08-30-2015, 07:59 AM
Half way through this book, I just wanted it to be over. Yes, it's a book and I could have stopped reading, but I kept hoping for some amazing turn around and it never happened.
Much like Cline did in Ready Player One (<!-- l --><a class="postlink-local" href="http://brotherhoodofdoom.com/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=2397&p=13847#p13847">viewtopic.php?f=8&t=2397&p=13847#p13847</a><!-- l -->), mines our past pop cultural obsessions and weaves a story around them. Again, the book is centered on video games. In this case the whole world is playing two massively popular video games. One is a ground based adventure about defending the Earth from Aliens. The other is a space based adventure about defending the Earth from Aliens called Armada.
You all know what happens, right? The video games are actually training grounds for an actual alien invasion. Basically, all of pop culture has been prepping us for this invasion since 1960. All facets of media, especially movies and video games have been mentally preparing us for the onslaught, which is forty years in the making. This allows Cline, through his characters, to make endless pop culture references. No one speaks normally, they all speak in lines from famous movies.
Now this could be a fun game of guess the reference, but no. As soon as one of the characters says the line he immediately shows how he cool he or she is by saying where the line came from or what game it referenced. I just wanted to punch this book.
Another bit I hated was how Cline kept talking about the fake realm of the books, movies and video games while the story he was telling was reality. That's kind of hard to pull off, and Cline doesn't, when you are reading a book. You might get away with it in a found footage movie, but you can't argue that you are reality in book form.
It could be argued this was a book aimed at Young Adults. The plot was simplistic with no real surprises. If you think there were startling revelations, you need to read more. The characters were all one dimensional. But then why use references to movies from twenty and thirty years ago that these young adults aren't going to get? In the end I just think it was poorly written treatment for the eventual movie adaptation.
Much like Cline did in Ready Player One (<!-- l --><a class="postlink-local" href="http://brotherhoodofdoom.com/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=2397&p=13847#p13847">viewtopic.php?f=8&t=2397&p=13847#p13847</a><!-- l -->), mines our past pop cultural obsessions and weaves a story around them. Again, the book is centered on video games. In this case the whole world is playing two massively popular video games. One is a ground based adventure about defending the Earth from Aliens. The other is a space based adventure about defending the Earth from Aliens called Armada.
You all know what happens, right? The video games are actually training grounds for an actual alien invasion. Basically, all of pop culture has been prepping us for this invasion since 1960. All facets of media, especially movies and video games have been mentally preparing us for the onslaught, which is forty years in the making. This allows Cline, through his characters, to make endless pop culture references. No one speaks normally, they all speak in lines from famous movies.
Now this could be a fun game of guess the reference, but no. As soon as one of the characters says the line he immediately shows how he cool he or she is by saying where the line came from or what game it referenced. I just wanted to punch this book.
Another bit I hated was how Cline kept talking about the fake realm of the books, movies and video games while the story he was telling was reality. That's kind of hard to pull off, and Cline doesn't, when you are reading a book. You might get away with it in a found footage movie, but you can't argue that you are reality in book form.
It could be argued this was a book aimed at Young Adults. The plot was simplistic with no real surprises. If you think there were startling revelations, you need to read more. The characters were all one dimensional. But then why use references to movies from twenty and thirty years ago that these young adults aren't going to get? In the end I just think it was poorly written treatment for the eventual movie adaptation.
So much for the flickr badge idea. Dammit