#seth reads rp2

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So this is a big pet peeve of mine, but I feel particularly justified here because Ernest Cline is insufferable.

42 is not the ultimate answer to life, the universe, and everything, according to The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. If you've read the book, listened to the radio show, or hell, even if you watched the movie, you should know this. 42 is the answer to the ultimate question of life, the universe, and everything. It's a running gag that no one knows what the question is, which is why they can't make any sense of the answer. It's one of the key plot points, inasmuch as HHGTTG even has a plot, but "42" often gets reduced to a cheap nerd injoke, a context-free factoid to prove that you're familiar with the right media. It's perfectly emblematic of books like Ready Player One/Two that are so fixated on proving they have all the nerd knowledge, which is why it's so satisfying to see them fuck it up.

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Ernest Cline's author-insert is using his infinite money to make crossover fanfiction of his favorite 80s media. Which is. I just. I can't even imagine what it's like to completely lack self-awareness at this level.

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I am a whole [checks] 23 pages into Ready Player Two, and it reads like Cline is constantly trying to defend himself. When Wade finds out about the ONI system, he says he didn't tell Samantha about it so she couldn't convince him not to use it. Why would she do that? What makes you think she'd disapprove of it? Then he declares how completely safe it totally is. Which, again, nobody asked (and which is made especially hilarious because the next few pages establish that it's actually very easy to cause brain damage).

Then he drops in several pages explaining exactly how the ONI was developed in secret, ending with, "This was how Halliday had created the world’s first noninvasive brain-computer interface without the world knowing it." It's all stated so plainly, it feels like someone told Cline his story wasn't realistic, so he went back and added a lifeless explanation.

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JUST

LIKE

VIDEO

GAME

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No one references songs like this. "Full Title (Subtitle or Version)" by Artist Name. You're naming a song, not writing a bibliography.

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BodyLocker? Could you come up with a more morbid name for your fucking homeless shelter??

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Stuff like this is all over Cline's writing. He can't keep track of his first person narrator. Instead, he uses the narration to talk directly to the reader as Ernest Cline. We, the reader, obviously don't know the obligatory future cyber-slang, and a halfway decent author would introduce it more naturally, like by showing it in use and letting us connect the dots, or by having another character need the explanation.

But Cline doesn't know how to write anything except tiresome explanations, so instead of descriptive storytelling, we get several pages of exposition dumping.

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Cline has this like. Third grader understanding of how capitalism and businesses work. Like, apparently Halliday and GSS threw billions of dollars into prosthetic research, because they're the good guys! Clearly this means they're always doing the right thing. And then, they gave it away! They invented a bunch of cool implants, gave away the actual hardware, and subsidized the implant surgery. They don't care about money, they're just trying to help people!

Inventing the ONI system was just a side effect. And even though a non-invasive brain link would revolutionize their already-impressive prosthetics, he kept this one secret. For some reason.

Anyway, GSS under Wade declares the ONI to be completely safe for all audiences, even though turning off the computer without properly shutting down may have a side effect of permanent coma, and they sell it "at the lowest possible price," which is apparently not "free." They outsell every other possible method of accessing the OASIS. ONI is still patented, even though GSS is just trying to do the world a favor by selling it.

It's just so... "MY megacorporation is GOOD, see, they do GOOD things, and they're only slightly motivated by the ceaseless hunger to drive a profit!"

He sounds like he went to a mandatory team meeting at the local McDonald's where the exhausted store manager reads off company goals that all sound something like "We promote our customers' health and happiness by only using the highest quality ingredients to craft gourmet meals!" and took every word at face value.

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Wade and Samantha dated for like a week, jfc. They hooked up at the end of the first book, and then a week later, Wade finds Halliday's message about the ONI system, and Samantha walks out over his decision to distribute it. This is the relationship he's all broken up about.

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ONI has fixed poverty because now poor people eating shitty rations can log onto the OASIS and simulate fancy dinners. You know, the real drawback of poverty, even if we limit ourselves strictly to food and assume our fantasy poor has the time and money for this headset, is not getting to taste fancy dinners.

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1) I'm curious what the consider dangerous, given that we've already established that porn is a huge category. The ONI system has build in pain safeguards as well. I know there are other standards by which something might be considered dangerous beyond sex and violence, but I'm curious if Cline has thought about it at all.

2) Of course they're fuckin snitches

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I really, really want someone with some economics chops to work this out. He says that they sold the ONI headsets as cheaply as possible--how cheap is that? Obviously the majority of consumer electronics have obscene markups, but how cheaply could you actually make a neural interface headset?

Apparently two-thirds of the world population uses it. For reference, right now about 59% of the world population has internet access, most of whom use mobile internet. The book is set in a future where OASIS usage is more widespread, On Account of the Dystopia, but even so. In two years, two thirds of the world bought these headsets.

And then he says you can have these experiences "for less than the cost of an iced latte." I can only assume he's talking about the price for user-uploaded .oni files, not the headset itself. And if he thinks pricing it like a Starbucks drink means it'll be universally available, well, he clearly hasn't looked at cheap indie games or microtransactions. Or Starbucks.

Also, GSS oversees all these sales for a 20% cut, because Cline doesn't know what a bittorrent is. GSS apparently runs all of the OASIS, but I do wonder if just regular internet exists anymore. Either way, I don't think Cline has ever seen a statistic in his life.

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I TOLD you to leave Prince out of it!

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Leave Prince out of this, he doesn't deserve to be in this shitty book.

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This is supposed to be the dramatic reveal, that the AI Halliday has locked everyone into the simulation (and being logged in for too long causes brain damage and death), but it's impossible to take it seriously because everyone still talks Like That.

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Half of the book at this point is him complaining about how pathetic he is for stalking Art3mis, but it frustrates me that he never acknowledges that it isn't just sad. It's creepy and wrong, and I've met people who genuinely wouldn't see a problem with this sort of behavior.