody lives in squalor so they can throw what money they have away on video games. I did like the loyalty centers though (seems like the type of concept today's corporate villains would love to introduce), although I'm not sure how playing video games could possibly enable people to work off real world debt.

I guess I'm not the target demographic (Mrs. SSS hated the movie). I would give it about a C-.
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Re: Ready Player One

#3 Post by Bob78164 » Sat Mar 31, 2018 10:28 pm

silverscreenselect wrote:I did not read the book, but I didn't think a whole lot of the movie. I just had a hard time buying into the entire premise of a world in which everybody lives in squalor so they can throw what money they have away on video games. I did like the loyalty centers though (seems like the type of concept today's corporate villains would love to introduce), although I'm not sure how playing video games could possibly enable people to work off real world debt.

I guess I'm not the target demographic (Mrs. SSS hated the movie). I would give it about a C-.
You have cause and effect reversed. The idea is that everyone spends their time in the Oasis because they live in squalor, not the other way around. But the puzzles in the book felt much more genuine — the movie puzzles were much too easy for me to believe solutions would have gone undiscovered for years.

By the way, some months after publication, Kline announced that he’d hidden an Easter egg in the book. The prize for winning his game was a working De Lorean. —Bob
"Question with boldness even the existence of a God; because, if there be one, he must more approve of the homage of reason than that of blindfolded fear." Thomas Jefferson

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Re: Ready Player One

#4 Post by silverscreenselect » Sun Apr 01, 2018 7:54 am

Bob78164 wrote: By the way, some months after publication, Kline announced that he’d hidden an Easter egg in the book. The prize for winning his game was a working De Lorean. —Bob
I dimly remember someone writing a book back in the old traditional publishing days about 30 years back that was a picture book that had clues to a treasure that was a $10,000 prize for the first person who found it. As I recall, the book was fairly popular, and I'm guessing somebody eventually found it.
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Re: Ready Player One

#5 Post by Estonut » Sun Apr 01, 2018 3:43 pm

silverscreenselect wrote:
Bob78164 wrote: By the way, some months after publication, Kline announced that he’d hidden an Easter egg in the book. The prize for winning his game was a working De Lorean.
I dimly remember someone writing a book back in the old traditional publishing days about 30 years back that was a picture book that had clues to a treasure that was a $10,000 prize for the first person who found it. As I recall, the book was fairly popular, and I'm guessing somebody eventually found it.
You really should learn how to use your computer. The first hit under a Google search of "book that had clues to a treasure that was a $10,000 prize for the first person who found it" is for a 1982 book that sounds like what you're talking about, except that there were 12 prizes worth about $1,000 each. To date, only 2 have been found.
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Re: Ready Player One

#6 Post by silverscreenselect » Sun Apr 01, 2018 5:24 pm

Estonut wrote:
silverscreenselect wrote:
Bob78164 wrote: By the way, some months after publication, Kline announced that he’d hidden an Easter egg in the book. The prize for winning his game was a working De Lorean.
I dimly remember someone writing a book back in the old traditional publishing days about 30 years back that was a picture book that had clues to a treasure that was a $10,000 prize for the first person who found it. As I recall, the book was fairly popular, and I'm guessing somebody eventually found it.
You really should learn how to use your computer. The first hit under a Google search of "book that had clues to a treasure that was a $10,000 prize for the first person who found it" is for a 1982 book that sounds like what you're talking about, except that there were 12 prizes worth about $1,000 each. To date, only 2 have been found.
I may have gotten a couple of books confused, but I really didn't want to look it up this morning (I've since done a bit of research). The original book and the one I was thinking of was called Masquerade, a 1979 picture book by Kit Williams that told a story about a hare carrying a treasure from the moon to the sun. The prize was an actual 18-carat gold bejeweled hare that Williams buried in an English public park. The clues were hidden inside the book's illustrations.

The puzzle was eventually solved in 1982 by what was later revealed to be a person acting on inside information from Williams' ex-girlfriend to find the approximate location and then using metal detectors in the park to find the exact location.

The success of Masquerade led to a number of imitators, the early ones in book form and later ones in a variety of media. Some have been solved and some haven't.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Masquerade_(book)
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