Thanks, But No Thanks

Wil Wheaton was literally the only reason I got even halfway through. I understand the appeal of it that led to its popularity, but it's just... so much cringe. The protagonist is also just so wholly unlikable.

54 people found this helpful

Large amounts of filler

Will Wheaton does little to bring life to the characters. At times I wasn't sure who was saying what, due to the same voice/tone used for all characters.

The story is a cool walk down nostalgia lane, but there were too many internal dialogues when it felt like the protagonist needed to move forward.

36 people found this helpful

As if written by a lonely nerd then read by him...

Descriptions of unimportant things went on far too long. At least half of the book is a reference of other people's work. I listened to the whole thing since it was a decent story idea, however I spent 90% of the story rolling my eyes. Narration was just plain terrible.

29 people found this helpful

Great book

Lots better than the movie. Listened to it twice in a row. Will listen again

28 people found this helpful

Good audiobook, bot family friendly.

1. The main character is atheist and there is a demeaning paragraph on Christian world creation ideals. However there is one inspiration small side character that is Christian.
2. There is a paragraph involving the main character having sex with a realistic doll in the virtual world. It was disturbing and I fast-forwarded through.
I wish I would’ve made note of the exact times these events occurred so other viewers could skip if wanted.
Other than those, loved it.

45 people found this helpful

AWESOME

This book is amazing much better, and more detailed than the movie although, not the best for kids lots of cursing. Lol

17 people found this helpful

Bad

This is the only book I have ever returned. I'm not religious and the world-building, in the beginning, is intriguing. However, when describing most things that are happening, it's a simple "remember what that place looked like from that thing? Yeah it's that." instead of going into decent detail. I get it, it's a nostalgia trip, I'm a huge nerd as well, however, this runs past the line for cringe. It's more of a self-insert, "look at how cool I am for knowing this thing about this thing" which would be fine. Yet once it starts getting into, "well actually" territory, and it devolves into, "and then my friend high fived" it just becomes unbearable. The only reason I say I'm not religious was that none of the atheism was a turn away for me. I'm open to religious work, non-religious works, and anti-religious work. This book is just bad because it is bad. I love some schlock from time to time but I couldn't stand this. The nostalgia blinders definitely got to people this time around.

16 people found this helpful

I don't understand all of the hype

I want to start out saying that Ernest Cline is a pretty good writer. I also love Wil Wheaton's narration style.

I don't understand why this book is so massively poplular. It's full of super liberal ideologies, and the very tiresome "humanity is evil and destroying the planet" dogma. Like so many liberal writers, clearly Ernest Cline loves to pat his own back and say "look how woke I am."

I also find it very interesting that people who claim religion is a big fat lie, and that anyone who believes in God is several fries short of a happy meal, still write stories about the struggle between good and evil. Without God, there is no good and there is no evil. If we are all just the result of random mutations, then morality, and the ideas of good and evil, is all just a bunch of meaningless garbage. Life, according to Ernest Cline (and every other atheist) has no purpose. So why write a story about good and evil? What's the point? Because no one is interested in reading a book about how pointless life is.

This story also got bogged down in INSANE amounts of 80's trivia. For someone born at the end of the 80's, pretty much all of it went over my head, and thus was incredibly, skull poundingly, dull. I also found the protagonists dialogue with his friends to be over the top full of profanity. I thought the MC was supposed to be smart and cultured? Yet all of his interactions with other characters is severely lacking in depth and intelligence.

Overall, it was a waste of time, and I wouldn't recommend this book to anyone. There are a lot better writers out there, in terms of quality of content, like Brandon Sanderson for one.

15 people found this helpful

A Silly Opera

In fantasy or scifi the world should, at some basic level, make some darned sense. This one doesn't and is so darned silly that it is painful. Yeah, the geeky stuff is OK, and if it had been reined into some reasonable scope instead of presented as the biggest of biggest of REALLY BIGGEST space operas, it would have been better. I thought the characters, for the most part, childish, and honestly never gave a darn what happened to them, or really ever thought they were in any danger.

15 people found this helpful

Deus Ex Machina

Any additional comments?

Do you like Deus ex Machina? This book is a study in how to use it...terribly, often, and to poor effect. It's also a book about video games and gamers, and while the author clearly did some research into the culture of the 1980's, he also doesn't know very much about gaming and gamers. He also doesn't know much about writing basics. Good dialogue? Nope. Cliches? Yep. Character depth? Sorry. Stereotypes? Indeed.

I'm a gamer. I'm a writer. I badly wanted this to be a good book. Its just not. The narration starring WW as a weirdly one-dimensional reader didn't help...but it really didn't hurt that much either.

15 people found this helpful