SciFi and Fantasy Book Club discussion

I enjoyed it. I was born in the 50's and have never played a video game in my life but I got the references because I was aware of them just didn't play them. I thought it was a fun read.

Maggie said: "I really had it inmy head that H and Artemis were gonna hook up for some reason... "

I did too. Mostly because of the details of Halliday's long lost love and I thought that Wade's tale was going to be similar. Enjoyed the book.

How surprised were people about H's sex/race/orientation revelation? I actually wondered if H was going to be a woman and Wade and H would hook up. I got the orientation wrong, though!

And I kept thinking that if you can make your avatar anything (robot space ships?) then there really wouldn't be as many human avatars as there were shown in the book. Just switching skin color/gender expression seemed limited to me. Am I missing something? Are people always going to cling to identities/roles that are human no matter how virtual our virtual reality gets?

I knew something was going to be different with H and I honestly thought the whole thing was awesome. Wade surprised me with how quickly he adjusted.

As for avatars I can definitely see why people would stick with human skins. It gives you a chance to look like an ideal self. I've discovered through playing The Sims that I love playing people with dark skin. I have no idea why. So for me, I would probably keep my features but go with black skin and long black hair.

Do you want to be a robot, Michael?

How surprised were people about H's sex/race/orientation revelation?

I wasn't that surprised or moved. I saw the development as somewhat gratuitous. I called the reveal a four-fer. It allowed for a minority, female, lesbian main character that was not a love interest revealed at the 11th hour. Meh...

Just switching skin color/gender expression seemed limited to me. Am I missing something?

I think you are spot on, but I think the book wasn't about the avatars per se but about a boy coming of age. The make of Wade's avatar really was about how he wanted to see himself as an adult. Same with all the other characters in the book. Cline didn't really stretch himself on this. But I do think in the Massive Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game (MMORPG) world even now, people lean towards things other than human (personally I don't participate but I work in IT and more than a few coworkers do). The choices of course depend on the type of game. A book that sort of explores choices is:
.

Very lengthy, but awesome book about...well lets just say it is a barely SF book that involves avatars in an MMORPG in part. It has "real world" gangs comprised of other creature avatars that possess more/different powers than humans.

Interesting, Sarah and Monica, I can see the motives for both verdicts - wanting an idealized self, or wanting to break out of the restrictions of human hierarchies entirely. It did seem that the main circle of folks in this book were of the "striving toward idealized" variety, and that may have been a plot decision.

I do want to read something by Stephenson, so I put that one on the possibilities list, thanks Monica. Like all his books, it looks long and convoluted, though!

Oh, and Sarah, I was thinking more something like a dragon.

Michael wrote: "Oh, and Sarah, I was thinking more something like a dragon. ..."

That would be pretty fun :) I think if I did a non-human character, I would tend to get bored with what I had picked. Then I would end up rotating through a constant stream of entertaining ideas. Pre LOTR I might have done an elf. A sorceress would be cool but I don't know how I'd differentiate from human. Because I'm totally not carrying a staff around all the time. Even in VR. Maybe especially in VR.

I'll leave the fantasy stuff to you guys :)

Oh, and I want to make a distinction between and ideal self and a "perfect" self. Mine would be flawed in some utterly human ways. Glasses maybe, plump, freckles, and a lot of tattoos. Hmmm... aside from the glasses I've just described myself.

Okay, now you've confused me. I think you may be in a third category.

Yeah, well I confused myself. I was trying to say that I would stay human, changing things like my skin and hair. Then I started to say what I would look like but it was too much like me for it to really be a fantasy avatar. By a "perfect" self, I meant someone who has the perfect height, coloring, figure, etc...

The only true fantasy things I come up with are pretty lame. Did I explain it or was there something else confusing?

I'm back.

I just thought it was funny that your theory was that people would create avatars based on an idealized self. (Wade and Artemis both did this). But then you say you would create an avatar "flawed in some utterly human ways".

So I think a third category might be people who reject the beauty/fantasy standards. Similar to "grunge" or "piercings" movements.

The more I thought about it the more it changed. So I really did confuse myself.

I would occasionally have pink spiky hair. Definitely. And I might dress goth.

So, if you're a dragon, what does that do to your environment? Wouldn't you need more space? And if you turn suddenly and your tail sweeps around the room, what happens to the avatars in the room? I assume they wouldn't get knocked over like bowling pins.

Good question about the physical consequences of dragon avatars. There does seem to be a lot of implied physics programming in the Oasis. You can't just make whatever avatar you want, you would have to choose from something already programmed in. The robot spaceships, for example, were all in a drop-down list that had been created by Halliday. You couldn't just make your own, at least in the storyline.

So the restriction on "human" and/or "bipedal" may be a programming limitation. H and Wade hung out in H's lounge and played games using joysticks, etc. (Virtual virtual games, which is already hurting my brain.) But if you had a dragon you would have to adapt the interactions in order to be able to operate a joystick (or you just couldn't). And how would you sit down in the chairs at the school? For that matter, are all the human avatars the same size, or do they account for the full range of human size and shape??

Obviously for 2D gifs we can do whatever we want, because our little Goodreads' pictures are all the same size no matter what is in them. I haven't played any 3D games in a while, anyone know what the latest 3D technology is? Can I create a custom avatar and have it take up space correctly? Or do the hands still go through each other when you give people objects?

I hadn't thought about virtual virtual games! The OASIS was so real that I had trouble figuring out what was real and what was virtual.

As for physical characteristics, I know the Japanese brothers were different heights. Did they run across avatars who were overweight or heavily muscled?

Team Sci-fi is buddy reading this novel starting on March 10! Please join us as we dive into the most famous of the LitRPG titles ever written.

Here's a few questions to get us started:

Have you read LitRPG before? Do you have any preconceived ideas about what to expect?

Are you excited to read the novel? Why or why not?

Have you watched the movie? If so, how is it different from the novel?

What do you think of the premise of the novel?

I'm enjoying the audiobook of RP1. Wil Wheaton is a great narrator and the book is sucking me in. Wade is an interesting character, and he's so goofy and geeky that I can't help but like him!

I've only ever read one other LitRPG novels before and I didn't care for it. I was not expecting to like this and have been really dreading the prompt. I'm happy to say that this is really good!

The pop culture references are amazing! I'm of an age that I get most of the 80's references! Ladyhawke! Gygax! 😍