Thanks to an all night power outage, and a very hot and uncomfortable night, book number 13 is the in the bag.

Continuing with the next chapter of the epic adventure that started with Ready Player One

Now in Ready Player Two, a new hunt arises in the OASIS, the soul of the mermaid, a 7 fragment mission to bring back one of the architects of this fantastic alternative world.

There are a lot of amazing subtleties of the future of mankind, from our virtual posterity, to the idea of this new existence thru the programming of almost sentient AI. A lot of questions come to mind, What defines our humanity?, is it our thoughts and memories, Is a physical body necessary to be consider human?

With the ever growing virtuality of our existence, I think this questions will quintessential in our future moving forward.

Now for the pure fun part, and being a huge Tolkien fan, the whole part referencing The Silmarillion and Morgoth’s crown, was probably my favorite part. Coming in a close second was the whole Prince planet, that was some surreal shit, the only thing missing was the skit from Dave Chappelle’s show, where he plays basketball and eats pancakes.

Now to close out my Ernest Cline cycle, I will read Armada, was that a flying saucer?, let’s find out.

Off to read.

azr.

Yesterday, I finished the twelve book of this year of reading, and 52 books in 52 weeks is officially back on track.

The book marking is ominous occasion is Ernest Cline’s Ready Player One, and let me tell you, it was a geek’s wet dream, making reference to some of the most iconic and beloved pieces of fiction, this book is a true delight.

I like both the book and the movie, but for me the source material is far better that its cinematic counterpart, without spoiling anything major my favorite things that didn’t appear in the movie were :

• The whole Dungeons and Dragons Tomb of Horrors module appearance.
• The Monty Python and the Holy Grail sequence.
• The background of the villainous Nolan Sorrento, in the movie he is depicted as a generic villain, the book’s version is much better.
• The Blade Runner references.
• And finally, the incorporation of Rush’s conceptual album 2112.

In all the book has a great pace, I read in little over 2 days, and all the little pop culture nuggets along its pages make you reminiscence of all the cool things I grew up with.

The next book in my queue is the sequel, Ready Player Two, already on page 119, and as Jerry Maguire says, “You had me with the Lord of the Rings references “

I also start this Sunday morning with 1,691 left to read for the month of August, quite the Gargantuan task, but with my renew pace the possibility broaden.

Off to read.

azr.

This passed few weeks have been very hectic, and I had to choose between a few extra moments to read in stead off running projections or writing in my blog, both things that I equally love, but not as much as reading.

Apparently, things have finally settle into a less chaotic pace, and here I am, getting up to speed on how things are.

As the title of this entry claims, I still have not run my usual analysis of my numbers for this year of reading, the only I can say is that my total is currently 13,849 pages, my schedule is 4 days behind, if I manage to finish the twelve of the year by Sunday my 52 books in 52 weeks challenge will be back on schedule, and with only 5 days left in the month, my total numbers for August are dangerously low.

This week I mainly focus on reading the last volume of The Legends of Dune Trilogy, The Battle of Corrin, of the three books it was my least favorite, is still pretty good book, but with the generational shift, some of the most endearing characters were left behind. But there’s some great things that became integral part of the classic novel, like the discovery of the effects of the spice and the founding of the Navigators Guild, the surprising origin of the Mentats, the birth of one of the most influential houses, Corrino, and of course the age-old feud between the Atreides and the Harkonnen, things that make you feel the historical connections with that original material so highly appreciated.

To keep things rolling on the 52 books in 52 weeks , I’ll jump into three novels by Ernest Cline, starting with his famous novel Ready Player One, continuing with its sequel, Ready Player Two, and to finish close with Armada, from which I know nothing, there’s a really good chance that I’ll finish with both Ready Player One and Ready Player Two by Sunday night.

But the most pressing matter is those 2, 175 pages left on my reading schedule for August, that’s 435 pages for each day, this calls for a mini-marathon.

Off to read.

azr.