BOOKS YOU HAVE READ

Rama is better described as a story about near-present day humans exploring the first alien visitor, which is a dark cold mysterious vessel that is dead and lifeless at first but slowly comes alive with them inside. The reasoning behind everything is very logical and familiar, but still foreign and interesting. It focuses a lot on the science behind things, instead of just doing the thing. For example, they are in low gravity and travelling a long ladder. And a major point of the process is how they have to pace themselves to not get tired, and have their muscles suffer. And it goes into detail about what happens, and how they deal with it. Psychologically too. It's more scientific than most science fiction. Where weird shit happens just because it needs to and it sounds cool. This story happens within our boundaries of what humans can do right now, with a few realistic advancements.

There are some sequels I haven't read yet, but the first book was just so enthralling. I think I heard that the series gets worse, but I want to know more about the alien ship so I will keep reading.

As for Ready Player One, I actually just watched the movie. Finally. As far as book to movie adaptions go, this is the farthest from the source material I've ever seen. You could do the book and have almost noooo idea what is going to happen next haha There is no racing in the book, they don't meet in IRL so early on, the circumstances they all meet and their relationships are 90% different, all the library watching videos of Halliday;s life stuff isn't in the book in any shape or form. It's bonkers. If I had to guess, they couldn't secure the rights for the missing plot points in the book, so they had to make up a bunch of stuff. The movie didn't even feel 80s(besides the soundtrack), where in the book that is a massive in your face fact.

Because there is no racing, that means the way he figures out how to find the first key and how he obtains it is 100% different. Plus, in the book they get the key then have to use it to open a gate, which is a whole other challenge. They took that out completely and it's basically half of the damn contest!

I had to shut off the movie half way through, when H rescues him in the van. Things are happening for no reason. The book slow walks you to each milestone and their relationships form over time. It makes no sense that Z and Art3mis would get close so quickly. Her character in the book is much more resistant to the idea of meeting IRL where in the movie she kidnaps him and brings him to her house. WHAT! Besides, she's supposed to be in Canada and him in the US.

There are endless references to old games, movies, and music in the book but I dunno, I never felt it was "shameless". The whole point of the book is that the way to win the contest is to become familiar with all the things Halliday liked. He grew up in the 80's. So to be a good gunter, Parzival had to become a master in that stuff. So the book takes a while to list all the things he's been researching. That's at the start and sets the context for all the other references. In that they are related to Halliday and the hunt, and a requirement to understanding the clues, and understanding the amazing talent Parzival has for knowledge. Some people seem to think even that is shameless nostalgia on the authors part, but I don't agree with that. I like how it uses existing pop culture in a future setting.

BTW, the clues in the book are clever and actually reference things from the 80s directly. The clues in the movie are so dumb and obscure, some having nothing to do with 80s culture. How they solve them is even more baffling.

Basically, you don't know RP1 at all by watching that crummy movie. It's just like the Death Note netflix movie. They botched it in almost the same way. I enjoyed some parts of the movie, had some laughs at things that weren't in the book, was nice to see some scenes from the book play out exactly right. Plus it's 3D, so that's always a plus for any bad movie. "At least it's got decent 3D effects"

Yes, Rendezvous With Rama was amazing and I loved how Clarke spent so much time mulling over weird gravity. In sci-fi games I make involving people going to Mars, and the reason I include in the story that you cannot communicate between Earth and Mars in real time is because of this book. Clarke had some sci-fi plot device that let people be able to talk between Earth and Mars with a delay of just a minute or two. In reality, it's between 40 minutes to an hour depending on position. The book is amazing and really helped to influence a lot of my writing style and sci-fi ideas. Unfortunately, the sequel, Return of Rama, or Rama II, as it is called on the cover (it's actually on my bookshelf and I am looking right at it), doesn't read nearly as well. I could barely make it through the first two chapters on account of how boring it is. And you kind of get the feeling that Clarke wasn't writing it because he wanted to, but because he had to. Serves him right for ending the first book with a line that literally announces a sequel.

Yesterday I finished reading "A Sound of The Thunder" is a short story written by Ray Bradbury. A very deep and wise story.

Ehhhh... why not? I would like to read s'more, as I wanna read more these days and my list seems miniuscule. As such, I will include stuff for anyone for vouch for or against 'em?

Books I've Finished

• Every friggin' Calvin and Hobbes collection, if they count (Bill Watterson)
• Deltora Quest, books 1~8 (Emily Rodda; am surprised Bulmabriefs also knows that series, holy cow)
• The Adventures Of Tom Sawyer (Mark Twain)
• Hatchet (Gary Paulsen)
• My Sister's Keeper (Jodi Picoult)
• The Speed of Dark (Elizabeth Moon)
• The Outsiders (S.E. Hinton)
• The Giver (Lois Lowry)
• The Pigman (Paul Zindel)
• Monster (Walter Dean Myers)
• Bitten (Kelley Armstrong)
• A Midsummer Night's Dream (William Shakespeare)
• Jurassic Park (Michael Crichton; the differences between it and the film were surprising)
• The King James Version of the Bible (never again, at least not this version -_-)
• The Hobbit (J.R.R. Tolkien)

Partly-Read Books

• The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (Mark Twain)
• Redwall (Brian Jacques; on the top of my to-finish list)
• Eragon (Christopher Poulini; wouldn't finish if given the chance, I feel)

Short Stories I've Read

• Celephias (H.P. Lovecraft)
• A Sound Of Thunder (Ray Bradbury; thanks for mentioning, Gelivacia)
• The Phoenix On The Sword (Robert E Howard; I recall another Conan short story, but can't remember which one)

Wanna Read

• American Gods (Neil Gaiman)
• Wanderers (Chuck Wendig)
• The Colour Out Of Space (H.P. Lovecraft)
• More Conan stuff, especially The Tower of the Elephant (Robert E Howard)
• Watership Down (Richard Adams; I have an old copy of it)
• The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe (C.S. Lewis; I loved the Disney 00s adaptation)
• Any good Advanced Dungeons & Dragons book