Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

Trying desperately to control my breathing, I rounded another pile of vaguely eighties-themed debris and collapsed at its base. Distantly, I could hear him. "ISN'T PAC-MAN COOL?" screamed several of Ernest Cline's mouths as his amorphous body slopped and glooped down another aisle of dusty, faded neon colors. "I WANT TO BE VERY GOOD AT PAC-MAN. THAT WOULD BE GREAT. I LOVE STAR WARS. I LOVE DUNGEONS AND DRAGONS." I frantically scanned the culture dump for anything I could use to protect myself; finding a copy of Astrosmash, I wound up and heaved it with all my might. It clattered to the ground and I heard his mass shift direction, oozing wetly toward it. "THE INTELLIVISION HAD A VERY UNUSUAL CONTROLLER. IT WAS INTERESTING. I WILL TELL YOU ABOUT IT IN EXCRUCIATING DETAIL." I had discovered, here in the landfill of our childhood interests, that Ernest Cline and I were different people, beyond the obvious fact that I am a mostly standard-issue if somewhat unfortunate-looking human being and he is a gelatinous orb with many grasping tentacles, none of which he uses to craft decent fiction. Some time bought, I drew myself up, and fled. ---- In the case of science fiction, the supergenre into which Ready Player One most neatly fits, worldbuilding is usually expected to take place first, setting being as important a character as the humans that occupy a science fiction narrative. Cline sidesteps this by gleefully cutting and pasting the work of more talented creators, most prominently Neal Stephenson's Metaverse. Snow Crash was a comedic deconstruction of the subgenre of cyberpunk, and so naturally its elements are derivative, but where Snow Crash pokes fun at how human nature would affect an anything-goes digital environment (with, as it turns out, eerie accuracy), Ready Player One winds up being terrible cross-universe fanfiction. Cline doesn't bother with trying to stand atop giants' shoulders and instead makes mud pies in their footprints. A character getting zapped inside an arcade game? Sure, that's here. He flies around in an X-Wing? I guess so! A novelization of the motion picture WarGames? That's weird, and stupid, but definitely a thing that happens in Ready Player One's pages. Were there any introspection involved, there might be some redemption possible. Why do these things matter? That's never established in any out-of-the-narrative sense, which leads me to believe that, hey, maybe everything Cline enjoys is wasteful crap. There is no deeper meaning to any of this, and the reader can derive nothing of value from the study of kitschy throwback nonsense. Indeed, there is a sense of desperation present in the invention of a prize that can only be won by knowing an enormous amount of genuinely worthless geeky eighties trivia. Unlike Charlie and the Chocolate Factory's rewarding of virtue and punishment of vice, it's enough in the world of Ready Player One to be able to rattle off facts like a Wikipedia page given flesh. ---- The dump stretched in every direction as far as I could see. I wearily trudged forward through the still air, carefully negotiating an aisle of precariously stacked Rush albums. Momentarily out of danger, I examined the heaps of artifacts around me. Was there anything of value? There was nothing. There was nothing. I froze at a distant roar. "I KNOW EVERY LINE OF MONTY PYTHON AND THE HOLY GRAIL. DO YOU WANT TO HEAR IT? I WILL RECITE IT." I had to pick up the pace. I had to escape. ---- Maybe some of this would be forgivable in the presence of strong writing, but Ernest Cline's prose is straightforward and dull. Outside of the mildly interesting opening setting of the book, a vertically-oriented trailer park, descriptions of environments and people are at best sparse and at worst nonexistent. The dialog is simplistic and usually centered on recitations of trivia. I dragged myself through every sentence, and after finishing realized that sizable portions of the novel can be entirely skipped without anything interesting being missed. The aching stupidity continues until the book's final third, when the protagonist is imprisoned by the villains and the story takes the form of a conventional thriller. Ironically, this respite from the barrage of nonsense is the story's high point, with higher stakes that lulled me into caring slightly about what happened. There's also a brief exploration of how the anonymity afforded by the internet can influence how we view and interact with one another. (Maybe Cline's glistening nucleus could shape something worth reading if its toys were taken away for a while?) Unfortunately, we're abruptly thrown back into a giant robot fight. (Oh well.) Perhaps most disturbing is the superficial, mercenary nature of all the interactions in the book. The main character makes acquaintances who are also seeking the prize. The main character gains respect because he is a frontrunner in winning the prize. The main character's biggest instance of maturation is when he stops having sex with a doll. Cline mistakes shared interests for friendships. The (entirely unnecessary) romantic subplot is shallow, awkward, and uncomfortable. This is all unpleasant and leaves the reader with no one to root for or care about. ---- On my third attempt I finally heaved myself over the fence and, after picking myself up on the other side, staggered up the slope, breathing in the rich aromas of the earth beneath my feet, of the wildflowers opening in the sunlight, of the clean, warm air. I turned back. Distantly I could see Cline's tentacles writhing over the heaps as he creeps down an aisle of nothing important. "DONKEY KONG IS GOOD," he bellowed, and a cluster of birds burst forth from atop a nearby tree. I felt regret that I could not share in his joy and even more relief that I could find joy outside his prison.