|
Honestly guys. This book.
This crazy-ass, so insane it might just be the future, messed up, mortifyingly depressing, speechlessly joyful book. It's the best.
It’s the year 2044, and the real world is an ugly place.
Like most of humanity, Wade Watts escapes his grim surroundings by spending his waking hours jacked into the OASIS, a sprawling virtual utopia that lets you be anything you want to be, a place where you can live and play and fall in love on any of ten thousand planets.
And like most of humanity, Wade dreams of being the one to discover the ultimate lottery ticket that lies concealed within this virtual world. For somewhere inside this giant networked playground, OASIS creator James Halliday has hidden a series of fiendish puzzles that will yield massive fortune—and remarkable power—to whoever can unlock them.
For years, millions have struggled fruitlessly to attain this prize, knowing only that Halliday’s riddles are based in the pop culture he loved—that of the late twentieth century. And for years, millions have found in this quest another means of escape, retreating into happy, obsessive study of Halliday’s icons. Like many of his contemporaries, Wade is as comfortable debating the finer points of John Hughes’s oeuvre, playing Pac-Man, or reciting Devo lyrics as he is scrounging power to run his OASIS rig.
And then Wade stumbles upon the first puzzle.
Suddenly the whole world is watching, and thousands of competitors join the hunt—among them certain powerful players who are willing to commit very real murder to beat Wade to this prize. Now the only way for Wade to survive and preserve everything he knows is to win. But to do so, he may have to leave behind his oh-so-perfect virtual existence and face up to life—and love—in the real world he’s always been so desperate to escape.
A world at stake.
A quest for the ultimate prize.
Are you ready?
Think 'Charlie and the Chocolate Factory' meets 'Summer Wars' with a dollop of 'The Road' and 'Bladerunner', a flood of John Hughes, a sprinkling of 'Back to the Future'. A helluva lot of Advanced Dungeons & Dragons: 'TOMB OF HORRORS'.
I'm about one third through and I'm addicted. I can't remember the last time I enjoyed a book this much.
Any other Gunters here?
|
And finished! Quick read (especially if you can't put it down.)
Overall: 8 out of 10. Wasn't quite as predictable as I thought it would be going into the read. I was expecting a rather typical cookie cutter story, but was pleasantly surprised. The book actually threw me for a couple loops.
Was also kind of surprised to see that Mr. Cline had already started writing a screenplay for this. I can easily see it going both ways: either being a very good movie or REALLY being a stinker. They'd need to pour some serious money into the (many) OASIS scenes to make it top notch.
I'd also shudder to think of the amount of Copyright money they'd need to shell out to use the massive number of movie, TV, music and video game references throughout the book.
|
Note: the audiobook of this is also read by Wil Wheaton... It was a really good choice to have someone that the listener knows is/was involved in many of the things reading... it adds something to the inflection....
the question for the movie is how many of the licenses that they'll need will they get?
Yep! I read this too after seeing a recommendation for it from Monty Cook on his website. I would recommend it to anyone who grew up in the '80s in particular.
|
|
And looks like Mr. Cline has finished his script and sent it to Mr. Eric Eason at Warner Bros for refinement in Jan.
Also worth noting, they're already running into liscensing trouble, as a few of us here talked about. Interesting since even when I was reading the book I was thinking about what a cool movie it would make. Then I got to where he mentions avatars flying around the OASIS in BSG Vipers and X-Wings... my first thought was "X-Wings? That means Lucas IP... no way."
I still think they could remain very true to the book without stepping on other folks' IP though. The story of the book was what I found most engaging, not necessarily all the 80s references (though those were cool too. lol)
|
|
It would make an utterly fantastic film. If done right, one of the battles, where Mecha-godzilla and the Evangelions face off against eighties Japanese mecha could be utterly brilliant.
So many licenses though... it'd be a struggle.
I finished it in about four days. It was a wonderful adventure, but there was so much scope for the narrative to become darker and more uncompromising. There seems to be a rich vein of 'nostalgia vs reality' battle that's going through the entire text but...