When it was published in 2011, Ernest Cline's Ready Player One got a fairly warm reception as a diverting mashup of pop culture, gaming, and accessible quest narrative, wrapped up in a warm, comforting blanket of nostalgia for the ephemera of the 1970s and 80s. Over the past seven years, its reputation has proven much more divisive, in part because of Cline's subsequent work, but mostly because the kind of geek culture he celebrated has become much darker and more complicated. Matt and Ed talk about all that in regards to the film adaptation, directed by Steven Spielberg, as well as Amazon's big-budget TV gambles and the dystopian potential of Birmingham.

00:00:00 - 00:25:48 - Intro & News

00:25:49 - 01:09:15 - Matt & Ed discuss Ready Player One

01:09:16 - 01:17:06 - SRS Recommends & Outro