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A review by vergilkilla
New Arcadia: Stage One by Eric Jason Martin
3.0
New Arcadia seeks to right the wrongs of Ready Player One, in a sense. The comparison of the two books is absolutely inevitable - so note most of my review will be in terms of comparison.
I liked Ready Player One pretty well (I gave it 4 stars on here) but thought it was bizarrely situated in the literary catalog, all things considered - it was a YA book written expressly to target 30/40 year olds (what with the early 80's trivia sprinkled throughout).
If you've patrolled online forums you'll know that Cline's work, despite being a commercial success, is actually victim to incessant eye-rolling and put-downs from many readers. I'd always thought the reasoning is that the readership was not interested in YA, full stop.... so it was a weird book for a reader expecting something more "literary" like whatever recent contemporary fiction fits the bill (it's no The Vanishing Half, it's no Deacon King Kong - it's not anything like those books and doesn't touch those books, really).
So Eric J. Martin has done a wiser choice - sliding the scale up a little bit from early 80's trivia to instead late 80's and 90's - this gives you SLIGHTLY younger readers. Further - this is a playful, trivia-filled, "entertainment value" book - but it's not a YA book. The protagonist is 40 years old. There's that weathered depth to the protagonist that comes with being an adult.
In this way - this is a rather different experience than Ready Player One, and in some ways a better one. I'm right at 30 years old - the trivia here was way more salient, to me. The sort of darker tone of the setting of the book I enjoyed. There are not as many "wish-fulfillment" passages/cringe-inducing moments as Ready Player One. The themes are not the typical YA theme of "who am I, and what will I do about it?" - but instead something on a much grander scale, which I appreciated.
Where I've subtracted "stars" and where I think Cline's work edges out this book is in terms of execution of the story. There is a certain amount of "tell, don't show" both books are guilty of - but New Arcadia is more guilty. As a result some of the reveals and twists and turns don't have as much impact as they could. The book tends to jump around a bit in a way that lead me, anyway, to being somewhat confused. Further, having just read Ready Player One, I did suffer a bit of "Simpsons already did it" syndrome - descriptions of things like VR rigs or, in general, a living breathing MMO/AR type scenario - I was already wow'd for the first time by Cline's descriptions. New Arcadia, perhaps, does not stray far enough from the book from which it so obviously draws influence. Rather than being immersed in the near-future dystopian world as I was ignited by first-time descriptions of paradigms I had never, ever thought about - instead I had already thought about most of these paradigms, already, when reading Cline's book. There were, then, fewer surprises and "wow" moments.
All told - a good effort of a debut, IMO. Had you never read Ready Player One - honestly I'd say this is a better starting point for 90's born kids than RPO is - so snatch it up! If you have already read and enjoyed RPO - read this when you are in the mood to revisit the familiar concept, but with a drastically different protagonist and a darker setting.
I liked Ready Player One pretty well (I gave it 4 stars on here) but thought it was bizarrely situated in the literary catalog, all things considered - it was a YA book written expressly to target 30/40 year olds (what with the early 80's trivia sprinkled throughout).
If you've patrolled online forums you'll know that Cline's work, despite being a commercial success, is actually victim to incessant eye-rolling and put-downs from many readers. I'd always thought the reasoning is that the readership was not interested in YA, full stop.... so it was a weird book for a reader expecting something more "literary" like whatever recent contemporary fiction fits the bill (it's no The Vanishing Half, it's no Deacon King Kong - it's not anything like those books and doesn't touch those books, really).
So Eric J. Martin has done a wiser choice - sliding the scale up a little bit from early 80's trivia to instead late 80's and 90's - this gives you SLIGHTLY younger readers. Further - this is a playful, trivia-filled, "entertainment value" book - but it's not a YA book. The protagonist is 40 years old. There's that weathered depth to the protagonist that comes with being an adult.
In this way - this is a rather different experience than Ready Player One, and in some ways a better one. I'm right at 30 years old - the trivia here was way more salient, to me. The sort of darker tone of the setting of the book I enjoyed. There are not as many "wish-fulfillment" passages/cringe-inducing moments as Ready Player One. The themes are not the typical YA theme of "who am I, and what will I do about it?" - but instead something on a much grander scale, which I appreciated.
Where I've subtracted "stars" and where I think Cline's work edges out this book is in terms of execution of the story. There is a certain amount of "tell, don't show" both books are guilty of - but New Arcadia is more guilty. As a result some of the reveals and twists and turns don't have as much impact as they could. The book tends to jump around a bit in a way that lead me, anyway, to being somewhat confused. Further, having just read Ready Player One, I did suffer a bit of "Simpsons already did it" syndrome - descriptions of things like VR rigs or, in general, a living breathing MMO/AR type scenario - I was already wow'd for the first time by Cline's descriptions. New Arcadia, perhaps, does not stray far enough from the book from which it so obviously draws influence. Rather than being immersed in the near-future dystopian world as I was ignited by first-time descriptions of paradigms I had never, ever thought about - instead I had already thought about most of these paradigms, already, when reading Cline's book. There were, then, fewer surprises and "wow" moments.
All told - a good effort of a debut, IMO. Had you never read Ready Player One - honestly I'd say this is a better starting point for 90's born kids than RPO is - so snatch it up! If you have already read and enjoyed RPO - read this when you are in the mood to revisit the familiar concept, but with a drastically different protagonist and a darker setting.