/lit/ - Literature

>>15807221
cant wait for sexy fuck over internet

>>15807221
>mfw this bastard makes millions and gets a movie deal out of this garbage and I can't even win a $50 dollar short story competition.
When will this odious earth open and swallow me whole?

This is the last one I have.

So since the first book was just "Early 2010s Reddit: The Novel", with its vacuous, corporate-cock-slobbering, nostalgia-worshiping, nerd-cred-seeking existence, will the sequel continue to be a time capsule of that dark era, or will the story progress to instead be an accidental encapsulation of every shitty Reddit trend of today instead?

is this shit meant to be ironic?

>>15807243
at least you still have your dignity

>>15807221

>>15807287
no

>>15807299
dear lord

>>15807299
please tell me this is fake jesus christ

dear Lord, public literacy was a mistake and popular "culture" is worse than cancer; I hope this shit is ironic

>>15807314
>>15807329
Not only is it real, it's unironic.

>>15807275
I can't even imagine how bad that could end up being. How would you define the shitty trends of 2020?

>>15807236
>>15807247
>>15807256
>>15807275
Oh my god. It’s worse than the dirty panties in the other thread.

>>15807236
>And, of course, Kevin Smith.

>>15807299

>>15807247
>We also figured out how to do science
OMG I LOVE DOING SCIENCE STUFF

>>15807236
theres no way this is a real excerpt from a real book. please tell me this isnt real.

>>15807236
literally unreadable

>>15807299
It gets more painful to read each time its posted. Why can't the world stop

>>15807275
the first 2 were at least justifiable as a way to establish that the main character was a total nerd edgelord but this is the author just using mecha anime so he doesnt have to make or describe his own mechs. I watched the movie a while ago but I forgot exactly how this universe works. how did the creator guy program all of pop culture into his game?

>>15807370
>How would you define the shitty trends of 2020?

An endless saga of mentally exhausting back-and-forth twitter culture wars about every single inane iota of pop media generated throughout history.

Tell me that subject matter, written in the same way and handled with the same deft as the first book, would not be THE defining cringe-kino of the new decade, just as the first book was of the last.

>>15807299
the funniest thing is how incredibly sexist this 'poem' is

>>15807236
basedboy : the book

holy shit

>>15807299
OH NO NO NO

Every day I understand more and more why God punishes us so

these threads are like groundhog day, to borrow a reference that cline would appreciate

>>15807896
it’s just a dumb book, calm your tits

>>15807236
How is this real?

>>15807299
Somehow even more sexist than regular sexism.

>>15807962
No

>>15807221
When it came to my research, I never took any shortcuts. Over the past five years, I'd worked my way down the entire recommended /lit/ reading list. James Joyce, Thomas Pynchon, David Foster Wallace, Tao Lin, Jordan B. Peterson, Fyodor Dostoevsky, Megan Boyle, The Greeks. I read every wikipedia page about every novel on /lit/'s top 100.

>>15807221
/cope

>>15807247
>>15807256
>>15807275
I'M GONNA
CONSOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM

>write book about world gone to shit so people just CONSOOM all day
>turns into movie people CONSOOM for nostalgia
>world still more polluted by the day
Fuck sellouts

>>15807247
>figured out how to do science
>for a bunch of hairless apes

Strong candidate for Worst Book of 2020.

>>15809367
none of the excerpts ITT are from Ready Player Two. They're from the first one.

>>15809386
I've already read the trainwreck. He will presumably make this even worse.

>>15807256
>ECTO-88
The author is quite obviously a racist and needs to be cancelled before he can publish another abomination like this.

>Ready Player Two
>turns out my "no internet on Tuesdays" rule didn't fix the world

>>15807236

This makes me want to commit war crimes

>>15807299

>Guys need porn!
>Also wahhhh these guys' idea of porn is misogynistic

Do these people even hear themselves?

>>15807236
came in here to post this. I guess I'm no fast draw

>>15807236
>No Philip K. Dick

>>15808869
He didn't sell out, he was praising all the consumption from the start and sees it as an unambiguously good thing. He's such a stereotypical fat blob of nostalgia-obsessed shit that he comes across more like some kind of tulpa created from reddit's collective unconscious desires than a real human.
Look at him. Look him in his fucking eyes, anon.

>>15809693
He wrote the fast food equivalent of a book.

>>15809693
>Look him in his fucking eyes, anon.
I already did. You an literally see his soul screaming in terror.

>>15809693
My fucking god. its almost painful. i unironnically had my heart racing for a moment. you know when you see a completely dilluded nerd caught up in some kind of caricature of the real world. someone who looks like they can just snap? someone who isnt even knowledgeable about the content they are into, but whose entire ego is the conglomeration of a fanbases most lukewarm elements and hottakes? Its almost surrial.

>>15807299
>he has a fat nerd fetish, so there for all other types of women are not really women.
sounds pretty sexist desu

>>15807221
I'm genuinely excited for it. The first one is one of my favorite books of all time, it just barely edges out Moby Dick. What he was able to achieve with such simple language is almost unheard of. It's the refinement of the refinement and the logical end to the American prosaic style. The way he rides the line between low and high brow, between prole like schlock and the most sublime sophistication, the way he controls the meta-narrative and executes both a run of the mill sci-fi nerd power fantasy plot and undercuts that with the Conradian metafiction hidden between the lines. I believe David Foster Wallace was approaching this in the Pale King but he left us too soon. Cline's first book was very much an homage to the Pale King and the logical extension of it. The way he eulogized Wallace near the end was just soul rending. He achieved so much with that first book that I'm almost afraid to see what a second one might entail but if he's written a second that means that he has come up with some earth shattering material. The world may not be ready for it but I am certain that the world needs it and that the world must contend with it. In Cline we trust.

>>15810858
is it worth finishing? Im not too far in, but it feels like my HS friend wrote it

Totally worth reading the first book, it's my all-time favorite

>>15807236
>>15807247
>>15807256
>>15807275
>This man has made millions and is a far more successful author than you will ever be

>>15807236
My God. Its just pure soi.
Is this what I have to write to make money in todays age? Just… reference pop culture?

>>15807247
This has to be a troll.
This reads like a post on r/atheism from 2009

For anyone who's read it, I highly recommend listening through 372 Pages We'll Never Get Back. A couple of the Riff Trax guys do basically a podcast book club, and it is genuinely hilarious watching them transition from trying to give it some credit, given that it was the NYT's book of the year, to just ragging on it endlessly.

>>15811324
Klein is literally the perfect strawman of a redditor, it's amazing. One of my favorite things is how smug he is about his incredibly shallow understanding of pop culuture, like referring to The Last Starfighter, a movie that made more money than Scarface and The Muppets Take Manhattan in the same year, as obscure.

At this point, embrace it. Make power and love fantasies for the lowest ribbitors. Unironic neckbeard fantasy fufillment. Write about obese community college students being hit by a truck that sends them to a magical universe. Maybe include a chapter on the merits of the calling out ‘problematic shows’ like Friends or why the protagonist has a hot sauce collection.

>>15811002
You missed it anon.

>>15811346
had such a good time listening to this podcast when I used to ride my bike home from working at a nightclub a few years ago

>>15807243
Maybe you underrate his talent and overrate yours. Ego is a vociferous beast.

>>15811948
>>15807243
It sounds like both of you underestimate the general stupidity and vapidness of the mass man.

>>15807236
>>15807256
>>15807275

Someone writing like this has not done enough with their life before trying to write a book.

>>15807236
I don't see why /lit/ is pretending this is unfathomably bad; an anathema to literature. It's simple in structure and perfectly readable. Stop overreacting to massage your own egos. This is the epitome of digestible while also being entirely unremarkable.

>>15807236
>>15807247
>>15807256
>>15807275
>its okay when Dante or old timey author name drops old shit from Greek books and the Bible but when someone else does it in a genre its bad. Could you guys be more NPC?

>>15807299
is this where reddit learned that "le quirky and smart" sentence structure?

>>15808333
What would the title be? Ready Enlightened One?

>>15812006
No fag.

>>15807275
You didn't post the masturbation one.

>>15807247
>Sorry kid. Deal with it.
This has got to be a joke.

>>15812017
>namedropping childrens shows
>namedropping dead philosophers
Surely youre not retarded enough that you cant acknowledge theres a difference between these two things?

>>15812347
Philosophy is seeped into culture differently. Those "kids shows" have layered philosophical topics and referencing them is equivalent to namedropping Tolstoy when discussing nihilism because you understand what context they want to prevail

>>15807236
Unironically what is wrong with this? It makes sense for the character to study all this material and to brag about it as it was a massive time sink.

>>15812377
>80s childrens cartoons are as philosophically pertinent as Tolstoy.
fuck off back to /co/ fag.

>>15812392
Youre right, in the story, it makes sense.
But if you take a step back and look at it, its a perfect caricature of the nostalgia -drunk reddit soiboy. Thats why its funny.

>>15812407
Aha you have fallen into my trap. I purposefully attributed a philosophical thought to him to bait pseuds who talk about shit they don't know.

>>15812420
And you're a caricature of the miserable 4chan misanthrope, buzzwords and all. Both sites can be echo chambers and are chock-full of tools.

>>15812182
Since nobody seems to have picked up, here goes.

>I felt no shame about masturbating. Thanks to Anorak’s Almanac, I now thought of it as a normal bodily function, as necessary and natural as sleeping or eating.

>AA 241:87—I would argue that masturbation is the human animal’s most important adaptation. The very cornerstone of our technological civilization. Our hands evolved to grip tools, all right—including our own. You see, thinkers, inventors, and scientists are usually geeks, and geeks have a harder time getting laid than anyone. Without the built-in sexual release valve provided by masturbation, it’s doubtful that early humans would have ever mastered the secrets of fi re or discovered the wheel. And you can bet that Galileo, Newton, and Einstein never would have made their discoveries if they hadn’t first been able to clear their heads by slapping the salami (or “knocking a few protons off the old hydrogen atom”). The same goes for Marie Curie. Before she discovered radium, you can be certain she first discovered the little man in the canoe.

>It wasn’t one of Halliday’s more popular theories, but I liked it.

>>15809693
Imagine the smell

>>15811002
No, anon put in all that effort just to tell a joke /s

>>15807236
David Markson does the same shit in Wittgeinstein's Mistress and I've seen that book pop up in underrated literature threads.

>>15812435
How is the author of war and peace a psued trap?
You seem like the type of faggot that likes to argue for the sake of it, then declares hes the winner once everyone at the party starts getting annoyed.

>>15812451
You had it explained to you. Why are you so offended? He didnt insult you did he?

>>15812535
I cannot fathom why this was included in the book. How does the author get to a point where hes talking about jerking off?

>>15807486
SCIENCE SCIENCE BOZAGA SCIENCE BOGAZNA BOLANGA SCIENCE LOLOLOL I LOVE SCIENCE

>>15807486
IM FAT AND I FUCKING LOVE SCIENCE WHERES MY FUCKING CHODE AT??? LOLOLOLOL I LOVE BOZANGA

>>15810678
What soul? There is nothing in those eyes

>>15809693
God, I hate this fucking dipshit. You can see just how "quirky" and "wacky" he thinks he is in those fucking Redditor eyes. Those are THE Reddit eyes. And the Reddit clothing too.

OMG I LOVE ERNEST CLINE

>>15812006
/lit/ tries to act intelligent but this thread exposes them for the frauds that they are. They can’t even distinguish between content and form.

>>15807236
>>15807247
>>15807256
>>15807275
This is like a brainlet Des Esseintes living in a world where fine arts do not exist anymore but Kevin Smith do except he does not realize that he lives in a dead culture.

>>15807247
>a bunch of hairless apes

>>15812017
They didn't do it just for fun. They did it to get across a message. Homer was taken at face value as actual fact in Socrates' time which is why criticizing it was seen as impious.

>>15812392
Because Redditors don't think of it that way. They genuinely like that kind of 80s cartoon hanna barbra shit as if anyone besides literal toddlers should fucking cvare.

Whoops! Gonna need another shelf!

>>15812701
Wittgenstein's Mistress isn't the best selling book of the 2010s.

>>15808333
>I read every wikipedia page about every novel on /lit/'s top 100.

>>15812941
Spot on. Except maybe that Des Esseintes makes very insightful criticisms and has tastes of his own, he doesn't just consume the classics.
Anyway, keep on reading Huysmans anon.

>>15813017
I just realized now...talk about pseudo-initiation

>>15807236
What if this is just the narrator/main character’s voice and the book is actually a scathing indictment of consoomerism?

>>15808333
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QT13kk8HDDo

Here's some pages from Armada. Didn't notice there already was a thread for this clown.

>>15813577
It isn't, though

>>15807236
How the actual fuck did this get published

>>15814717
i clapped

>>15812535
>(or “knocking a few protons off the old hydrogen atom”)
Holy FUCK

>>15807256
MAKE IT STOP, MAKE IT STOP
I'LL TELL YOU ANYTHING, I MEAN ANYTHING

the man is a living funko pop

>>15812017
He didn't just namedrop, he engaged with their life, their morals and their writings. He used them to examplify the differences between the Christian world and the pagan world while also paying hommage to his elders, which was also a way to resolve the Christian issue of owing so much to Pagan culture.
Cline here is doing some weird form of reference hoarding and mashing for visibly no other purpose than referencing itself.
You were right to raise that question but the answer is obvious.

>>15814717
>Four of the most prominent scientists
>Neil deGrasse Tyson

>>15814927
I hate Cline and his stupid fucking neckbeard and quirky expression. Act like a normal person and shut up with the 80s cartoons of your childhood. No one fucking cares about some crappy 80s cartoons you wrote a book about. Lots of people grew up with them too but they got over them later and didn't write a fucking "nerdgasm" book about them.

>>15807299
Not gonna lie, this is very funny to read.

>>15812006
It's just incredibly cringy. The excerpt in the post your quoted is actually not that bad, you could say it's functional, but the function it is achieving here is not particularly interesting. Judging by the other excerpt the rest of the book is not even disguised 'sci-fi nerd' wish-fulfillment. It's basically unintentional cringe porn, and the guy who wrote it might as well have never read a book in his life from the looks of it. If anything it makes me laugh, but I understand why a young aspiring author would be distraught to find that kind of book seels so much.

>>15812535
dude what the fuck

>>15812377
The problem is: even assuming those shows are as philosophically pertinent, essential to our culture and substantial in content, does the book so little as attempt to deal with the philosophical issues in those shows? Or is it just namedropping them for nostalgia's sake.

>>15812017
You can't even use meme arrows properly. Go back.

>>15813051
Des Esseintes even makes a point to have uncontroversial opinions about classics (in Against the Grain there's a whole chapter about how the latin of the Church is superior to the latin of Cicero's time, which was the exact opposite of the accepted opinion among most educated people at the time).

It seems Cline doesn't even reach the level of knowledgeable hipster.

>>15812535
>knocking a few protons off the old hydrogen atom

Look mom I said the science thing!

>>15812535
this is so fucking cringe how is it real

What is funniest about this author and his faggoty book is that Cline is this shitty, but people like Chuck Wendig WISH they could have the same recognition that Cline gets. Herkily jerkily ol' Chuck prays to Yoda every fucking day that he'll get as good a break as Cline and get to write the same trash as he does. What a life to live.

>>15814717
Is this serious? Legitimately reads like pasta.

>>15815084
*as philosophers of the past

>>15807299
what the fuck is this

>>15814839
>>15815147
it's really fucked up because hydrogen only has a single proton.

>>15807299
Its stuff like this that really makes you think radfems have a point

>>15815193
I'm just really hoping it's an elaborate satire of the 105 IQ midwit who thinks he's a genius for having barely above average intelligence.

>>15807221
There's a podcast of two guys who discuss terrible books while people can read along (not dissimilar to a book club), and RPO was their first one. They seem like cool dudes, so I might read it just to follow along. I don't know of any other good book podcasts.

>>15815765
whats the podcast

>>15815785
372 Pages I'll never get back

>>15807236
This is the Catalogue of Ships of the 2000s and there's nothing you can do about it.

>>15807236
Lmao, reads like a copypasta. Absolutely based.

>>15815820
my classics professor in college made us read the catalog of ships in class because it was his favorite chapter

>>15807247
>>15807256
>>15807275
>>15807299
I don't know why but this touches my funny bone if I read it as satire. Guy is absolutely based.

>>15815867
>my classics professor in college made us read the catalog of ships in class because it was his favorite chapter
Absolutely based

>>15807236

>and of course kevin smith

Every single fucking time.

>>15812535
I... I honestly don't get it. What's he trying to convey? Isn't that a kids' book? Why is he talking about masturbation?

>>15807295
bold assumption

>>15816030
The book was never for kids. Kids don't care about what some fat cunt misses from his childhood in the 80s. It's for forty year olds who never grew up and twenty-eight year olds who fantasize about growing up any other time than the one they did.

>>15807299
YES

YES ERNEST

FUCK THOSE NERD BITCHES

OBJECTIFY THOTS AND SECURE INTELLIGENT WOMEN

IF SHE WON'T DRESS UP LIKE ADMIRAL AKBAR AND PEG YOU SHE'S NOT IT KING YOU DESERVE BETTER

>>15807236
>>15807247
>>15807256
>>15807275
>>15807299
After re-reading some of these excerpts, I get why he got so popular so quickly. It's not just the Easter Egg bullshit that chokes any semblance of life out of his work, though that's about seventy percent of it.

His style is so, so, so bad, but that's what made him appealing. He writes like all these fucking nu-males do. All the women are either spunky, docile, or gay or manly, and that's it. All the guys are useless except for the main character, who'd be useless in his own right if the story didn't depend on him being such a massive fucking faggot. If he can't think of an actually decent piece of description, either just throw in some generic bullshit

>we spread across the planet like a VIRUS

or just make a reference to something that you know

>her robot looked like a robot but like a female version of this other robot from my favorite show Zanzogarble lel XD

and some other soi-enema-ing social reject will read what you wrote and clap their doughy hands together and giggle and burp and before you know it Stevie Spielberg is knocking on your door with a big fuckin' grin and an even bigger check.

This man is living, breathing, sweating filth and proof that mediocrity, dead-center nothingness so bland it's almost unbelievable, can rule the market if given enough attention and credence.

What makes it all the more disappointing is the book could've been a genuinely great satire of consumer/American culture, the mass regurgitation of media, and the religiosity that's grown to support all of pop culture.

But Ernest couldn't do that. It's not that he probably isn't smart, or could be a decent writer, or doesn't want to be more. I don't think he can be more. He is a satirical character with no self-awareness. A human parody that's hilarious until you see that there's nothing behind the eyes. He is empty and sad.

Fuck this guy. Fuck everyone like him.

>>15812006
It's garbage because of how unbelievably soulless it all is. This book is empty drivel nostalgic drivel -- you'd be better off finding reading material in 1001 Movies To Watch Before You Die. Basically the same idea as Cline's novel, without the needless and embarrassing, not to mention half-assed, self-insert plot about a nerdy kid who knows all the cool movies from the 80s ever made and wins the BIG VIDEO GAME because of it.

>>15807236
>What about the Simpsons, you ask?
Is Sneed confirmed?

>>15812006
It has no substance. It has no style, no grace, not even a funny face.

For everyone asking in the thread how this abomination to literature can possibly get published, keep in mind RPO is the first book Cline wrote as a literally who, where he sold the publishing AND the movie rights to the highest bidder and became a millionaire overnight. That never happens. Those companies knew it would be a bestseller precisely because it panders to the lowest common denominator and ticks off every box on the marketing checklist. I don't blame Ernest Cline for getting published and becoming a millionaire off a shitty book, I blame the sentimental and uncultured morons who allow people like Ernest Cline get published in the first place. It's easy to be a successful writer. All you have to do is sacrifice your artistic, creative, and intellectual integrity.

>>15816280
Good post. I hate that entire mindset nowadays. Stupid cartoon bullshit isn't automatically special because you were a kid when it came out. Grow the fuck up. If you are stuck on cartoon shit you are a loser, plain amd simple. Rocky and Buklwinkle and Supermen and Munsters and Nancy Drew are fine if you are five but I can't imagine being 50 and enjoying them.

I promise you when I am 50 I will not put in a dvd of Spongebob or whatever. You can quote me on this. When I am 50, I will not sit down and watch a Spongebob because I was a kid when that came out.

>>15807299
I didn't need to be reminded of this

>>15807486
most of the people that fall into the #ifuckinglovescience crowd don't even do science.

>>15807275
>mechs from Eva
Someone didn’t watch Eva

>>15817368
>biomechs aren't mechs

>>15807314
>>15807329
>>15807478
>>15807676
>>15807760
>>15807792
>>15808299
>>15809537
>>15810793
>>15812073
>>15815014
>>15815184
>>15815259
>>15815872
>>15816355

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LwNOzWXb7RE

They applauded it.

>>15816482
>What makes it all the more disappointing is the book could've been a genuinely great satire of consumer/American culture, the mass regurgitation of media, and the religiosity that's grown to support all of pop culture.
I choose to believe that it is satire so great that no one has yet seen through it.

>>15817410
he's not implying that dummy, he's saying they are different design-wise + biomechs existed before Eva

You should have had me growing up to set you straight. Maybe your family wouldn't be such dorks. Munsters and fire station history isn't what gets the ladues wet, not even in 1980.

>>15807299
>monosyllabic cock-hungry nymphos
What does this even mean? That their names are 1 syllable or their words are 1 syllable? The former has nothing to do with anything and it would only make sense for the latter if monosyllabic was before “three-word vocabulary”.

>>15814702
This is the most dude weed thing I’ve ever seen and I watch JRE

>>15817043
>>15817110
If you're old enough to post on 4chan you're too old for 4chan. Grow the fuck up.

>this is the best book of its type since 'Neuromancer'; Ernie Cline is the new William Gibson
>READY PLAYER ONE will defy every label you try to put on it. Here, finally, is this generation's NEUROMANCER
Am I glad the reviews in the front only mentioned Neuromancer once, a third time and I would have had to start hating a book I love.

>>15817423
People will never applause my shitty poem about how great trees are. Yet, as much as I'm convinced my poetry is shit, I know that it is better than this. It must be better than this. Is there anything to his poem? Am I missing the point? It's obviously not satire, but people seem to enjoy it. Should I write about how great porno is event though I despise all about it? Was mass literacy a crime against beauty?

Are these the people I shitpost with? Fuck I need to get my life together.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oL16aFVPDTE

>>15807221
Wasn't there a part about anal masturbation or smoething?

>>15807275
>(Even though I now knew Aech was a actually a female in real life, her avatar was still male, so I decided to continue to refer to him as such)

>A roar swept through the crowd as I flew in

>He made a sweeping gesture, indicating the angry mob that surrounded him. "I must say, we are a bit surprised that so many of you showed up here today. By now it must be obvious, to even the most ignorant among you, that nothing can get past our shields'

>I waited a moment, then raised both my robot's hands, calling for quiet.

The greatest piece of satire ever written where he is literally feeding people their own shit. It's so poorly written that I felt like I was having a stroke whilst typing it out.

>>15809622
Too based for the catalog of soi

>>15817110
The first three seasons of Spongebob were great amusement/entertainment.

>>15807299

>>15811253
He has made more money than you, but is he truly more successful?

>>15812017
>the visiting redditor thinks referencing inane pop culture garbage from less than half a century ago is the equivalent of citing the word of God or one of western civilization's founding philosophies

>>15812936
>"remember when you consumed product?" book carefully distilled from the purest extract of reddit is good because the sentence shapes are pleasing to the psyche

>>15807299
The cringe is so strong it's like a bump of coke.

>>15817423
something inside me just clicked after hearing the ovation to this sonnet.

>>15816482
Thanks for this post. NuMale faggotry is an abomination against nature. It revolts next like nothing else. I would rather watch gay porn then read easily excitable numale cope.

>>15807243
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CuaWu2uhmRQ

>>15807236
consume

>>15807236
>>15807247
>>15807256
>>15807275
How do Kingkiller fags cope with this?

>>15812535
>knocking a few protons off the old hydrogen atom
This has got to be satire. If it were legit he wouldn't have mentioned hydrogen specifically. He wouldn't right?

>>15820457
Everyone already knows Rothfuss is an equally embarrassing human being, he's just a slightly less embarrassing writer. For example, Rothfuss actually describes the things in his books, instead of likening them to things from other, better works.

>>15820750
Actually, in my opinion, what Rothfuss does best is the 'show, don't tell' thing, wich is quite uncommon in the fantasy genre. That doesn't save him from being a cringe neckbeard, though
T. Ex- Kingkiller fag

>>15807221
I keep confusing him with Edward Cline.

>>15807236
ok this is truly the american epic, the odyssey of our times

I'm gonna throw up

>>15807236
this reads like a /lit/ parody lmao

>>15820313
NuMale faggotry is what led me to support violent political extremism. Ultimately I dont care what type of shithole I'm in as long as I get the satisfaction of knowing we lined these fags up against a wall and shot them, but only after melting their funko-pops and amiibos while they watched and could do nothing about it.

>>15820520
>>15815193
Imagine being the unpopular geek in school and not even being smart enough to pass basic science to make up for it

>>15807299
All the memes I've come across

was targeted at beer-swilling sports bar dwelling alpha-males

Men who like their memes stupid and sneednisive

Men who can only get it up for monosyllabic suck-hungry chucks

with gargantuan red hats and a one-word vocabulary

Memes are populated with these simpson-injected

city slickers

Many of whom have resorted to forceful meme-mutilation

in an attempt to meme the way they have been told to meme.

These aren't real memes They're reddit.

And these memes aren't kekworthy. They're pathetic.

These feed-headed suck bunnies don't turn me on.

They disgust me.

And it's not that I'm against memes.

I mean, I'm a big guy. And guys needs memes.

Fact.

"For you"

Big guys need memes

>>15822071
Copied & recorded

>>15822071
based

>>15815172
All the best pastas are completely serious

>>15807236
I forgot it was this horrendous. Poor DFW is doubtlessly convulsing in his grave.

>>15807236
It's interesting that the author knows, if not about, at least OF most pop culture things, and turned that knowledge into cash.

>>15820457
Go fuck yourself, Patrick.

>>15821959
That is what makes me hate Cline. Not only is he a stupid geek but he has an aversion to higher learning as well.

>>15822483
How is that interesting
I can't think of anything less interesting than that

>>15807299
This dude unironically has taste.

>>15817874
Trees are pretty neat, you're in the right here

>>15807236
Who is Scalzi in the list of authors? John Scalzi? He's not an 80s author though

>>15807221
Is it bad that I enjoyed the movie?
Never read the book but based on the pages posted ITT that was a wise decision

>>15824093
Are you that easily tricked? Do you just clap every time you see something that reminds you of things you used to enjoy, like a dog hearing a bell?

>>15817011
>keep in mind RPO is the first book Cline wrote as a literally who, where he sold the publishing AND the movie rights to the highest bidder and became a millionaire overnight.

I can't help but feel that he's an industry plant. There's just nothing organic about his rise to fame.

>>15825109
I CLAPPED. IT BROKE NEW GROUND

>>15814993
>No one fucking cares about some crappy 80s cartoons
factually untrue and that's what is hurting the most about this whole thing; here's the spirit of your civilization, bro

>>15807221
Thanks for letting me know OP. Surprised I hadn't heard about this.

>>15825109
What

>>15817011
>It's easy to be a successful writer. All you have to do is sacrifice your artistic, creative, and intellectual integrity.
could you be more precise, asking for a friend

>>15817874
>It's obviously not satire, but people seem to enjoy it
because he's telling people, whether consciously or unconsciously, what they want to hear. he won't be remembered for greatness. at best, he'll be remembered as an icon emblematic of an era, the same way somebody remembers Horatio Alger.

>>15825459
You're close. I've forgotten the name of the guy, but there's a hollywood director who lives in the same city as Cline and they're close, as Cline has done a fair amount of screenwriting work. By all accounts this guy was immediately pushing RPO around to all of the big studios.

>>15821608
This 100%. My dream in life is to see these self-proclaimed "liberal-leftist" numales get their teeth kicked in by a genuine black Maoist vanguard. Luckily, judging by how the race riots are progressing and how ineffective liberalism has proven to deal with them, we may see this happen in the near future. Here's hoping.

>>15807236
This is absolutely thunderstriking. My reaction is like an emotion I have never once had, a concoction second hand embarrassment, levity and pure hatred.

>>15820457
OP here - funnily enough I hate Kingkiller more than RP1. It has all the "author inserting an idealized version of themselves into a fantasy setting where everyone's lives revolve around how awesome they are" trash going on, but without the unintentional hilarity of RP1.

Make no mistake, I am actually hyped about RP2. Not for the reason the author hopes, mind, but hype nonetheless.

>>15807256
I made the first paragraph /lit/core
> The entry carpets have become beaten by the exhausts of my car, the same car the I wrought and wrestled from the hands of victory on Zemeckis. My chariot, the stone and artists as one, adorned with fancies and mind; strength to break into a new Euclidean realm. Hexes and witches beware! Your eyes shall begat the avatar of my will!

>>15807256
I made the first sentence /lit/:
>some whore made a huge scene when I pulled up in my 15 year old Civic, blasting Sweet Dreams Are Made of This on my $600 stereo I'd obtained by haggling with some loser on craigslist. I came complete with a lit cigarette, after taking a bong rip, and began filling up with gas. The whore snapped a picture of me. "With a car, " I said, "you can go anywhere you want."

>>15827885
I assent your post above my own>>15827885

didn't read thread, fuck this guy

>>15817011
bluepill: ernest cline is a barely believable manifestation of the absolute s*yest of all human impulses in history and became a millionaire by publishing a book about it via some horrific twist of fate

redpill: it is satire that hits harder than a modest proposal and you couldn't shitpost this hard if you tried, so while it may seem simplistic, whether it was sincere or not doesn't matter and it made money and attracted attention because it's so damn singular

>>15807299
These levels of based cannot be comprehended by /lit/cels

>>15827948
it made money and attracted attention because the people who watched the movie probably can't be considered human

>>15827989
If you bought a ticket to Ready Player One you should have screws drilled into your eyeballs.

>>15816482
What's wrong with his style? What's good style look like?

I have zero taste for good literature

>>15828017
If you're being serious and genuinely can't tell, your verbal intelligence is just too low to ever actually understand what people are talking about when they're talking about literature. Something in your head is not wired properly, like colorblindness.

>>15828157
All I see are a bunch of anons chortling about how bad it is with no substance to their criticism besides one or two guys. So what makes it bad from a technical standpoint? The actual prose, I mean.

>>15827948
Just look at his career and his personal life ever since the book git published. He is completely sincere about pop culture and geekdom. If he is a master shitposter and performance artist in the making, he hasn't revealed it yet and is doing a very good job of playing it straight, but I don't see any evidence to believe it.

>>15807236
>everyone shitting on this

You fuckers clearly don't care for fun or pop culture

>>15828536
Yes.

>>15828434
It's a list of 80s movies and cartoons. It's not even making a point or anything. It's just a fucking list of random shit.

>>15828536
I propose that it be referred to as "The Catalogue of Shit"

>>15828521
>he is completely sincere
And yet his interaction with all this forgettable media is only skin-deep, like he looked up on Wikipedia a game that began with the letter Z and slotted it in there. There's no in depth look at any of this stuff he's supposed to love. It's just names. Totally empty.

how is it possible to monetize this pile of copyrighted cashcows

>>15828434
>What makes it bad from a technical standpoint?
What makes a pile of shit smell bad from a technical standpoint? Your reaction is just to recoil in disgust, you can't logically explain it.

>>15807247
Unironically hilarious. If this was satire of Reddit/Atheist culture you would all love it and you know it. Unfortunately, I think the author is serious. Seriously how the fuck is this published

>>15828631
Give up on your sense of intellectual and literary standards for starters.

>>15828702
It could've been great satire if Cline had even a modicum of self-awareness, but one look at his fucking face proves otherwise.
I still hold out some faint hope that one day he's going to have a press conference to say holy shit I cannot believe you faggots never stopped me, that he can tell us it was a con from the start and nobody on earth is really that fucking vapid in their consumption. I would praise him as the single greatest artist of the 21st century if he turned it around and made his fans see how shallow they are, but deep down I know it can't be true.

>>15828781
one can dream

>>15828629
It doesn't matter. Have you ever interacted with a soitard? They get all giddy and excited at even the most remote mention of pop media. Name dropping is all they do. Have you seen how he conducts himself in his private life? Nobody buys a delorean and fashions it in the style of the Back to the Future model for sake of satire.

>>15828434
It's utterly unremarkable. A masterpiece of mediocrity.

>>15828434
It's >>15828599 plus the fact that it's just horribly written in general. Imagine spending actual money and literal hours of your life reading a book about a fucking teenager who's magic knowledge of the """"80's"""" plus video game skill makes him a billionaire. It's literally just intellectual masturbation, and being a straight man I don't feel like getting Klein's fucking mind-spunk all over my face.

>>15828434
If you don't understand at a gut level why it's bad then you're beyond any help

>>15816482
Printing off this post and physically mailing it to him

>>15812006
Every other sentence is a reference to pop culture you dolt.

>>15817874
You're kidding. I bet if you performed your poem, you would get clapping.

>>15807275
Fucker used NGE, it's not even from the 80s

How dare he sully its name

>>15829611
The Lord of the Rings movies are decidedly ear;y 2000's, but that doesn't stop Cline fom listing off everything he likes. No piece of pop culture is sacred by definition, not even your gay NGE.

>>15828434
You're right in that it's not terrible in its execution. Most people are reacting to the kind of person who would try to express the ideas contained in that passage without a hint of satire. It reads like a self-congratulatory Reddit post on crack.

>>15829356
Thanks anon. I hope you have a lovely day.

>>15807236
>OMG IS THAT A ... POP CULTURE REFERENCE?!?!?!!! THIS HECKIN BOOKERINO IS EVERYTHING!!!!

>>15829116
I KNEWWHAT IT WAS AND I CLAPPED

Okay so I've started reading it... I'm 10% of the way into it after only an hour so let's see how good/digestible it is or otherwise... It's not terrible so far but so far it's been mostly about the shitty dystopian society the book takes place in, which sounds rather promising, but I've seen these screenshots so I know the cringe I'm getting into. Wish me luck.

>>15831127
don't forget to post screenshots

>>15821028
Be nice to Rothfuss - I think he comes on here and he's a soft boy.

>>15831765
Lose weight, shave, and take a shower, Patrick

>>15828536
That's the problem. Some of the stuff listed is good. Some of at has plenty of artistic merit. I personally enjoy some of the stuff mentioned on that page. That's what makes the whole affair so soul crushing- anything potentially innovate or unique about any of the works Kline lists here is obliterated into an endless slurry of pop culture reference.

>>15831765
You're a fat lardass piece of shit neckbeard and your books suck and you're reddit incarnate. You're so Reddit the Reddit police arrested you for garnering too much karma.

>>15807236
I cannot believe I once had the desire to read this pile of shit. My fucking god...? It's fucking nauseating, I feel bad for having read this page, and this page only. How the fuck is so much crap condensed into a single a page????

Halliday is biggest reddit onions there fucking is!!! His media taste is anything and everything that is popular to general public, wtf???? It would literally make more sense if his taste was weird, composed of unpopular, not well know and unusual media. JESUS FUCKING CHRIST, IT WOULD BE COMMON SENSE!!! and this is just simple thing.

I'm very thankful however to you, anon. Now I don't have to start reading this garbage and I would say to myself to keep reading maybe it will get good and then dropped. No. I'm not gonna drop it because I ain't even gonna start.

>>15812006
>perfectly readable
Anon, I sincerely won't call you name or anything. I'm just going to ask how in God's name can you refer to this "book" as readable??? Seriously, how?

Like me, have you read this page anon posted? I don't think you have, because if you did you wouldn't write such insanity.

>>15807236
We're hitting REDDIT levels that shouldn't even be possible!

>>15807247
And there's more? What???????? No fucking way! Okay, I read this one and OMG it has even more reddit in it.
>Made-up Gods
>Evolution
>Fighting senseless wars
>Hairless apes
Gee, enough is enough. This kind of shameless faggotry I shall not have it. How can something be this level of reddit? I will not read the other 2 pages, I have some self-respect.
>>15807256
>>15807275

>>15807221
>>15807236
>>15807314
>>15807342
>>15807592
I don't get it? What's the background here

>>15833345
I don't get it. It looks like the average /lit/ user wrote it. Obsessed with fiction...

>>15807236
In a fight between the lists of RPO and the lists of American Psycho, who would win?

>>15807256
yikes

>>15807236
the whole book can't be like that.
it just can't be.

>>15814748
Jewish privilege

>>15810858
>it just barely edges out Moby Dick
The reddit is too strong in this one. Inoperable.

>>15831127
I hope the book is only 200 pages long.

>>15810858
was that taken directly from reddit?

Mate... jus, just take a look at another part I fucking stumbled upon.

A passage from the book:
Be warned, the level of shallowness and cringe may cause serious brain damage!

>Standing on the left side of the runway was my battle-worn X-wing fighter. Parked on the right side was my DeLorean. Sitting on the runway itself was my most frequently used spacecraft, the Vonnegut. Max had already powered up the engines, and they emitted a low, steady roar that filled the hangar. The Vonnegut was a heavily modified Firefly-class transport vessel, modeled after the Serenity in the classic Firefly TV series. The ship had been named the Kaylee when I’d first obtained it, but I’d immediately rechristened it after one of my favorite twentieth-century novelists. Its new name was stenciled on the side of its battered gray hull. I’d looted the Vonnegut from a cadre of Oviraptor clansmen who had foolishly attempted to hijack my X-wing while I was cruising through a large group of worlds in Sector Eleven known as the Whedonverse.
YOU CAN'T MAKE THIS UP! How can someone possibly be that bad at writing?

This here is what some guy wrote discussing about this trash:

>There's never anything clever done about the references, the whole book reads like this. And to make matters worse, our protagonist is the epitome of "I am very smart and only I understand the world". He has four or five legendary rants in the book about things like the superiority of atheists, how bad body shaming is, and all these current social issues that have nothing to do with anything and completely break the narrative of the book.
Never read this book, but after reading the three pages posted here I just knew, I just fucking knew this faggot would talk about politics, in his delusional leftist view.

IT KEEPS GETTING WORSE!

>>15833666
Why did you waste your time doing this?

>>15834132
joke's on you, i'm posting it on r/4chan right now for mad karma and upvotes

I'm not suprised this garbage is popular. I'm surprised Spielberg ate it up. Is he getting senile?

>>15833666
We have RPO cringe threads about once a month. Lurk more.

>>15834250
>is he getting senile?
nah

>>15807275
>Every reddit trend of today
So the pages are all censored, except for every fifth word which is something considered "wholesome?"

>>15807299
This is the most hilariously misogynistic thing I've ever read in my entire life lmao

>>15835071
Why don't we get this guy canceled so that RPO2 gets pulled and not degrade our society further?

>>15807299
really long winded sonnet that can be shortened down to "I only jerk off to hentai and JAV"

>>15817110
I still listen to the background music from spongebob sometimes, but I haven't rewatched a full episode from it in years

>>15831485
1/2

>>15831485
>>15837230
2/2

>any unmoderated space on the internet with free speech becomes heavily right wing; leftist ideas cannot exist without censorship
The world of Ready Player One can be seen to be dystopian not because people live in stacks of trailers (a completely retarded concept) in abject poverty, but because the very language they could use to describe the world they live in has been stolen. Cline does not recognise the world he has created is peak capitalism, and throughout the book even has his characters refer to IOI (the antagonistic corporation) as "fascist." There is nobody running around inside the OASIS, a place of total anonymity and free expression, screaming NIGGERNIGGERNIGGER at any and every user in sight. Instead, they watch movies and play video games and dream of escape from their situations only with more money, which they will use to consume more meaningless media.
What I originally meant to say was that the portrayal of the inside of the OASIS is completely inaccurate, but the pseud inside came out. This fucking book is shit on every level, and viscerally offensive to me on a spiritual level.

>>15837977
Well put. It's beyond ridiculous the poor level writing Cline has. He's trying to make a point (or at least I think he is) but at the same time his writings are contradicting themselves. And indeed the OASIS must be infested with mods exactly like in reddit, restricting people of their freedom of speech, and banning them and taking away their precious money.

I genuinely do not know why this "novel" isn't considered the Emoji movie of books?

>>15837230
>>15837237
nice

>>15838080
I only started taking notes/highlights in chapter 5. Most of the screenshots posted above are in the beginning of the book.

>>15837237
How is the Oasis powered in a giant energy crisis?

Chapter 17 of Ready Player One is formatted like an online chat log. Think the chapter from Ulysses that's like a play.
>Art3mis: As you may recall, I tend to ramble in real time. When I have to type out everything I want to say, I come off as less of a flibbetigibbet
>Parzival: I don't think you're a flibbertigibbet. You're enchanting.
[...]
>Art3mis: At least they got your gender correct. Everyone thinks I'm a man in real life
>Parzival: That's because most gunters are male, and they can't accept the idea that a woman has beaten/outsmarted them.
>Art3mis: I know. Neanderthals.
[...]
>Parzival: I must be. The female of the species has always found me repellent.
[...]
>Parzival: To a fifty-three-year-old-guy like you, Chuck. Does your mom let you live in that basement rent-free or what?
[...]
>Parzival: What are you studying? In college?
>Art3mis: Poetry and creative writing.
>Parzival: That makes sense. You're a fantastic writer.
[...]
>Parzival: He's been my best friend for five years. Now spill it. Are you a woman? And by that I mean are you a human female who has never had a sex-change operation?

>>15814717
No fucking way black science man was there, jesus christ

>>15838127
>Think the chapter from Ulysses that's like a play.
That was a thing? Sounds pretentious

>>15833963
How the fuck does someone reference so much shit? How is this possible?

>>15834250
How did you get that impression? His book was literally Hollywood dreams came true, just pick a shitload of references to successful stories and cram them together. It does not matter whether the story is coherent or not, just look at Games of Thrones where it was just "character dies, character does something to another character", kind of like rp games without a gamemaster to contextualise your actions, people LOVED that shit. Spielberg wasn't going senile, he knew exactly what Hollywood wanted.

>>15837237
Damn, is the greatest dystopian novel right under our noses?

>>15837977
>There is nobody running around inside the OASIS, a place of total anonymity and free expression, screaming NIGGERNIGGERNIGGER at any and every user in sight
Well said anon, well said

>>15838127
This one for me was the worst one. How do you manage to write something in chat form and still get a result that's fucking WORSE than a regular chat between two retards online. I get that online chatting isn't poetry, but does this guy think people talk like this?

>>15838189
The word "nigger" is universally censored all throughout the OASIS, didn't you know? Is 4chan not a thing that still exists in this world by the way? - the book says the wider Internet still exists.

Reporting in 1/2

>>15838405
2/2

>>15838414
Here's another one:

>>15838127
>who has never had a sex-change operation
So, when are we gonna cancel him for this? We can't let this bigot be transphobic, let's make sure his second book isn't released (solely for the sake of the trans community, I assure you).

>>15821608
Based. I'd do the same.

>>15838562
He's gayphobic too.

I knew this was coming. I knew “one trick pony” Cline didn’t have anything else in the tank besides a sequel to RPO. It’ll sell, but not well.

>>15839098

>>15839114
I wrote this a while back. Did 3 chapters and got bored

READY PLAYER TWO

(A fanfiction based on the characters and events of the novel READY PLAYER ONE by Earnest Cline)

PROLOGUE

My name is Terry Keats and I'm a "gunter". Well, I used to be. I'm not one anymore, although I wish I was. Neither is anyone else. You see, seven years ago, like everybody else in the OASIS, I found a personalized email from Mr. Halliday himself in my message inbox. I watched the postmortem delivered video of the creator of the OASIS explaining the rules and prize for the grand contest and what was entailed. Gates, keys, riddles and challenges. I couldn't believe what I was seeing and hearing. The whole shebang was up for grabs and I was part of it as much as anyone else. I was part of the "grand contest", the search for halliday's egg and the prize of winning control of the OASIS. And like everyone else I scoured the virtual worlds for clues and signs of the hidden keys and gates set aside in the corners of hundreds of worlds in hopes of being the one to solve the puzzles and become the number one name on the scoreboard. Those were exciting times. I still remember it like it was yesterday. In a way, I kinda wish it was seven years ago, because maybe things wouldn't be so boring around here.

People don't talk about the contest much anymore. They really don't. It's been over about two years now, why bother? Anytime its brought up in conversation on boards or chats, people reminisce about the high points of the hunt and where they were when it ended, but other than that, there's not much to discuss. Everybody in the world knows about Parzival beating IOI through the final gate and claiming the egg. Everyone saw the interviews with the winners that took place afterwards and got to hear ad infintium about what they had to go through to come out on top. It was a grand finale and it was everything I wanted it to be.

But now it's over.

In the first interview after winning the contest, Wade Watts announced he'd use his vast wealth to help people through wide sweeping programs, but no one has seen a cent of it. So, until that proverbial carrot shows up, we're still left with just the stick. There was a silver lining in that he said he was going to keep the OASIS free to everyone and not monetize access. So, that's good. The OASIS is still around and any spare time people can manage to get away when they're not trying to find food to sustain their real bodies in the real world is spent there. The OASIS is great and all, but the world is still struggling with an energy crisis. And that's just the start of it. If the waking reality of frequent rolling brownouts, looting, scams, murder, and worldwide poverty weren't enough, people are even more restless now that they don't have the dream of winning Halliday's contest to hold on to. And that's made things more dangerous. Unless you have that damn egg in your hands, everyday life still sucks a metric ton of ass.

>>15839128
I don't have anyone I could call a true friend outside of the OASIS, but there's a few I trust once I connect. Like most, my small clan and I were behind the learning curve on how to figure out Halliday's riddles and we ultimately did what everyone else did; we followed the leaders as they crashed the scoreboard.

This is life after the contest, so get your quarters ready and nimble up those fingers because there's still one "winner take all" side quest left for the rest of us. One last chance to make an impact.

Get Ready Player Two.

CHAPTER ONE

PLANET MINECRAFT:

The five of us were stacked on top of one another like a totem pole as we burrowed deeper and deeper into the blocky planet. The shaft of square dirt and stone was barely wide enough to accommodate our largest member as the makeshift drill finally reached the designated depth. When the digital readout on the drill we were standing on top of read "318", Teega took her hand off the controls and the machine came to a grinding halt.

"That's it!" She exclaimed. "Three hundred and eighteen meters below sea level, on the dot!" Being the group techie and gadget nerd, it wasn't surprising that Teega's appearance made her look like a mad steampunk scientist's assistant. The brass goggles, workers apron, steel toe boots and thick brown hair tied into a ponytail behind her head made her look like a posterchild for an 1890's industrial revolution ad.

"It's about time." Ghast grunted from above. "I'm getting bored holding the rest of these lightweights." Standing seven foot eight, Ghast's chrome golem of an avatar was standing over Teega with one foot on each side as she sat atop her makeshift machine. Above him, his tree trunk sized arms supported the remaining three of the clan. Merry, the perpetually clueless puzzle and code expert, Rex, the team heavy gunner, and myself, the de facto leader. I never asked for the position, but I usually end up being the final decision maker when everyone else wants to argue. Sometimes it feels more like a professional cat wrangler or babysitter than an actual leader. It's not hard being the leader, really. Clan Leadership 101: Don't do anything stupid to get yourself killed and don't do anything that might let others get killed, and don't let anyone do something that might get just them killed. If you die in the Oasis, you're done. Considering everyone in the group but Ghast was under level ten, we didn't start too many fights.

>>15839147
"What now, Doc?" Rex asked me, brandishing a plasma cannon almost as big as himself. They started calling me "Doctor McCoy" because my avatar wears an electric blue shirt, sort of looks like Dr. McCoy from the original television show Star Trek, but eventually it got truncated to just 'Doc.'

"Doc?" He asked again. "Come on, what's the plan? I'm getting claustrophobic in this stupid pothole!"

"Take it easy, we can't rush this." I told him. "You know what's on the other side of that wall, so keep your voice down."

"Are we really that close?" Merry asked in a whisper.

"Less than a meter from the chamber." Teega said, keeping her own voice low.

"This is what we've been working for." I told them. "Has everybody got their escapipe I gave them hot keyed? If something happens down there, and we run into trouble, activate your escapipe like we planned and you'll be teleported back to the public transportation hub where we arrived."

"These things look ancient as hell, Doc, do they even work?" Rex said, turning the 16-bit rendered, cylindrical item over in his hand. "I'm not trying to get myself in a situation where I have to depend on janky hardware and I get hosed."

"Says the guy that still keeps his copper key equipped." Teega added with a smirk.

"Shut up, gear head." He said without looking at her.

"No, you shut up, you teamkilling noobtuber." She hissed back."

"NO YOU-"

"Would you keep it down?!" I said as my avatar kicked Rex's cannon to break up the fight. "We don't know how sensitive these things are to sound."

"If they're sensitive to sound, the noise created by the drill would've already attracted them." Teega said.

"Good point." I told her. "Look, the items are fine. Just because it comes from an old game like Phantasy Star doesn't mean its abilities are diminished. Believe me, I paid way more than I wanted to get my hands on five of them let alone one. If you want to play it safe and stay topside while we go in you're welcome to, but the clan rules you agreed to apply. What's the rule, Merry?"

"No risk, no reward. If you don't put in, you don't get out."

"Exactly." I told him. "If things get hairy, we're going to need your firepower. Besides, I've never seen you back away from a fight."

"I'm not backing out of anything." Rex sounded more excited. "If shit gets hairy, you noobs are going to be screwed without me. I'm ready."

Team leading 101, lesson two: Reverse psychology sometimes works.

>>15839164

"Just stick to the plan. Stealth is going to be key. The last thing we want is a fight." Everyone nodded in agreement except for Ghast who grunted his approval. "Teega, open it up."

The steampunk girl raised her fist and tapped it against the dirt three times. With the third strike, a block of the wall of dirt disintegrated and vanished. Where there should have been more pixelated dirt on the other side, only blackness stared back. No one moved a millimeter we all listened and watched the hole for signs of life. If avatars could sweat, the five of us would be soaked. We waited but nothing came. Teega looked up at me and I gave her an affirmative nod. She in turn reached inside the folds of her leather trenchcoat and produced a small wooden wand. Extending her arm towards the hole, he whispered a single word. "Lumos". Instantly, the end of the wand emitted an intense steady glow from the tip. On hands and knees she leaned forward, pushing the wand through to illuminate the area beyond the shaft. Before I could ask her what she saw, she gasped and recoiled back inside.

"What? What is it?"

"The cavern." She whispered. "It's full of them."

"How many?" Rex asked. "Ten? Twenty?"

"No, hundreds." Everyone looked at me.

"That can't be right. Merry? What did the code scanner say the active count of that chamber was?" The smaller avatar dressed like a renaissance fair pick-pocket reached around his back and pulled out the scanner around on its carrying strap. Being a total "trekkie", Merry had modded his code reader to look like a tricorder from the original Star Trek Television show. Its little lights blinked back and forth for show as he brought up the results we'd gained when we first did a recon on the area. Every set of eyes watched him nervously tapping at the screen.

"I'm pretty sure the code scanner said 'OB1010', that's ten right? Yeah, here it is… Um, uh oh."

"What is uh oh?" Ghast grunted.

"Uhhh I think I read it wrong."

"Give it here." I said. "Let me see." Merry handed over the tricorder and I flipped it about to see what made him flinch. After reading the code for myself I flipped the lid closed and tossed it back to him.

"Yeah, he read it wrong. It reads '0B11001000'."

"That's not ten, you space case." Teega rolled her eyes. "That's two hundred!"

"You brainstem deficient, muggle!" Rex said as he began beating his head against the buttstock of his plasma cannon. "How can you be the intel guy and not know the damn difference between ten and two hundred? There's like half a dozen digits difference between the two."

"I'm sorry!" Merry tried to apologize.

"Shut up. Just shut up!" Rex hissed, rising from his spot. Before he could reach Merry I moved between them to keep a melee from breaking out.

"Stop." I said. "Just stop, it's my fault. I should've checked the numbers myself. Blame me." Rex eased up little but then went back to banging his head on the buttstock of his weapon.

Stop posting anytime.

>>15839343
"This is getting us nowhere." Ghast interjected.

"The big guy is right, Doc." Teega said. "What's the call, do we stay or abort?"

"I can't squeeze past Ghast to reach the opening and see through. Look again and tell me what you see. If we make the hole bigger, is there enough room on the other side for all of us to climb in without touching one of them?"

"Are you kidding? The cavern in there is the size of an airplane hanger."

"Ok. Enough of this sitting around. Make the hole just big enough for the rest of us to get past Ghast."

"I'm the strongest of the group." The big guy protested. "I should go first."

"Stay where you are. You're the strongest but you're also the biggest and the rest of us have projectile weapons. If you step inside first you're going to be directly in our fields of fire. I'll take point with Rex and Teega on my flanks. She'll keep that magic light on since we don't want to use flares or torches if we can help it. Once we set up a perimeter then Merry will follow and activate the motion sensor. When we're sure everyone's still asleep you make with the quiet entrance."

"What if they wake up?" Merry asked.

"They shouldn't wake up."

"And if they do?"

"Then we fall back and use the escapipes. No heroes on this one unless one of you wants to get pwned, lose their gear and go back to level one."

"I ain't going back to level one." Rex mumbled.

"Good. Follow me."

Teega tapped her knuckles against the wall in wider and wider arcs around the hole and the soil fell away in blocky chunks before vanishing into tinier and tinier pixels. Once it was at least half my height, I squatted and entered. Once through, the cavern opened wide. From the residual light coming from the shaft I could see a little but not much. We'd entered the eastern wall at the ground floor and the walls raised higher and higher out of sight. With a little more widening, Rex managed to squeeze that monster cannon through before following it. The plating and gauntlets on his armor made way more sound than I wanted to be comfortable with. Teega continued widening the hole until Ghast said it was the right size before joining us. With her wand on this side of the wall, the arc of light spread out in every direction illuminating the chamber. And just like Teega said, there were hundreds of still forms waiting in the dark. "Holy shit." Teega said. "Look at them all." As she moved closer from behind, the light revealed a larger, more grim scene. Side by side in a uniform grid formation, frozen grotesque faces stared back at us.

"Fuck me…" Rex whispered as his head whipped about. "I've never seen this many creepers at once. There's at least two hundred of them. Hey Doc, what's to keep us from just pitching a grenade down here and fragging them all at once?"

>>15807236
I thought this was bizarre the first time I saw this screenshot. I caught some of the movie on TV a while back and it makes more sense in context. That's not to say that I liked it, of course.

>>15839351
Think about it. Each one of them has a gut full of TNT. If one goes off, it'll start the mother of all chain reactions. Two hundred packs of dynamite would create a hole the size of a football stadium and vaporize the artifact we're after." Heavy footsteps approached from the rear.

"What is the artifact?" Ghast asked.

"I don't know. It's signal shows it as being at the other end of the cavern. We'll have to find it. Merry's tricorder has the exact coordinates."

"Oh, that's just great." Rex shrugged the weight of his cannon to wave it about the room." If the coordinates were in binary, he's going be telling us to pack up a damn creeper and haul it back."

"Lay off him, I said it was my fault for not double checking. Besides, he's the only one of us who has the equipment to track the artifact. We got lucky. Without him, we'd be as lost as the rest of the people trying to track the 'rares'".

"I heard some chick cross-modded the crystal ball from the movie Labyrinth with a marauders map and MADE herself an artifact finder."

"Sure she did." Teega rolled her eyes. "If you believe that then I've got some ocean front property on planet Arakkis I can sell you." A single path eight feet wide divided the room down the middle between the figures.

"Stow the chatter. Now tighten up and keep your eyes open for movement. They look dormant but we can't chance any surprises." No one made a sound as we advanced further into the chamber. Teega's wand was the only light to guide us. I could've used one of the flares in my inventory to help us, but again, that would introduce something fire-based to a room full of things whose sole purpose was to explode. The creepers stood in perfect ranks and like a military formation, their expressions too poorly rendered to look alive or dead. Half way there. Checkpoint. If avatars could feel chills, now would be the time for it to happen. Our shadows shifted past the files of our stoic hosts.

"I think we can relax." Merry whispered. "My scanner says the creepers are in "standby" mode. The code of the chamber reads that they stay dormant until someone destroys one above ground and another can spawn in to take its place."

"Fine, you relax." Rex remarked. "I'm not. This whole planet is one big PVP zone which means they're still lethal." Teega looked cautiously about the room.

"What happens if someone does kill one on the surface, what then?"

"There's a chamber at the far end of the cavern." He pointed ahead of the group. "When one is needed, it stirs from its standby mode, moves to the teleportation chamber at the end and gets put into play on the surface." Just as he said that, a single high pitched tone chirped from somewhere out of sight. Ahead of us, a singular red light began to glow over a huge, glass cube. We froze. "Oh shit, Doc," He said. "I'm detecting movement."

"Where?"

>>15839364
"Everywhere." The formation of the party collapsed around Ghast as a singular growl emanated from the end of the formation. A creeper was moving. Rex raised this weapon level with the ground to sight the thing.

"Rex, don't you fucking dare." Teega hissed

"Easy." I told him, reaching out to push the barrel slightly away. "It's moving but it's not moving toward us." The creeper waddled its way forward on its simple limbs and made a perfect ninety degree turn down the aisle towards the glass cube. Further and further it sauntered until it stepped into the waiting chamber. Once it was fully inside, a small flash of blue pixelated light enveloped it and it was gone.

"Well!" Marry said. "That was intense." As soon as he said that, every silent figure in the room that wasn't one of us, shifted one space to the right. In perfect unison, eighty creepers sidestepped to their right to fill the vacant spot. Too startled to know how to react, the team fell over one another in a panic. To our relief, once the creepers took the open spots, they fell silent. The red light went out, and the room became tomblike again.

"Stop pressing against me, Merry." Teega said, shoving him. "Are the rest of you done shitting yourselves or do you need a minute to wipe? You guys are the absolute worst. The only one of you that wasn't ready to trample me to reach the exit is Ghast. Right, big guy?"

"I have to admit," The Golem frowned with its chiseled features. "My butthole may have puckered a little."

Our laughter echoed in the cavern and once stifled, we managed to carry on a little less afraid. Past the last file of creepers we moved. An open area at the end of the formations allowed us to spread out so that we weren't on top of one another. At the end of the ranks, a single pedestal stood next to the far wall. Three feet tall and cylindrical, it waited with a small item seated atop it.

"Is that it?" Teega asked. Merry raised his tricorder and aimed it in the pedestals general direction.

"Six meters? Yeah, that's it."

"What is it?" She asked as we crowded closer.

"Is…is that a baseball?" Rex asked with a tone of disappointment.

"It looks like a baseball." Ghast said, moving his giant head within a breaths distance from the white sphere. "Did we really come all the way down here for a baseball?" Everyone looked to me.

"Maybe it's a magic baseball." I offered. Rex's avatar rolled its eyes.

>>15839370

"Well, magic or not, it better bring a hefty price on the seller's market. I didn't come down here for a non-magic baseball. The more time we waste down here, the less we have to get ahead of the rest of the other hunters." Teega looked surprised.

"Wow, Rex, that's the most intelligent thing you've said all session. He's right, guys. Grab the item and let's bail. This place gives me the creeps."

"Sounds good to me." I said, reaching out to grab it.

"I wouldn't do that!" An unknown voice said from behind. Startled, the whole group wheeled about with weapons drawn to see who or what had spoken.

"Who's there?" Rex barked. At the edge of the illumination shed by Teega's light spell, next to the far wall, the outline of another avatar emerged. It began to move toward us. As it got closer, its generic, easily identifiable features became more visible. Merry identified it first

"A sixer!" He said. "Light that guy up!"

"I'm not armed!" the avatar said with it's hands in the air.

"Bullshit." Rex growled, raising his cannon "No one enters a PVP zone unarmed."

"Well, I am armed, but nothing's equipped."

"What do you want?" I asked. "What are you doing standing in the dark?"

"I'm waiting for others to fail in retrieving the baseball." He said, continuing to walk towards us with his hands raised to the sky. As he drew close enough, his avatar's name became visible. It read 'XS'. "Worst case scenario, you blow yourselves to bits and I'll claim your items when the chamber resets."

"What's going on, Doc?" Teega said. "What's he talking about?"

"I don't know." I aimed by weapon at the avatar's head. "What's your game, Excess? What do you want?"

"I want that orb." He said. "But there's just one problem." With hands still raised he stepped between us to stand before the small pillar. "You see, if you touch this baseball," He lowered his hand to within a few inches. You'll release a hidden trigger in its code and it ignites the TNT in all the creepers at the same time."

"Again, I call bullshit." Rex grumbled.

"Really? You think so?" XS said dryly as he withdrew his hand. "You think I was just standing here in the dark for my health?"

>>15839376
I think Rex is right." I told him. "I think you just got here."

"Why do you say that?"

"Because Merry scanned this place before we came in. If someone was in here we would've known it."

"Really? You could've detected me with a second rate, low-tier, scanner modded to look like a star trek prop? You're lucky I'm not hostile or you five would've been waxed before the big moose on your team even stepped through that opening." Ghast stiffened and stood at his full height. I'd only seen him bristle like that once before and it was when we tangled with another clan in a PVP zone. Two swings of those big chrome fists and the avatar he was targeting bit the dust. If 'Excess' didn't watch his step he was going to get his Hit Points decimated by the party's bruiser before Rex opened up with his ridiculous energy cannon.

"I'd watch the lip if you want to keep it." Ghast said.

"Look, my towering friend." He moved away to stand before Ghast without a hint of fear. His avatars head had to actually crane back backwards at an awkward angle to look up at Ghast's face. "You, I, and all your friends will lose more than just our lips if you touch that artifact. Now, I've tried more than a dozen methods of acquiring the baseball, but none have proven fruitful. In addition, I've watched from that same dark spot as clans both more numerous and better armed than you have failed to claim it. As soon as they touch the artifact this whole place goes 'kablooey'". Something didn't make sense.

"Wait." I said. "If you were here to see others get blown up how did you survive to know what happened?"

"Yeah, how?" Rex chimed in.

"Because I'm a sixer, noobtube. I've got the whole "Oology" department of IOI backing me up. I'm twice the level of any three in this group and believe me, you don't want me equipping any of the goods we've got a thousand of back at the arsenal. I can teleport at will."

"Again with the bullshit." I said. "The 'Oology' department was decommissioned after Parzival found the egg. You can't have a department studying to find an egg that's already been found."

"We're not looking for Halliday's egg." He said dryly. "We're looking for easter eggs in general."

"Why are you telling us all of this?" Teega asked. "Why not let us just touch the egg and then take our items?"

"Ah, the first intelligent question I've heard from the group so far." He said. "To answer that, you only need look at yourselves and the situation the OASIS has become. There's no more contest to win. Why are any of you here? Because you're like everyone else. You're trying to walk away from this digital game show with a parting gift before they're all gone. My time is very valuable and it would actually be less profitable to wait and raid your goods from the blast crater before it resets. So I don't need your toys and if I did, I would be at a stage of desperation so unredeemable I'd rather just be shot in the face."

>>15839388
I'd be happy to oblige." Rex grunted before I pushed the barrel of his weapon back.

"So answer her question." I told him. "Why tell us anything? Why not let us fail?"

"Because I want you to get the artifact and share it with me."

"Share? Why would we share with you?" Teega asked.
"Because, look at me. I'm a sixer. I'm obligated by contract to turn over every item and artifact I find to IOI. If it was me that took possession of the baseball, then IOI would have it and I would have nothing."

"Wait, wait, wait." Merry said as he climbed down from Ghast's shoulder. "You get better food, housing, and a paycheck to work for IOI, why risk losing it working with us if you could be fired for it? Aren't you being monitored right now?"

"Not if the chamber you're inhabiting has a rare artifact or side quest. Remember the egg hunt and how no one could listen in on Parzival or the others when they were challenging a gate or finding a key? This is the same kind of zone. I've already tested it with IOI, they cant see or hear anything I do here. Hell, they can't track me either, and they've tried. That's why I think that baseball is important. Nobody, especially James Halliday builds a special chamber if they're not going to put something inside it. Look, IOI has been making gradual layoffs since the Sorento scandal hit. IOI is doing everything they can to keep their head above water but major cuts have been made. I need to produce but if the whole thing goes down, I need to have a backup plan to live if I can't stay employed. The world is becoming a more dangerous place all the time. If I help you get the baseball, you give me a share of whatever it sells for."

"Why the hell would we trust a sixer?" Rex said. "Why would I give you a single credit for my crew's hard work?"

"Aren't you listening?" XS said. "If I claim the baseball, it goes into my inventory and becomes IOI property. If you get it, we split the prize equally, fifty-fifty."

"Fifty-fifty?" Teega laughed. "I might've gone to school in the real world but even at that ramshackle barn I know there's six people here. You must think we're a special kind of stupid."

"That remains to be seen." He crossed his arms.

"Real cute." She sneered. "If we help you, IF we decide to help you, you're getting a sixth, the same as the rest."

"Yeah." Ghast added. "A sixth."

"Are you really so daft?" XS's voice got more shrill. "If it wasn't for me warning you, one of would've touched the artifact by now and been atomized by the creepers!"

>>15817423
This is like an unironic sam hyde skit.

>>15817874
You sound like your poems are nice to read.

>>15839399
"I think he's bluffing." Rex said. "I think we just barely beat him here and he's trying to fast talk us out of the prize. He might be able to take a few of us but if Ghast grabs the baseball, there's no way he can take the big guy down fast enough to get it before we smoke his sixer ass."

"I think he's bluffing too." Teega said

"Me too." Said Merry

"Me three." Said Ghast "What about you, Doc?" To be honest, I wasn't sure. He had a convincing case but it seemed really far fetched. Better not to chance it. It's been real, Xs but I think Ghast is going to snag the baseball and wwe'll just use our escapipes to get out before the creepers go critical mass."

"You're a fool. Any teleportation item in the OASIS short of Anaorak's personal gear doesn't work in special zones, so I hope you didn't pay a lot of credits to get those escapipes with the plan of just grabbing the artifact and jetting because it won't work."

"It'll work." I said.

"you're really going to do this, huh?"

"Yeah." Rex grinned. "I think we are."

"In that case I wish you a speedy recovery. Enjoy level one, idiots." He said. And with that, he began to glow with an ethereal white light. After a few seconds, he vanished.

"What an asshole." Merry remarked. "C'mon, grab the baseball and let's get out of here."

"Yeah." I said. "Good idea. Everyone got their escapipes equipped?" The party members nodded to the affirmative. "Good. Let's get out of here." All eyes were on me as I held my escapipe in one hand and reached out to grab the baseball. Where I thought there might've been some grand transition or warning or blaring claxon from taking the artifact. There was nothing. It was like Indiana Jones grabbing the golden idol from Raiders of the Lost Ark. Once I had it in my possession, I immediately activated the blue button the end of my teleporter. But nothing happened. I paused but anxiously clicked the button again. Everyone did the same but no one teleported. The looks on the faces of everybody's avatar turned to one of surprise.

"Mine's not working!" Ghast grunted. "It's not activating!"

"None of them are!" said Teega.

At first there was only the clicking of buttons in the dark cavern, but from that grew a slow but steady hissing. Teega raised her wand and raised the amount of luminance in the chamber. The hissing grew louder.

"Doc!" Shouted Merry. "Look!" To our collective horror, we all watched as every creeper in the room turned in place…to face us. The hiss grew louder and louder, increasing in volume and intensity. It sounded like the inside of the angriest hornet's nest in existence.

"They're gonna blow!" Rex said. "We gotta get outta here!"

"Run!" I yelled. "Get back to the shaft! Get out! Get-"
.

>>15839412
First there was a flash on the far side of the room. It was a bang like a heavy book being dropped to the floor. But then the flash doubled and tripled in size as more explosions joined in. It started slow, but built in speed like a crashing wave as the blast radius claimed the creepers in the aisles next to them to fuel the next. There was no running that was going to get us safely out. We were trapped. XS was right and we didn't listen. I…didn't listen. The blinding wall of whiteness began to envelop us, first Merry, then Ghast, Teega, Rex. In shock I flutily tried to press the escapipe button one last time, in hopes that somehow there was some kind of delay the seller might've neglected to tell me about. There came only a singular muted click before the blast claimed me as well.

END of CHAPTER ONE

The other two chapters take place in the real world and are a grittier take on offline life away from the stacks of Oklahoma to the blocks of Cincinnati. There’s more if you want or I can leave it there. Fanfiction has never really been my thing

>>15820145
Yes

So a tl;dr
typical fedora redditfag copies every decent scifi and comedy?

>>15812701
one references obscure thirteenth century painters
the other one references godzilla
I would say it is not exactly the same thing.

>>15839433
why

>one night, she took me to see the Rocky Horror Picture Show in a huge stadium-sized movie theater on the planet Transsexual, where they had the most highly attended and longest-running weekly screening of the movie in the OASIS
MAKE IT STOP
LEARN TO WRITE
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA