Hot Take (04/2022): Full review to come but like: Wade is a Gary Stu, everything is a Deux Ex Machina, the 80s had more than just male artists/everything. Why does everyone love this so much?
Full Review (6/2022): so it’s been two months since I read this, and I can’t say my feelings on the matter have softened all that much. For some reason I always slot this book next to Ender’s Game in my mind, probably because they both make me think of 80s sci-fi, and both have some pretty keen fans. They don’t seem as intense as, say, Star Wars or Star Trek fans, but they’re definitely passionate about this book.
WHY, I ask, WHY? What am I missing in this novel that everyone else seems to enjoy so much? Is it the nostalgia? For risk of dating myself, my cohort isn’t really 80s aware. If we like the 80s, it’s because we have, like Wade, learnt about it after the fact and decided that this era is pretty rad. Explains the popularity of Stranger Things, as well, another show that I couldn’t get into that everyone else seems to enjoy quite a bit.
What is it about the 80s that people seem to love so much??? Maybe I digress. It’s not germane to my real issue.
Because if you set aside the nostalgia–this book could have been written about another time period, conceivably, since everything is set in the future–it remains infuriating as can be. The main character is a random, average white dude who happens to be the smartest cleverest but really just luckiest character in this entire universe. How plot-convenient is it that just when Art3mis could have been the one to finally know more useless 80s trivia than Wade she’s not able to do so for Plot Reasons that make Total Sense?
You know if Wade had been Wadette (especially in a sequel) there would be all these mad fanboys angry that a female character seems to know all the answers and jump into dangerous situations with hardly a scratch and magically escape.
To that point: [Wade’s little escapade in indentured servitude with IOI…I can’t even. What a ginormous deux ex machina plot, so full of holes it’s basically chantilly lace. A thousand things had to go right for Wade not to get completely screwed but who am I kidding this is Wade Magic Boy, of course it’ll all go right for him UGH I DON’T LIKE THIS BOOK.]
The entire thing reads like a dude’s fever dream of back when everything was better because men were men and women didn’t play video games or create content or star in content or really do anything, really. Here is a list of all directors that Cline Wade or whatever thinks is worth mentioning as the greatest of all time: Cameron, Gilliam, Jackson, Fincher, Kubrick, Lucas, Spielberg, Del Toro, Tarantino. And, of course, Kevin Smith. Here are authors: Douglas Adams. Kurt Vonnegut. Neal Stephenson. Richard K. Morgan. Stephen King. Orson Scott Card. Terry Pratchett. Terry Brooks. Bester, Bradbury, Haldeman, Heinlein, Tolkien, Vance, Gibson, Gaiman, Sterling, Moorcock, Scalzi, Zelazny.
I suppose any argument I make about seminal 80s works that were ignored (Dirty Dancing?) will be met with “it’s about sci-fi and fantasy and video games of the 80s, you don’t get itttttt the OASIS dude was lonely and video games and fantasy were his only salvation” which fine, I’ll give you the erasure of Dirty Dancing but like where’s motherf**king Octavia Butler, twerp? Dawn was written in 1987.
UGH I REALLY DISLIKED THIS BOOK.
