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Insert Quarter To Play

Ready Player One, by Ernest Cline

It’s the year 2044 and Parzival’s world is a beautiful place. It’s a sprawling universe where one can buy anything, be anyone, and do anything – slay a dragon, pilot a Firefly or X-Wing, visit the Matrix, fall in love, make your fortune, lose your fortune, or simply escape. Escaping is what most of humanity is doing in the real world – a planet swallowed up by abject poverty. Famine, war, riots, and the global energy crisis have turned our planet into hollow and drear place.

The OASIS is the ultimate video game and most people lose themselves in this virtual reality utopia. For Wade Watt’s, he spends his time jacked into the OASIS as Parzival hunting for the ultimate Easter Egg. When OASIS creator James Halliday died he put his $240 Billion fortune up for grabs to whoever can solve his riddle and claim his Egg as their own. All anyone knows is that the answer lies hidden in ‘80s Pop-Culture. The contest pits Wade and his friends against each other, other hunters, and an evil multi-national corporation bent on winning Halliday’s fortune.

Ready Player One is rip-roaring, nerdtastic romp through the world of geekdom. It’s a story of love, hope, honor, perseverance, and coming-of-age. It takes the reader on a whirlwind ride through a bleak, advanced near-future America and pays overzealous homage to the Pop-Culture of the ‘80s, Videogames, Sci-fi and Fantasy, Music, Movies, Books, Infinity, and Beyond. You’ll find nods to Doctor Who, Harry Potter, Ender’s Game, HG2G, Star Wars, D&D… He leaves nothing untouched.

This is the ultimate Nerd book brought to you by the screenwriter of Fanboys, Ernie Cline. If you have even a little bit of a nerd in you then grab a book, pop in your quarter, and play.

Ready Player One…

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2011
08/21
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Call Me a “Fanboy” – A Nod to Nobuo Uematsu

Odds are you’ve never heard of the guy. Odds are even if you’re addicted to role-playing games such as Final Fantasy – you’ve still never heard of him. Truth is, I hadn’t known who he was for many years even after I fell in love with his music.

It was the summer of 1998 and I had just received my first copy of Final Fantasy VII – the Playstation RPG that would raise the bar and set the standard for games across all genres. This game was big for many reasons. It was the first to use 3D models, rendered environments, and cinematics on a platform system. Not only that but, it hosted a memorable and believable cast, world, plot, and story. When the opening video played, I was hooked. The scene, the music… the immersion was complete. A love was born. If you’ve ever read a book or watched a movie and wanted to be there; to experience it… that is how it was.

What makes Mr. Uematsu so special is the originality, the fullness, the soul-piercing quality of his compositions. He creates sweeping melodies and symphonies that perfectly encapsulate the mood, setting, characters, and so on. It’s really something that is quite hard to put into words. When you’re in a battle and the line is drawn in the sand, he allows you to fully feel the tempo and the tension of the scene. When someone dies, he helps your heart to break. When dreams are born or die, you can feel your heart swell in your chest. He creates a memorable immersive experience that goes beyond the games and a music that moves through you and in you. It is truly a stand-alone experience.

If you’ve ever enjoyed Beethoven, Bach, Mozart, or any of the other classical composers; if you’ve ever been moved by the soundtracks of Lord of the Rings or Avatar, then Nobuo Uematsu is somebody I highly recommend to expand your love for music.

400 words aren’t enough to describe the influence, the memories, the tears, the smiles, the adventures, the losses, and the triumphs that Mr. Uematsu has bestowed on millions of fans and though, it’s taken me 14 years to write this very brief review somehow I still can’t find the words to say it as it should be…

Nobuo-san, thank you… and for all of you, I hope you meet him one day.

—
Works: Final Fantasy I-X; XIV, Chrono Trigger, Super Smash Bros. Brawl
Concerts: Distant Worlds, The Black Mages, Tour de Japon
Recommendations: To Zanarkand (FFX), You’re Not Alone (FFIX), Liberi Fatali (FFVIII), Prelude, The Man with the Machine Gun (FFVIII), The Landing (FFVIII), Terra’s Theme (FFVI), Aerith’s Theme (FFVII), JENOVA (FFVII), One-Winged Angel (FFVII), Vamo’alla Flamenco (FFIX), Opera Maria & Draco (FFVI), Dancing Mad (FFVIII), Love Grows… Just to name a few. :P
Note – If you do look up his music – be sure to look up the orchestrated versions. Distant Worlds is a good place to start.
Images courtesy of Square-Enix, The Anime Informant, & The Orpheum at Vancouver

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2011
07/24
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Player Piano

Kurt Vonnegut’s first novel, published in 1952, is a witty satire laden with metaphor and sentimentality. Set in a near-future dystopian society where automation and disparaged capitalism have drawn thick lines in the sand between a small wealthy elite of engineers and managers and the unemployed masses.

Inspired by Aldous Huxley’s, A Brave New World, the increasing automation of skilled labor and the rhetoric of GE and other major Corporations of post-World War II America, Vonnegut asks the reader how we can truly define peace, prosperity, progress, and positive quality of life. He asks what the price of human dignity is and questions the ethics of abolishing labor against the will of the people.

Seemingly borrowing Voltaire’s strap line in Candide, Vonnegut determines that man is most satisfied not in a life of ease and luxury but when given toil and labor – that this is the source of dignity.

A novel that reads light and quick but, speaks loudly of social responsibility and welfare, Kurt weaves a tale full of intelligent wit, emotional tides, and a hopeful embrace.

“Without regard for the wishes of men, any machines or techniques or forms of organization that can economically replace men do replace men. Replacement is not necessarily bad, but to do it without regard for the wishes of men is lawlessness.”

—

image courtesy of Google and various blogs, et al.

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2011
07/05
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