The Impossible Fortress brought to mind Ready Player One in that it was chock full of the 80's. At one point the two main characters, Will and Mary, go see Some Kind of Wonderful in the local movie theater. Will is a fan of Van Halen, and they are working on a Commodore 64 computer and hoping to win a new IBM PS/2. Email is not instant or cheap, they have to use dial up and CompuServe. It was a blast from the past.
But it was also a coming of age story that could have happened in any year. It isn't easy to be a teenager, an unpopular teenager with only a couple of real friends, and then have to face pressure from your friends to do something you don't want to but feel like you have to. But sometimes you learn that your friends are just as lost and confused as you are and come through in the end. Oh and naked Vanna White.
While this wasn't perfect, it was impossible to not care about Will, Mary, Alf, and Clark.
And the trip to my teen years was fun. The reminder of how far technology has come was striking as well. I remember my first computer, it was a Vic 20 and a Commodore 64 was what we got to upgrade from it. We had floppy disks but before that we used a cassette to save the silly and very basic programs we used to write. Take the trip, it is worth it.
(Finished April 30, 2017)
No comments:
Post a Comment