Cool News
READY PLAYER ONE & BNATTER-extraordinaire... Ernie Cline sells ARMADA to Crown... Movie deals forthcoming?
Hey folks, Harry here... Ernie Cline - world's best tech support badass, turned tree killing novelist & screenwriter has sold a new book that's 20page outline is kept safer than his DeLorean. The book is titled ARMADA and Variety announced its sale to CROWN Publishing. His reps are currently shopping the film rights. What they didn't have was this nifty art that I found:
Now this was found at the subtly named web domain: ARMADA-BOOK.com - Ernie is a bit a devil liking to hide things online.
Now my 12 year old Nephew has become addicted to reading READY PLAYER ONE, he'll be quite delighted by this news. No new news in regards to READY PLAYER ONE's development over at Warner Brothers. We'll keep ya appraised as best we can.
Readers Talkback
comments powered by Disqus-
+ Expand All
-
Ready Player One was crazy overrated.
-
Ready Player glamorizes obsession.
-
Was an awesome book !!! Any word on a future adaptation of that novel ?
-
I liked the D&D module, I liked the robot battle. The rest was nostalgic window dressing. There are two pages in the first third or so that are literally a list of bands, TV shows, and movies. They don't figure into the plot at all, they're just a dumping ground for things Cline couldn't work into the book.
-
Dec. 4, 2012, 9:45 p.m. CST
It's like reading wiki entries, there's no insight or perspective
by AlibyebyeEssmob
Just endless name dropping of geeky stuff.
-
I gave it a chance and didn't click. It tried too hard to be cool and geeky.
-
http://granades.com/2011/11/30/ready-player-one-reinforces-some-bad-geek-outlooks/ It's not horrible or unenjoyable. It's just not the next coming of Star Wars or anywhere near being one of my favorite books. Knowing geek stuff doesn't make you the Best Geek Ever.
-
It doesn't? Better not tell that to every geek who ever lived, or will ever live! That's what geek culture is: knowing everything geek! Am I right?
-
But who am I to be a prude...
-
RP1 was a fun book that brought back great memories for me and was a overall great read. Can't wait to read this new one
-
Dec. 4, 2012, 10:31 p.m. CST
Ready Player One is a fun romp, but the plot is kind of derivative, but in a fresh milieu, one that geek's relate to
by Joey Stars
It's kind of a sci-fi Charlie and Charlie Factory, mixed with It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World and Brewster's Millions, but in a virtual setting. It also has the added benefit of being able to give geek's a nostalgic serotonin injection every other sentence by referencing some obscure part of nerdy fandom. Because if there's one way to satisfy geeks, it's to validate all their hours of mispent youth, feeding us references like a lab rat receiving a morsels of cheese.
-
Dec. 4, 2012, 11:01 p.m. CST
I JUST read Snow Crash and listened to Ready Player One audiobbok months ago...
by MJDeViant
I liked both but they definitely have shortcomings. Ready Player One sometimes has annoying pop culture bullshit for no reason. I didn't like the ending either. It also has some hokey dialogue and cliches. I rolled my eyes quite a few times at RP1. I enjoyed a lot of it though. Snow Crash is pretty amazing seeing as how it was written in 1992. Loved the world and tech stuff. Hated the sex/relationship stuff seemingly written by an immature idiot. Also, it grinds to a fucking halt when talking about the Sumerians. I kind of think Ready Player One will almost work better as a movie. That way it can have quick pop culture stuff in the background or just shown easily and not pound it into your head all the time. Snow crash would be a cool movie as well as long as they fixed the ending and got rid of so much of the Sumerian bullshit. I'm fine with it being a theory/cause but they went into it way too much. I could see Zach Snyder directing it (for better or worse as I have mixed feelings with Snyder...I did like Watchmen though).
-
Not one character felt real, and the main character's unconditional love for his face stained girlfriend was laughable.
-
Oh man, the love story...so awful...
-
Dec. 4, 2012, 11:48 p.m. CST
RP1 was a nostaligagasm for me. It's Klines love letter to the late 70's and 80's pop and geek culture, not high culture. Let
by 77AD
-
But the ending bugged me. SPOILERS AHEAD It irked me that the final challenge was a repeat of an earlier challenge (I think the one where he got the special token)--act out a well-loved geek classic film. By that point I was really curious to see what the final challenge would be, since the other ones had been so clever. And then to have it be just another version of one he'd already done...well, that didn't do much for me. Overall I enjoyed the book but that ending took it down a notch or two.
-
Rectify the situation immediately.
-
I've listened to it maybe 4-5 times. Love it.
-
"errrr, RP1 is terrible, the characters aren't realistic". Seriously? If people who read this kind of site can't take enjoyment from a book like RP1, because it doesn't have booker prize winning prose, then they need to take a few minutes to stop masturbating over their Watchmen collection and go outside and take in the world for a while. Methinks you've forgotten the definition of 'fun'.
-
Fun enough book but were it not for the constant stream of references would you REEEEALLLLLLYYYY have liked as much? You could just list off the characters / games mentioned and have the same nostalgia trip.
-
...Gen X wish fufillment. That all the time you wasted on television, video games, movies - good and bad - will somehow be vitally important to some future generation who in reality won't really give a rat's ass about Whiz Kids, or Atari, or episodes of Family Ties and will probably by then have put you in an old folks home.
-
You sound disappointed and surprised by that, so what exactly did you expect before reading it?
-
As they get picked off one by one, it's like Cavill's increasingly hairless bonce being exposed as his hairline moves north at super-speed.
-
Dec. 5, 2012, 6:09 a.m. CST
Is this about F-18s (or whatever) and Eurofighters VS alien crafts?
by Ditko
That´d be cool! It was the best sequence in Independence Day, anyway. We have enough military technology to give those alien bastards a good run. Why do you think they haven´t invaded us already? :P
-
Dec. 5, 2012, 6:46 a.m. CST
RE: dubster32 "If people who read this kind of site can't take enjoyment from a book like RP1, because it doesn't have booker prize winning prose"
by thefreshestthing
The fuck? I didn't like it because it pandered to "geeks", and the lead character was basically Bella from Twilight - except instead of living out every teenaged girls' fantasy, he was living out every geeks. There was never any real conflict. Our hero had unlimited resources, and any situation that arose was conquered easily. You want to read an awesome book? Read John Dies At The End by David Wong. Or The MAgician King by Lev Grossman. Now those are good books.
-
Dec. 5, 2012, 7:31 a.m. CST
Some of you sound like prudes. RP1 is fast food literature. But after ASoF&I I was ready for some fluff. It's complete escapist reading.
by moorE12
-
It's because we DON'T get off on 20 year old comic books that we think RP1 is overrated.
-
They love the worlds and universes of others but fail to create good ones of their own.
-
Yes, it's fun, yes it's escapist. But people have called it the ultimate geek book and the best sci-fi of the year/decade and an absolute must-read. Statements like that are overrating it. Hence, overrated.
-
Cline needs to work on SHOW don't TELL.
-
ZERO references to Mario or Nintendo. Seriously?
-
Book is NOT fun. It's boring and has poor prose overflowing with telling, as wa pointed out above. You can find fun books that are well written, like Freaky Deaky by Elmore Leonard, or The Lost World by Arthur Conan Doyle. Ready Player one was just boring and was not well constructed in almost every way.
-
Dec. 5, 2012, 8:11 a.m. CST
@zardoz re: That's what geek culture is: knowing everything geek! Am I right?
by bah
Well, sure. That doesn't refute my statement: knowing geek stuff doesn't make you the Greatest Geek Ever. It simply makes you a Geek.
-
Me thinks Senor Harry is in Cline's pocket.
-
Dec. 5, 2012, 8:25 a.m. CST
The book was good, but it tended to slow to a crawl near the end.
by TheMachinist
It's kinda like the Assassin's Creed games, in a way. A fantastic virtual world, a disappointing real one. The escape scenes and the rich version of Wade, made the 80's fanboyism pretty fucking obvious. Not that it wasn't before, it just made it even more so. Enjoyable book, overall.
-
I mean, c'mon, Rush?!!? Who fucking listened to that crap in the 80s?
-
Harry's in everyone's pocket.
-
Who looked normal.
-
I did not get the majority of the references in the book. They were just a few years before my time (born in '80). What worked about Ready Player One was the imagination behind it. It was a narrative chronicling the birth of gaming and the future of gaming. He used his love of the original games to show what he would like in the future. I dug the book because it was fun, not for the references. It's not the greatest thing ever, but it's a lot of fun.
-
Sums up RP1.
-
The whole Pac-Man Fever part, where he gets the quarter. Was that an easter egg set up by Halliday or was that Morrow helping Wade? And do you think it was just a one time easter egg? I know it was sort of a lazy plot point. If that was a movie, it would sort of slow down the pacing, eventhough it leads to a key element for the finale.
-
Along with the Supaidaman Capsule, it was just a random Easter Egg. I really liked that part, because gives you the sense that these things are hidden all over the Oasis and when he later brings up things like super powerful artifacts being auctioned off, I don't question it. They're all just out there, somewhere.
-
A cheeseburger. Allow me to explain: I can honestly say I was thoroughly entertained all throughout, tickled by all the nostalgic references (especially the Pac-Man extra life credit), and felt absolutely zero enrichment after finishing it, other than feeling like I already accomplished the moral of the story of "Get a girl you geeks." Maybe nostalgic entertainment was it's purpose and quite frankly I think it succeeded on that level. But if anyone is claiming it's Star Wars reincarnated is smoking some serious endo.
-
I expected the background to be more of a synthesis of the 80s, like bits of dialogue from 80s movies or tv or video games would be part of the lexicon, like the 80s were woven into the fabric of his time, instead of sticking out like giganticly sore thumbs. Plus the absence of pop culture from before the 80s and after the 80s kept nagging me.
-
One major puzzle involves acting out WarGames. Mimicking WarGames = lame. What would have been interesting is having to know the password from WarGames. That would have challenged the reader as well. Or instead of clues, the characters might have had to deal with obstacles by figuring out what items from games and movies would be useful, and finding them. Using familiar things out of their known context, using different items together. THAT is the book all the hype led me to believe I was going to be reading.
-
and making a decision based on that. "Which robot do you like best?" is not geek. "Which robot would win in a fight?" is geek.
-
Youre moaning about the sort of plot issues you'd expect from a proper piece of literary. I thought of RP1 as a computer game/comic in book form. It was meant to be fun, daft, not devoid of plot holes. Of course theres conflict, and he didn't start with unlimited resources. This changes in the same way it would in a computer game. That was good enough for me. Ive a first edition of John Dies At The End. I agree, it's brilliant. I'll check out the other one though defo.
-
Yep.
-
Dec. 6, 2012, 2:28 a.m. CST
Um, the future of gaming is Farmville and Angry Birds. Sorry, VR, you go bye bye nobody like you not real.
by Nintendarth
Just do a search on Google for: GAMING IS DEAD GAMING IS DYING E3 IS DYING Enjoy the reading!
-
Gaming received a massive boom at the start of the cycle because of the Wii," says Handler. "Schools were buying Wiis. Nursing homes were buying Wiis. Everyone under the age of 95 was playing ‘Wii Play.’ It created this massive groundswell. I would say the hard-core gamer has been pretty constant [in his or her gaming habits], but the big shift has been among the casual players who have come into this space.
-
E3 is usually the videogame industry's big party of the year — a chance to celebrate its strengths and showcase the titles it expects to drive sales forward for the rest of the year. But as the game makers gather for this year's event, a cloud hangs over the soiree. Retail sales are down 27 percent compared to this time in 2011. Mobile devices are stealing the spotlight from traditional consoles. And naysayers are openly questioning the long-term viability of the console industry. Given the hard numbers, that's understandable, but there are a few other factors to consider before making such a declaration. The first is the age of today's game machines. Microsoft's Xbox 360 made its debut in 2005 — and Sony's PlayStation 3 bowed the next year. In an industry that has traditionally swapped in new hardware every five years, that's a big gap — and it's one that is starting to affect sales. Investors are also comparing current sales numbers to the cycle's peak, back when the Wii was a must-have device that retailers couldn't keep on store shelves. Now that demand for Nintendo's system has effectively dried up, the numbers can't compete. If not for the recession, those Wii owners might have kept the industry on a fairly even keel. But the longevity of the economic downturn, coupled with the rise of the smart phone and the app market with its cheap games, stole much of Nintendo's audience away. He also touched upon the impact the expanding mobile space has had on the industry. -When the recession hit, you had this massive downdraft [and everyone] stopped buying Wii games- he said. -Then, you had the rise of the [Apple] iPad and smartphones and suddenly the casual business changed from a $35 business to a $1, $3, $5 business.-
-
Compare the lists and rote memorization of RP1 to the climax of Galaxy Quest. The good guys win not because an alien race has memorized their TV show, but because geeks had figured out how all the hand-waving pseudo-science of television would work in real life. That's geek. And by the way, if you think Galaxy Quest isn't great, Patrick Stewart has a facepalm for you, because he loved it.
-
Dec. 6, 2012, 8:36 a.m. CST
Casual gaming becoming less profitable does not equal gaming being dead
by bah
Those are two different things. Actually, it's three or four different things.
-
Dec. 10, 2012, 9:34 a.m. CST
http://www.movies.com/movie-news/universal-lands-rights-to-ernie-clines-armada/10559
by impossibledreamers
Top Talkbacks
- Capone believes that FAST & FURIOUS 6 is the best in a bizarre, crowded franchise!!! -- 104 total posts 38 posts
- Spoilery early review of MAN OF STEEL!! -- 442 total posts 24 posts
- Beware Epileptics - we have a new motion poster for the upcoming remake of CARRIE! -- 84 total posts 24 posts
- The Friday Docback Revisits DOCTOR WHO Season 7!! A Fuller Review Of 'The Name of the Doctor,' And More!! -- 93 total posts 18 posts
- New trailer for Casey Affleck and Rooney Mara's upcoming western, AIN'T THEM BODIES SAINTS!! -- 57 total posts 16 posts
- Capone says the stunning 3-D visuals elevate the standard-issue plot of EPIC!!! -- 43 total posts 16 posts
- Papa Vinyard thinks that HANGOVER: PART III was a paycheck grab for a buncha people who are already rich!! -- 216 total posts 16 posts
-
HERCULES ON THE RADIO!!
Learn What Ain’t It Cool’s TV Critic Thinks About The New WOLVERINE Trailer, Soderbergh’s CANDELABBRA, FURIOUS 6, HANGOVER III, EPIC, GAME OF THRONES, MAD MEN And More!! Listen And Call In LIVE Saturday 8pm PT/11pm ET!! -- 15 total posts 15 posts - Jim Jarmusch's vampire flick ONLY LOVERS LEFT ALIVE gets picked up for U.S. distribution by Sony Pictures Classics!! -- 29 total posts 15 posts
- Capone makes the case that THE HANGOVER PART III is neither a comedy nor a movie!!! -- 74 total posts 15 posts