Book Review, Ready Player One by Ernest Cline

Ready Player One by Ernest Cline was loaned to me last year from a good friend who is a 'gamer', meaning a person who plays computer games. We had often talked about games from our childhood and new games we were playing now. I do play games but my knowledge and enthusiasm is of a lesser nature than my friend Richard. I guess he is a geek, very much like myself! It was from these conversations that he recommended and loaned me this book.  

Ready Player One is set in the year 2044, the world has been in a sustained and endless recession, where resources are limited and most people live in what we would call poverty. The main character is Wade or his online pseudonym Parzival a young boy who lives in the "stacks". (Stacks are constructions of trailer homes place on top of each other to create a tower) and where the majority of the cities citizens live. In this world people seek refuge in the simulated reality of a game called OASIS. I would describe the OASIS as Secondlife meets Sims meets World of War Craft and all encompassing simulated world where anything is possible. Wade even goes to school in the OASIS rather than to one in real life. The game was created by James Halliday who I would describe as having the rock star profile of Steve Jobs and the geekery of Bill Gates with maybe a little of the philanthropy of Jimmy Wales or Larry Sanger. Halliday encompasses virtues, skills and status of real people in our own reality.

 As usual I do not want to give away to much from the book so here is a small over view taken from Wikipedia, that does not contain many spoilers!

James Halliday suddenly dies, leaving a will that states that whoever can collect three keys hidden in OASIS and pass through the matching gates will receive Halliday's fortune and a controlling stake in his company. This contest becomes known as "the Hunt" and people immediately begin the search for Halliday's Easter Egg, with the only clues being Halliday's will and his journal, the Anorak's Almanac. Those searching for the Egg are referred to as "gunters," a portmanteau of "egg hunters." Gunters devote an enormous amount of time to studying pop culture of the 1980s, the decade that Halliday grew up in and was perpetually obsessed with, in the hope it will assist them with locating and solving the puzzles involved with the egg.

As a gamer, a long time gamer this book is easy for me to read, I get the references I know a lot of the games and the 1980's pop culture, which certainly makes this book a better read for me. It is a homage to early gaming/coding and the pioneers of a new art form (and I will argue to the death that games are an art form as much as a movie or a book is). But I would totally understand that for many who don't know or have never played Zork that this book would be less compelling or even tedious. Yet put this to one side and look at it like any other Sci-Fi or fantasy novel that you have ever enjoyed with its own language and cultures and you will get the very same experience. Remember what the Lord of the Rings book was like with its Hobbits, Orks and whatever??? 

What I do find compelling is the plausibility of this future Earth, a world in recession where people seek solace in a computerized world..... we are half way there already.  The story which unfolds in this world is enjoyable and exciting (especially to my game oriented mind) but again I will state that this book is game heavy. Not that this is a bad thing. As soon as I started this book I could not put it down, it was one of those occasions where I was trying to read at every available moment and long into the night when I should have been sleeping. That last sentence says it all really.......................... Must read.

Anthony's bookshelf: grasshopper

Ready Player One

by Ernest Cline

I really enjoyed this book, from beginning to end, a a valid an very possible future mixed in with a fantasy style ending made it compelling to read. The many references to 1980's pop culture and gaming really made it more authentic, alt...

tagged: grasshopper and grasshopper-rating

Wild Swans by Jung Chang Book Review

When I decided to review books on this page, this is one of the books I really wanted to talk about, Wild Swans by Jung Chang. I recently read that this is the highest selling non-fiction paper back ever and was published back in 1991. I found this book in the local charity shop not knowing anything about it and was intrigued by the preface. Since buying it I have seen it several times in various charity shops just in my local village and they all look unread which is a real shame. I had just finished The Wind Up Bird Chronicle by Haruki Murakami and was looking for more Asian literature so Wild Swans was a good find.

Wild Swans is a History of China over a hundred year period as seen and experienced by three women, the Author Jung Chang, her mother Bao Qin and her grandmother Yu-fang. The story starts with Yu-fang as a child living in the last days of the Emperor, she is from a poor family and her feet are bound. This is an era in China were regions were controlled by war lords and the story relates how Yu-Fangs father wanted to send her to be a Concubine. Of course many things happen (which i dont want to give away here) and the story then moves on to Bao Qin. At a young age Bao starts working for the Communist Party in the midst of the revolution, fighting the Kuomintang and the Japanese.Over time Bao Qin moves up the ranks in the party and marries Wang Yu with whom she has Jung Chang and other children. Soon after this book moves onto a biography of Jung's life and specifically the period of the cultural revolution. Three generations of Chinese history is an epic period of time is covered in one book, as such it is a good thick read.

What makes this book stand out as an account of history is the personal nature of events as seen by Jung and her relations.For lack of a better term it is a view of events from the grass roots level, seeing things from a families perspective and the consequences of actions taken by the leaders of China of which has been so readily covered in many books. However the actual consequences of the leaders actions especially in China over the last century are rarely recorded from the average persons experience. As you might guess from the picture Chairman Mao almost an ever present shadow amongst the pages, no more so than in the chapters covering the Cultural Revolution. These were amongst the most riveting, awful, scary, amazing chapters I have ever read. It was Orwell's 1984 but real. I was not really prepared for the personal and real actions of individuals who lived and conducted the Cultural Revolution. It can be so easy when reading history to forget the human cost, the misery and suffering and just read numbers and names .

Even if you do not like reading about history, this would still be a book I would highly recommend. The history is so well entwined into the story of the three women that you have the same sort of connection with Jung or Bao Qin that you would with any fictional character. The history aspect comes second to a well written and vivid story.

This book is over 20 years old and is a testament to how far China has come but also how far it still has to go. Jung is still banned in China for writing this book, even after the fall of Mao and the demise of the cultural revolution, his cult lives on. Since Wild Swans was published there have been many other books that have followed its format, Red Azalea by Anchee (another exceptional account of the cultural revolution) and Havana Dreams by Wendy Gimble (Cuba) to name two that I have bought since. Both of these are good but do not match the scale and brilliance of Wild Swans.

Best 50 pence I have ever spent! I cannot recommend this book anymore! A Must Read!


Wild Swans: Three Daughters of China by Jung Chang
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Possibly one of the best books I have ever read, a full 100 years of Chinese history as seen from 3 womens perspective. From the last days of the emperor all the way through to the end of the cultural revolution! Brilliant!

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On The Road By Jack Kerouac Book Review

One of the things that I wanted to do with this new page was talk about the books I am reading or  have read recently. I am quite an avid reader at times but I am particular about the books I read. You will never see me reading 50 Shades of Gray and any book of the ilk, I guess I might be a bit of a book snob. Maybe!

So for my first review I have picked On The Road by Jack Kerouac. I borrowed this book of my girlfriend a few months ago as she had started and failed to finish reading it. I am currently reading this book and as yet not finished it myself and this in itself tells you the first thing you need to know about it..... It is a hard read. Its not that I am not enjoying it, its just one of those books that is hard to read, to take in and I guess to understand.

The novel is set in post WWII America and based on the Karouac and his friends travels around the country as well as the 'beat generation'. "It is considered a defining work of the postwar Beat Generation with its protagonists living life against a backdrop of jazz, poetry and drug use". That is a very brief account to the back drop of the story, that period somewhere between the better known Depression years and the Rock N Roll 60's. The impression On The Road gives me so far is of an America in transition (but doesn't it always seem in transition?), where the cultures of the post war are slowly ebbing away into the new liberal culture we are all aware of in the 60's. Inevitably it reminds you of Mice and Men (on drugs), mainly because of the travelling aspect of the novel. The main character is Sal Paradise from New Jersey who embarks on a journey across the States with his friend Dean Moriarty. There are a myriad of characters and places while on the road and time in the book seems endless. It is hard to gauge what amount of time has passed at all in parts, its all rather erratic. The character Sal is based on Jack Karouac himself as are some of the others, but also his friends and people he met whilst he travelled around the states in the 50's.

My own stereotypical view of America in the 50's is of the 'atomic family in the suburbs', Tupperware loving, driving Mustangs, hanging around Diners and Drive In's, etc, in essence Happy Days! This book is not that 1950's America. It is a cool, dark, free, liberal and artistic view of that era in America. This is what makes this book exciting and interesting, you get to envisage in your mind the alternative culture of the 50's. And alternative it was, in comparison to the atomic family ideals of the time. And who doesnt enjoy a good travel story? They are always the best kind of novel in my opinion, to be taken to another time and place that is different to yours. On the Road as the title suggests does this, it takes you from New York to LA and everywhere inbetween (almost) to people and places that have long since changed. As for the deeper meaning of this book, I have not quite found that, Im sure a quick google search would tell me but I would like to figure out that myself. To do this though I must finish it. It will be packed in my suite case for my holiday next month.        

So my opinion so far is.... If you enjoy travel stories and Americana you will like this book, as I said earlier it is a hard read with an erratic style (possibly jazz inspired?!?). I have given it 3 stars so far as yet I have to finish it and consider it overall ( i should probably finish a book first in future before trying to review it). I am enjoying it and finding the landscape of the story so far interesting but I can't see where this story is going as yet, which is probably a good thing. If you have read On The Road please let me know what you thought of it.

UPDATE**

I finally finished reading this whilst on holiday. I sat back in the sun and read and I could not put it down. The later half of this book really picks up as you get to know the two main characters in the book. Sal the narrator of the story is interesting but it was Dean Moriarty, Sals best friend who illuminates the story and adventures the two undertake. Dean is the centre of all things in this story and as it progresses he changes too, becoming a little like Lennie Small from Of Mice and Men. That is, in how he is viewed by his peers. These two characters are in search of something as they travel from coast to coast and there are often vague references to god or jesus. This is not god in a Christian sense or even a religious one but rather more spiritual in nature. This i guess is were the meaning or reason can be found in this book.

Anthony's bookshelf: grasshopper-rating

On the Road

by Jack Kerouac

tagged: currently-reading and grasshopper-rating