'Ready Player Two' Came Out Yesterday, And Critics Say It's A Stinker

Ready Player Two, Ernest Cline's sequel to his successful, albeit very dorky 2011 novel Ready Player One, released yesterday, and in the opinion of critics on Twitter, it's an affront to literature and the very concept of the English language.

Ready Player One was a sensation upon its release nearly ten years ago and netted a fairly successful film adaptation by Steven Spielberg, but it was not without its critics, who felt Cline's tale was less a novel than a laundry list of pop culture references from the 80s and 90s with a Marty Stu protagonist, making it something of a Gamemaster Anthony fanfiction. From the sequel's excerpts currently going around Twitter, it seems Cline dove even further into that concept this time around.

For starters, the novel opens with an extended riff on how the protagonist wants to be exactly like Marty McFly in Back to the Future.

damn, Ready Player Two doesn’t even let you get settled in before going full Big Bang Theory pic.twitter.com/WEKvW3LgN9

— Montgomery Taylor (@MontyTayl_r) November 24, 2020

There is also a passage that features even more pop culture references to things like The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy and Tommy Tutone's "867-5309" within 30 words of each other.

Ready player two is apparently everything we knew it would be pic.twitter.com/lsPiNWPoq4

— Gramsci did nothing wrong (@TontonPogo) November 24, 2020

Pleased to report that the opening pages of Ready Player Two are beyond parody pic.twitter.com/qCUYicNXIP

— Conor Lastowka (@clastowka) November 24, 2020

Others pointed out a passage wherein Cline's protagonist discovers his love interest is trans but is cool with it because he'd essentially looked at a lot of pornography.

So, in Ready Player Two, the narrator outs someone as trans by having the main character pry into her private documents, and follows it with essentially "I knew what it was like because I pretended to be a woman online."

Earnest Cline can absolutely fuck all the way off. pic.twitter.com/152Dutu9IS

— DomJo (@DomusCaligari) November 24, 2020

CW: Homophobia and transphobia

My god, Ready Player Two really succeeded at bringing me into the worldview of a super dumb Redditor who thinks he's enlightened and woke because he looked up porn. https://t.co/37Zl3NSZF3

— Ant 🎄LAAAAST CHRISTMAS (@AGramuglia) November 24, 2020

(CW transphobia in Ready Player Two)
Cishets really act like "I've watched a lot of gay porn, so now I understand that love is love!" is an enlightened position, as if our humanity is dependent on their fetishization of us. This sucks. https://t.co/ljj4R3vKcr

— Jennifer Unkle (@jbu3) November 24, 2020

Lastly, there's this passage that namedrops Sonic.exe, suggesting that Cline may be an avid Know Your Meme reader.

I feel like these lines were added to Ready Player Two specifically to make me upset. pic.twitter.com/jz2RM1rZNg

— Cybershell (@Cybershell) November 25, 2020

This led to a lot of parodies that barely register as parody, dialing the viral prose up just a notch to dunk on Ready Player Two.

Wow ready player two is wild pic.twitter.com/p74eYxMzUD

— Jo (@MintMoose) November 24, 2020

wow, really enjoying ready player two so far pic.twitter.com/A63lprEfKm

— DJ SEPHIROTH420NARUTO (@pillowfort) November 25, 2020

Ready Player Two pretty good so far pic.twitter.com/oghTZhIx1M

— g0m (@g0m) November 25, 2020

Wow, Ready Player Two is even better than the first book! pic.twitter.com/m4E81HVnCo

— pixelatedboat aka “mr tweets” (@pixelatedboat) November 25, 2020

No word yet on if Spielberg will attempt to adapt this novel into a film as well, but if he does, it appears he'll have a lofty task ahead of him.