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Comment by djs070 | Hacker News Reader

For those of us who haven't, could you explain why?

It is poorly-written, derivative, and juvenile. The protagonist wins ownership of the Internet (and gets the girl) by playing video games well and knowing the most 80s "geek" trivia. I think the comparisons to GamemasterAnthony's birthday ("every character from every game, comic, cartoon, TV show, movie, and book reality come in with everything for a HUGE party") are rather apt... lots of the book is just the protagonist going to a virtual environment and noting that an R2D2 model has been instantiated there or whatever.

Basically, if you've read Snow Crash you'll be disappointed, and if you haven't read Snow Crash, you should just read it instead.

Man, I hate to encourage the "elitist asshole" title given to me in real life for crapping on Ready Player One, but this micro-review nails it.

Basically, if you've read Snow Crash you'll be disappointed, and if you haven't read Snow Crash, you should just read it instead.

I tend to agree. Although, in Snow Crash, not much happens in the metaverse. Most of the action is in the real world.

I was hoping for a Snow Crash movie. That project has been in and out of development hell for years. (It would have to be heavily censored. "Mr Lee's Hong Kong" would annoy China, "White Columns" would annoy the woke people, and evangelical Christians being a front for a cult created to support a scam would annoy the Trump voters.)

> Although, in Snow Crash, not much happens in the metaverse. Most of the action is in the real world.

Which is one of its insightful points.

“White Columns” would not only not offend anyone woke, but satisfy their assumptions.

As a 30s something person, the movie had me rolling my eyes. It was designed for the now in vogue Gen Z crowd. A group that apparently don't remember the 80s and 90s when computing was more unstable, there was a lot less software and that you had to internalize that the lower layers were more fragile and built on a bed of sand.

These people live their lives entirely in the application layer and come up with all these fantasies of Virtual Reality and all the magical stuff it entails. I hate it and everything that comes with this new world and I want to re-live the simpler times of the 90s and the 00s.

I fear that time is long gone though. Just that feeling of millennials now beginning to be brushed aside in favor of the next generation's worldview is jarring because now I have to live in it or disconnect and try to retain the memories of the past. I guess every generation goes through it.

I miss the world of Scott Pilgrim vs. The World. That took place during the beginnings of Obama's "Hope and Change". Things were on the upswing. Climate change was not in your face as much as it is now. No coming world war and economic collapse. Just a bunch of hipsters and a guy trying to overcome the baggage of his dream girl the old fashioned way: by battling her seven evil exes via old style 2d video game fighting.

As a 50 something person it was really surreal watching somebody else be nostalgic for my childhood.

I had to quit reading Ready Player One at the point the protagonist got into an 80s pop culture trivia competition in a VR chat room and he won, and everyone started cheering and clapping. Even though this was fictional I cringed so hard I just couldn’t keep reading.

If you're ok with the a typical male protagonist nerding out over a Flux Capacitor you'll get through just fine. If a story that's 50% nostalgic references isn't cool it'll be a very slow read...

There's some interesting ideas around the dystopian state of the world and whether it is a result of the virtual universe or not, but only a few chapters dig into that.

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