NERDGASM!!!!
nerdgasm, n. (according to our trusty friend, Urban Dictionary):
When someone has experienced just too much nerdiness at one time, they are said to have a nerdgasm. The person usually goes into a state of shock and can't speak for up to one hour. Never disturb someone who has recently nerdgasmed because the person is prone to just spurt out random nerdy things that regular people could never comprehend.
Why do I bring this up now, you ask? Well, dear readers, this is because I have just experienced a nerdgasm of the first degree over the book Ready Player One by Ernest Cline. Seriously, this is how my roommate described my behavior after listening to me shriek and exclaim with every plot twist and dramatic moment.
Ready Player One is the story of Wade Watts, an Oklahoma City teenager living in the not-too-distant future. Rather than spend his life as an ordinary person in the wasteland that is our world post-fossil fuels, Wade prefers to adventure inside the OASIS, a virtual reality anyone in the world can access for free. There he plays as Parzival, an avatar who goes on adventures, attends high school on a planet called Ludus, and searches for the ultimate prize: Halliday's Easter Egg.
For those of you who don't know, an easter egg is a little joke programmers leave in games. It doesn't really do anything, and it's usually activated by some occult sequence of in-game commands. For example, in one of the point-and-click adventure games I play, one of the easter eggs involves poking an in-game stick into a prairie dog hole to unlock the surprise. Bizarre, right? Easter eggs often hide in plain sight, but they're usually hidden behind a veil of obscurity.
In the book, James Halliday, master programmer and creator of the OASIS, leaves an easter egg in the OASIS after his death. Whoever finds it will inherit the entire Halliday estate and become rich between all imagination. The storyline pits independent egg hunters, or "gunters," like Parzival against a monolithic corporation that wants to find the egg so it can exploit the OASIS for commercial gain.
This book is chock-full of classic 1980's geek culture, which becomes an essential part of Parzival's quest to think like Halliday in order to find the egg. Hence, I experienced multiple nerdgasmic moments when Parzival has to play the perfect game of PacMan or quote Monty Python and the Holy Grail in its entirety.
There is also a lot of in-depth characterization, which, coupled with an engrossing narrative, managed to compel me into reading the entire book in less than 48 hours (a rather astonishing feat when you consider I also had to go to class, preside over Shakespeare in the Park auditions, do my homework, gulp down food, and sleep . . . well, maybe sleep took a backseat to this book.)
I was so immersed in this story it was like being in the OASIS itself: I read it while I was eating, while I was walking across campus between classes, when I should have been sleeping . . . my every waking moment for two days was consumed by the world within its pages. When I finally finished it, I had a very intense ten minutes of geek-squeek-ery--that's when my roommate made the comment about the nerdgasm :) Little did she know she'd be experiencing the same thing only hours later when I gave her the book to read . . . but I digress.
It would be an understatement to say that I love this book. This book goes beyond love: it reaches into the very depths of myself, my most cherished dreams, my most secret fears. This book is what I wish my life was, who I wish I was, every adventure I've wanted in the world. I've enthusiastically recommended it to everyone among my group of friends, and I recommend it to you as well, especially if you are a geek, like adventures, or are looking for something to get you out of a reading slump. This book will deliver, I promise you.
Until next time,
Anna
P.S. If you've already read the book and you're looking for something to remedy the killer book hangover this story leaves behind, check out castleanorak.com, a Ready Player One fan site dedicated to help those of us recovering from this whirlwind journey enjoy our lives once again.
nerdgasm, n. (according to our trusty friend, Urban Dictionary):
When someone has experienced just too much nerdiness at one time, they are said to have a nerdgasm. The person usually goes into a state of shock and can't speak for up to one hour. Never disturb someone who has recently nerdgasmed because the person is prone to just spurt out random nerdy things that regular people could never comprehend.
Why do I bring this up now, you ask? Well, dear readers, this is because I have just experienced a nerdgasm of the first degree over the book Ready Player One by Ernest Cline. Seriously, this is how my roommate described my behavior after listening to me shriek and exclaim with every plot twist and dramatic moment.
Ready Player One is the story of Wade Watts, an Oklahoma City teenager living in the not-too-distant future. Rather than spend his life as an ordinary person in the wasteland that is our world post-fossil fuels, Wade prefers to adventure inside the OASIS, a virtual reality anyone in the world can access for free. There he plays as Parzival, an avatar who goes on adventures, attends high school on a planet called Ludus, and searches for the ultimate prize: Halliday's Easter Egg.
For those of you who don't know, an easter egg is a little joke programmers leave in games. It doesn't really do anything, and it's usually activated by some occult sequence of in-game commands. For example, in one of the point-and-click adventure games I play, one of the easter eggs involves poking an in-game stick into a prairie dog hole to unlock the surprise. Bizarre, right? Easter eggs often hide in plain sight, but they're usually hidden behind a veil of obscurity.
In the book, James Halliday, master programmer and creator of the OASIS, leaves an easter egg in the OASIS after his death. Whoever finds it will inherit the entire Halliday estate and become rich between all imagination. The storyline pits independent egg hunters, or "gunters," like Parzival against a monolithic corporation that wants to find the egg so it can exploit the OASIS for commercial gain.
This book is chock-full of classic 1980's geek culture, which becomes an essential part of Parzival's quest to think like Halliday in order to find the egg. Hence, I experienced multiple nerdgasmic moments when Parzival has to play the perfect game of PacMan or quote Monty Python and the Holy Grail in its entirety.
There is also a lot of in-depth characterization, which, coupled with an engrossing narrative, managed to compel me into reading the entire book in less than 48 hours (a rather astonishing feat when you consider I also had to go to class, preside over Shakespeare in the Park auditions, do my homework, gulp down food, and sleep . . . well, maybe sleep took a backseat to this book.)
I was so immersed in this story it was like being in the OASIS itself: I read it while I was eating, while I was walking across campus between classes, when I should have been sleeping . . . my every waking moment for two days was consumed by the world within its pages. When I finally finished it, I had a very intense ten minutes of geek-squeek-ery--that's when my roommate made the comment about the nerdgasm :) Little did she know she'd be experiencing the same thing only hours later when I gave her the book to read . . . but I digress.
It would be an understatement to say that I love this book. This book goes beyond love: it reaches into the very depths of myself, my most cherished dreams, my most secret fears. This book is what I wish my life was, who I wish I was, every adventure I've wanted in the world. I've enthusiastically recommended it to everyone among my group of friends, and I recommend it to you as well, especially if you are a geek, like adventures, or are looking for something to get you out of a reading slump. This book will deliver, I promise you.
Until next time,
Anna
P.S. If you've already read the book and you're looking for something to remedy the killer book hangover this story leaves behind, check out castleanorak.com, a Ready Player One fan site dedicated to help those of us recovering from this whirlwind journey enjoy our lives once again.
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