Random rant about Ernest Cline and Andy Weir

Entry posted by bluejay July 11, 2021

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This was originally planned to be a status update but evidently became too long to be one. So here goes:

I’m not a fan of Ernest Cline. I loved Ready Player One, and I’ve probably read it over 50 times. Armada was fun too, but much less so than RP1 because half the book is “borrowed” from similar books including RP1, so much so that one could argue it is more plagiarism than homage.

I didn’t even know RP2 came out until like 15 minutes ago, and from what I can gather it’s a hodgepodge of all RP1s flaws and all Armada’s flaws with next to none of the aspects that made then fun. I haven’t read it yet, so I’m nobody to judge the book, but whatever hopes I had of Cline writing any book as fun as RP1 is gone.

It is difficult not to draw comparisons between him and Andy Weir, author of The Martian and Artemis. He also wrote Lacero, a short story about Nolan Sorrento’s origins. Unlike Cline, Weir seems to have an idea on how to write stories without plagiarizing his own (and others’) work. The only thing Artemis has in common with The Martian seems to be the personality of the main character. However, the situations in which the two imaginary people land themselves in are so vastly different that it hardly seems to matter. Simply put, it has none of the flaws that plague Cline’s work.

I’m not trying to bash on Ernest Cline. I know how difficult it is to write a story that is both fun and original; I found that out when I attempted to write my own novel when I was 11. I am simply expressing my disappointment on Cline’s books, and praising Andy Weir for the excellent ones he has written. Please do not take what I wrote too seriously.

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