The Great Geek Manual

Book: Ready Player One: A Novel
ISBN-13: 978-0307887443

Author: Ernest Cline
Publisher: Broadway
Genre: Young Adult / Cyberpunk
Release: August 16, 2011
Length: 384 pages (Hardcover)

Book Rating: B (88.3 / 100)

Verdict

Ready Player One reads like a novelization of Tron or a Young Adult version of Snow Crash. It’s definitely a must-read for fans of video games and the cyberpunk genre and a fantastically nostalgic walk down memory lane for geeks who grew up during the arcade-craze of the eighties. Everyone else should approach this book with caution, though. While the overwhelming multitude of pop-culture references makes Ready Player One a very fun read, they do very little to prop up the story’s thin plot, one-dimensional characters, and simplistic conflict.

This will never be a mainstream hit, but, chances are, if you’re browsing this blog, this book is for you.

Pros: Chocked full of trivia and pop-culture references. Extremely geeky.

Cons: The puzzles of the plot are Dan Brown-simple. Shallow character development. Saccharine sweet ending.

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Audio Fiction and Podcasts

• Listen to “Illimitable Dominion” by Kim Newman at Tales to Terrify.
• Listen to “Malak” by Peter Watts at StarShipSofa.
• Listen to “Volume out of Print” by Jim Cort at Cthulhupodcast.
• Listen to “We Never Talk About My Brother” by Peter S. Beagle at PodCastle.
• Listen to “The White Dog” by Fyodor Sologub at Pseudopod.
• Listen to “The Wrong Camera” by Catherine Ford at Peculiar Occurrences.

Comics and Graphic Novels

• Bleeding Cool offers a preview of Dinosaurs Vs Aliens
• Hollywood offers a preview of Hit-Girl

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Audio Fiction and Podcasts

• Listen to “Bus Stop” by Jerod Brennen at Lovecraft ezine.
• Listen to “Final Girl Theory” by A.C. Wise at Pseudopod.
• Listen to “If The Mountain Comes” by An Owomoyela at Clarkesworld Magazine.
• Listen to “Immersion” by Aliette de Bodard at Clarkesworld Magazine.
• Listen to “In Memoriam” by W.H. Pugmire at Lovecraft ezine.
• Listen to “My Teacher, My Enemy” by Kelsey Ann Barrett at Lightspeed Magazine.
• Listen to “My Tears Have Been My Meat” by Nina Kiriki Hoffman at Tales To Terrify.
• Listen to “Observer Effects” by Tim Pratt at Escapepod.
• Listen to “A Stranger at the Door” by Bradly Shelby at Lovecraft ezine.
• Listen to “Wane” by Elizabeth Bear at PodCastle.
• Listen to “You Were She Who Abode” by E. Catherine Tobler at Clarkesworld.

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Audio Fiction and Podcasts

• Listen to “The Bee Charmer of Beckett Falls” by Patty Templeton at Pseudopod.
• Listen to “Clay” by James Joyce at Miette’s Bedtime Story Podcast.
• Listen to “The Day I Didn’t Meet Christopher Walken” by Martin Mundt.
• Listen to “The Man Who Forgot Ray Bradbury” by Neil Gaiman at SoundCloud.
• Listen to “A Nice Jewish Golem” by Ao-Hui Lin at Drabblecast.
• Listen to “One Ear Back” by Tina Connolly at Beneath Ceaseless Skies.
• Listen to “Origin” by Ari Goelman at Escapepod.
• Listen to “Renfrew’s Course” by John Langan at Lightspeed Magazine.
• Listen to “Squonk and the Lake Monster” by P.M. Butler at PodCastle.
• Listen to “Where Late The Sweet Bird’s Sang” by Kate Wilhelm at StarShipSofa.

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Audio Fiction and Podcasts

• Listen to “Arm of the Law” by Harry Harrison at Dramapod.
• Listen to “The Axiom of Choice” by David W. Goldman at PodCastle.
• Listen to “Boxed” by Will McIntosh at Dunesteef.
• Listen to “A Brief History of the Great Pubs of London” by Lavie Tidhar.
• Listen to “Campfire Story” by Mark Brandon Allen at Cast of Wonders.
• Listen to “The Cristóbal Effect” by Simon McCaffery at Lightspeed.
• Listen to “Cuckoo” by David Thomas Moore at Dark Fiction Magazine.
• Listen to “Exit Strategy” by K. D. Wentworth at StarShipSofa.
• Listen to “Exploring” by Bryce Albertson at Drabblecast.
• Listen to “I Know What To Do” by Yvonne Navarro at Tales To Terrify.

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Audio Fiction and Podcasts

• Listen to “Drowning Doesn’t Look Like Drowning” by Heather Birrell at Miettecast.
• Listen to “Dust Bunny” by Matthew C. Dampier at Pseudopod.
• Listen to “Endless Encore” b Will Ludwigsen at Drabblecast.
• Listen to “Hawksbill Station” by Robert Silverberg at Escapepod.
• Listen to “The Morandini Genie” by Michael Haynes at Cast of Wonders.
• Listen to “Mother of All Russiya” by Melanie Rawn at LightSpeed Magazine.
• Listen to “Nora’s Thing” by Will Ludwigsen at Drabblecast.
• Listen to “Sleepers” by Jon Ingold at StarShipSofa.

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Audio Fiction and Podcasts

• Download “A Hunger for the Infinite: A Galactic Center Story” by Gregory Benford.
• Listen to “Fable From a Cage” by Tim Pratt at PodCastle.
• Listen to “The Homecoming” by Mike Resnick at Escapepod.
• Listen to “In The Cemetery of Frozen Ships” by Suzanne van Rooyen.
• Listen to “Isolation Point” by John Shirley at Tales to Terrify.
• Listen to “In The Cemetery of Frozen Ships” by Suzanne van Rooyen (Part 2).
• Listen to “Movement” by Nancy Fulda at Escapepod.
• Listen to “Transfer of Ownership” by Christie Yant at Drabblecast.
• Listen to “Tricentennial” by Joe Haldeman at StarShipSofa.
• Listen to “The Women Who Watch” by Thomas Owen at Pseudopod.

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Audio Fiction and Podcasts

• Download the novella “A Hunger for the Infinite” by Gregory Benford from Robert Silverberg’s Far Horizons anthology at Audible.com.
• Listen to “All the Things the Moon is Not” by Alexander Lumans at ClarkesWorld.
• Listen to “The Cartographer Wasps and the Anarchist Bees” by E. Lily Yu.
• Listen to “Happy Ending 2.0″ by James Patrick Kelly at the author’s website.
• Listen to “A Hole to China” by Catherynne M. Valente at Lightspeed Magazine.
• Listen to “Hope Chest” by Garth Nix at PodCastle.
• Listen to “In The Cemetery of Frozen Ships” by Suzanne van Rooyen at Wonders.
• Listen to “Incompatible” by Will McIntosh at StarShipSofa.
• Listen to “The Man who was Dead” by H.P. Lovecraft at Cthulhu Podcast.
• Listen to “A Marble for the Drowning River” by Ann Chatham at Ceaseless Skies.
• Listen to “The Meat Forest” by John Haggerty at Pseudopod.
• Listen to “Prayer” by Robert Reed at ClarkesWorld Magazine.
• Listen to “Synch Me, Kiss Me, Drop” by Suzanne Church at ClarkesWorld.
• Listen to “There’s Something Wrong with Pappy” by James Cooper.
• Listen to “Unfortunate” by B.D. Anklevich at Dunesteef.

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