blabbery books: audiobook awesome books ernest cline geekery ready player one sci fi summer read Wil Wheaton
by Blabby
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Summer Reading: Ready Player One
I just finished Ready Player One by Ernest Cline and I’m giving it 5 stars out of 5. I listened to the unabridged audiobook, narrated by Wil Wheaton.
Here are the pros - it’s a wonderfully creative 80′s nerd fest and I loved almost every minute of it. I’m proud to say I think I understood most of the pop culture references, and got a particularly geeky thrill whenever the book mentioned Star Trek TNG, because I was picturing Wesley Crusher doing all the talking anyway.
If you have any interest in the 80′s (especially TV, movies and music), sci fi, gaming, role-playing games, computers…(Cline covers a lot of ground), I think you’ll love this. I don’t even really know or care about gaming, role-playing games, etc., and I was pretty young for most of the 80′s, but I still loved all of it.
Find the premise and lots of rave reviews here or here. I highly recommend this for a fun summer read. There’s even a little love story in it - which was my favorite part. Truly something for every reader - male or female. Excellent book, Mr. Cline! And excellent narration, Mr. Wheaton!
**audiobook-specific side note** If I had to give it a con, and it would only apply to the audiobook, it would be that there are a lot of LISTS (top 10 scorers, lists of computers, lists of games, etc.). This probably comes off much cooler in the actual book. I happened to listen to the audiobook, so the lists got a little crazy. If I had been reading the regular book, I would have skimmed.
TV: blue flame christie's gene roddenberry History Channel Jonathan Frakes Patrick Stewart Star Trek Star Trek: The Next Generation the inner light Wesley Crusher Wil Wheaton
by Blabby
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It’s Trekker, not Trekkie
Who knew?
I’m going to let my geek light shine (or as my friend Scotty would say, let my blue flame show) on this post. I watched the best show about Star Trek the other day on the History channel. It was called Star Trek: Beyond the Final Frontier. It was kind of a 40-year anniversary show where they chronicled the sale of thousands of pieces of Star Trek property from all shows at a big auction at Christie’s. They had a lot of different actors (including my favs Patrick Stewart and Jonathan Frakes) telling funny stories and sharing experiences. It really was a great round up, touching on all the different shows, spotlighting some of the amazing work that’s gone into each series (make-up, costume design) and especially paying tribute to Gene Roddenberry’s vision.
I really only ever watched The Next Generation. Everyday after school (9th and 10th grade, I think?), my dad and I would watch TNG (geek speak) and eat microwaved nachos or banana shakes. It’s one of my best memories. I feel like I grew up with Wesley Crusher. Cpt. Picard continues to be one of my all time favorite TV characters, and the writing on that show is still light years ahead of it’s time (ha ha, it got there by warp speed), even now. No other character driven show has been as good - and if you knew how much TV I watch, you’d know that this is a serious claim I’m making.
My favorite part of that History Channel special was that they highlighted Cpt. Picard’s flute from my favorite (probably, everyone’s favorite) episode called “The Inner Light“. Someone paid a crap load of money for that flute at the auction, and then Patrick Stewart laughed about the exorbitant amount, admitting that the flute doesn’t even play music! Ah, Trekkers. I salute your dedication. I would have bought that flute too, if I was rich. (I tried to find the sale price, but wasn’t able to - sorry.)
Anyway, I truly enjoyed this little special. I think all serious and amature Trekkers will too. And if you’ve never watched any of the Star Trek series, I encourage you to start with The Next Generation - you’ll find it playing on Spike all the time!
