Ready Player One by Ernest Cline

I watched the movie, and since it was produced by Disney and directed by Spielberg, I know it was made family-friendly and I expected the book to be more edgy. I wasn't disappointed.  While the movie is enjoyable, the book is much better, more adult oriented and with way more "retro" trivia of video games and movies.  The characters are the same, but the major events are quite different.  Cline says because he used way too many copyrighted references in the book, which would cost a fortune to obtain rights to show on screen. Also, all characters in the book are much less pretty, all being overweight and Wade being completely hairless, from top to bottom.  

There is no race for the first key, instead it is a dungeons and dragons game that is found on the planet Ludus where all public schools are and playing a game of "Joust" (classic video game from before my time, never played it). The first gate opens by doing full "flicksync" of the movie "War Games" playing as Matthew Broderick, having to know the full dialogue.  The second key has to do with the legendary "Zork" video game and the 1983 classic SciFi "Blade Runner" and the gate is opened by playing the 1987 game "Black Tiger" (another I've never played, slightly before my time as a gamer).  Wade also plays a perfect game of PacMan with the maximum obtainable High Score, which awards him an extra coin.

The third key is hinted by a song from the Canadian band "Rush" and their concept album "2112" and the thirds gate is the actual Castle of Anorak that Halliday used as an HQ while alive. Of course the "IOI" are always following Wade, trying to kill him (they kill his aunt and everyone in the stack vertical where Wade lived), and also kill Daito, one of the "High Five" who were first at the top of the Scoreboard. Not funny and not for kids.

There's a battle for the Third Gate, and the top players, including Sorrento with his Mechagodzilla, and just when Wade is about to win, IOI detonate doomsday device which destroys the entire planet and everything on it. However, the Pacman coin Wade won gives him an extra life and he enters the third gate where his plays character in the classic movie "Monty Python and the Holy Grail" and obtains the easter egg from the early video game "Adventure."  Wade wins and shares his winnings with the other 3 remaining of the "High Five". Also loses his virginity to Artem1s.

The book is a joy to read, especially if you are a video game (and movie, and space rock) geek, and get all or most of the bountiful references.  I am ready to read the sequel "Ready Player Two" although I've read that it is not as good as the first book. 

Gurdjieff, a Master in Life: Recollections of Tscheslaw Tschekhovitch

 Another book by a direct pupil of Gurdjieff.  Tscheslaw was a Polish soldier in the Russian Imperial Army.  After their defeat by the Red Army, Tscheslaw joined Gurdijeff's Moscow and St. Petersburg groups who were slowly migrating south towards Turkey, through the Russian Caucasus. Tscheslaw was with Gudjieff in Constantinople and gives us first had accounts of Gurdjieff's time there and how he fed the Russian emigres and encouraged them (pushed them) into starting their own viable businesses. 

The author was on his own for moving to Germany and had a bad situation in Hungary where the Ukrainian consul betrayed him and tried to exchange him as a deserter for Ukrainian hostages in the Red Army.  After a short stay in Germany, the author joins Gurdjieff in France, The Priuere castle and property near Fontainbleu and describes all the events there through its existence, including Gurdjieff's car accident, and how the weasel who helped them settle in France was instrumental in them losing Le Prieure with the human weasel appropriating most of the money from the purchase. 

The author also describes the work while Gurdjieff lived in an apartment in Paris, although he didn't accompany him on his trips to America. The book is a rare jewel of first hand accounts of Gurdjieff and the life he led.

The Sicilian by Mario Puzo

 Since I read the Godfather, it was my duty to read this one as well, but it was a big disappointment. While "The Godfather" had boring parts, it was essentially a good book, and especially the movie made it even better, with the great Marlon Brando being the quintessential Don Corleone. 

Well, "The Sicilian" is not a good book. It is boring as hell. That's why it took me almost two months to finish it. Too boring. Michael Corleone appears only in the first and last few chapters, while the rest is about Turi Guliano, a bandit and a type of Robin Hood in Sicily, who steals from the rich and gives to the poor.  The majority of the book is about Turi's exploits as a bandit and a lover of middle-aged widows, while trying to go against the government "in Rome" which is the most corrupt government, which is typical for Italy. 

Nevermind, the ending is that Turi's best friend betrays him and kills him (Aspano) and then he's poisoned by Don Croce, the 'cappo di tutti cappi' of Sicily's "Friends of Friends", as the Mafia is known locally.  The majority of the book is about the exploits of Turi, kidnappings, murders, the occasional massacre, and similar uninteresting stuff about some backwards sticks and boonies in Italy. All in all, a waste of time, but when I start something, I have to finish it, so I did.  

Oh yes, Michael Corleone eventually escapes Italy and returns to America where he is appointed successor of the Family, since his brother Sonny was killed.  So, this book ends at about 2/3 through "The Godfather", where the last 1/3 happens after the events of this book.  

2061: Odissey Three

 It seems that the quality of the writing is just going down with each subsequent book. While 2001 was a revolutionary book and a movie, the 2010 was a very good book and a movie, the 2061 is pretty forgettable book which is unlikely that anyone would make it into a movie anytime soon, because it is just not worth it.  

Europa is in again, but also the Haley's Comet, which I didn't really see (or I don't remember) in 1986, when I was a kid, but apparently it was a big deal for A. Clarke and the first half of the book is about a mission landing on the comet and finding the regular stuff (gasses and geysers) there. 

After a crash landing on Europa and some meetings with advanced local life, the Haley's comet crew is sent to save the Europa's hapless crew, which eventually happens.  And yes, the core of gas giants is made of humongous diamonds.  Maybe.

Eventually a message gets sent to the over-lord-uber-mensch-non-corporeal-anymore aliens, which is not good for the human race, as we've been deemed 'bugs', just like in the 'Three Body Problem.' 

But we will have to wait for 3001 to see how that turns out.

The regular fear of death topics that Clarke cannot escape abound throughout. Clarke had a very long and pretty peaceful life (buried next tot he love of his life in Sri Lanka), but the fear of death is the defining characteristic of all humans, especially the little bit more accomplished ones.

2010: Odyssey Two

 The second odyssey happens about 10 years after the action in the first book, the Cosmic Baby comes back, now as an emissary/servant of the mysterious god-like aliens that left the monoliths 3 million years ago. This book follow the events of the film, not the actual first book, so the action is centered on Jupiter, not Saturn.  Russian and American expeditions get on a Russian spacecraft "Leonov" (after Alexei Leonov, first human to conduct a spacewalk).  They want to go to the previous spaceship "Discovery" and recover anything that was left, including the disconnected HAL 9000, and also to examine the much bigger monolith (called "Big Brother" or "Zagadka") which created the "Cosmic Baby" in the previous book.

The Chinese send a spacecraft of their own, to overtake the Russians and Americans, and get to "Discovery" before them (and claim it as their own).  Since they had to take less fuel to make haste, the Chinese spacecraft is supposed to refuel on Jupiter's moon "Europa", but that does not pan out when it turns out that under the ice of Europa is not only water, but living beings, not microscopic, but huge, which destroy the spaceship. 

This is the main plot of the book, alien life forms on Europa, which the god-aliens of yore are trying to save (although one might wonder why it took them 10 years), by making Jupiter another sun (salaciously named "Lucifer").  The new sun thaws the ice on Europa and creates an atmosphere (not Oxygen/Nitrogen based), which accelerates the evolution on the planet, and in only 20,000 years, the "Europans" walk on the surface, have language and culture and are fully fledged sentient beings.

Overall, this book is much more boring than the first one, since the supercomputer going rogue plot is absent, and that plot is what made it huge success, and relevant even today. The plot of godlike aliens "seeding" and "weeding" planets with life is a very tired trope and somewhat of an escapism, religion-like, putting ones hopes in a higher power which should solve all of our problems including our unavoidable, final and immutable cessation of existence. 

Arthur C. Clarke died in 2008 at age 90, so 26 years after this book, but it is obvious that his unavoidable death was a deep inspiration and influence on writing this novel.

2001: A Space Odyssey by Arthur C. Clarke

 Clarke was my favorite sci-fi author, and definitely my favorite from the Big 3, as I found Asimov too dry and academic, and Heinlein too militaristic and self-indulgent.  My all-time facvorite book by Clarke is his first novel "Against the Fall of Night" even though it is not reflective of his later style that he used for the rest of his life.  I read the story "The Sentinel" that was the base of Kubrick's movie, but I did not find it compelling.  Until now, I haven't read this book, which was written in parallel with the movie, but differs from it.

The ape with the bone in the first part has a name in the book - "Moon-Watcher". In the second part "Discovery" is going to Japetus, a moon of Saturn, not Europa, a moon of Jupiter like in the movie.  Also, the movie extends the middle part the most; the interaction with HAL 9000 and the ultimate disconnection. While the third part in the movie is a very generic sequence of images, the "Cosmic Baby" in the book is very well developed, including the voyage to the space station with a sight of hundreds of different spaceships belonging to different races (including the huge derelict) and the pure-gold space ship encountered in hyperspace. 

The three parts go well together, but it is obvious they were derived from three separate short stories.  This is not a bad thing, Raymond Chandler did it all the time to great success.  The ideas are great, as always with Clarke. His Childhood's End is a masterpiece, both conceptually and as execution. I am not sure about the ending, as what is the "Cosmic Child" doing going back to Earth (which shoot a barrage of nuclear missiles at it)? Is it trying to destroy Earth? Or make it better? Unknown.

Anyways, the second book continues after the movie, not the first book, i.e. the "Discovery" landed on Jupiter's moon Europa and the "Cosmic Child" never came near Earth.  I guess that is better, since there is more continuity.  

Gender Queer: A Memoir by Maia Kobabe

 This is the first time I am reviewing a graphical novel (although I was highly impressed by "Maus"), since I guess comics are still not perceived completely as an artistic medium for serious creativity and topics, and not just for entertainment.  However, I was very impressed by Maia Kobabe's book which delves deep into topics of sexuality, gender, finding oneself, boundaries, making a life for oneself despite the world, etc.  The book is excellent in many ways, but at no time it is preachy, propagandist or cheap current fad.  The feelings and confusion that Maia experiences come across as deeply genuine and authentic to the point of being the foundation of er life and identity in every possible aspect. 

Maia is bisexual and asexual, assigned female at birth, and spends er teens trying to figure out where er sexuality and identity belongs, as e doesn't simply identify as 'gay' but more with 'queer' - the Q in LGBTQ.  Er relationships with other people and also with er own body and sexual organs is directly and honestly portrayed, as is er struggle to make sense of all that e feels. 

At the end e decides that e is fine the way e is, neither male nor female, nor gay nor straight, and decides to use the Spivak pronouns and live er life as e finds best.  Very uplifting and affirming book for anyone from any walk of life and of any identity.