insert coin here
Come with me and you'll be in a world of pure imagination...
 At this point, Cline's Ready Player One is a given for that video game nostalgia. It's 2044, and Wade Watts must solve the puzzles left behind by the OASIS's creator in order to inherit the creator's fortune. Cline later revealed that he'd hidden an elaborate easter egg in the novel in which the winner would receive a DeLorean for cracking it; the DeLorean was awarded in late 2012 to Craig Queen after setting a new record in Joust. |
 The singular season of Freaks and Geeks introduced us to current popular comedic writers and faces, and the show follows Lindsay's transformation to rebellious teen in search of her own identity from that parent-approved star student. If you liked that "normal" side of Stranger Things, the friendships and the growing up, and you haven't watched this? Tsk, tsk. |
 In 1987, Playboy published an issue featuring Vanna White, and a few teenage boys will do anything necessary to get their hands on a copy or two of that issue, including Billy befrending a shop owner's daughter, Mary, to steal a security code and weasel their way in. Billy ends up befrending Mary, and they work on a computer game to enter in a scholarship contest. Falls a little flat near the end, but if you're looking for a fluff piece about the cluelessness of teenage boys, especially in the pre-internet age, give this a go. You can even play the game, The Infinite Fortress. |
 Grady Hendrix takes on a trip down memory lane with covers and the history of the covers of horror of the 1970s and the 1980s to its decline in the 1990s. Video games are sometimes attributed to the death of the corner store horror novel, and Hendrix tells the stories of the covers, the artists, the writers, and the books themselves. It's well worth a perusal. |
 This graphic novel series begins Halloween 1988 when four paper girls uncover one of the biggest news stories in local suburbia and things get a little weird. The art features a lot of nods and references to favorite 80s pop culture, and it'll take you for a ride. |
 While you've probably seen the animated film based on the book, Beagle's The Last Unicorn takes the knife of nostalgia and twists it so it hurts a little bit more. "I have been mortal, and some part of me is mortal yet. I am full of tears and hunger and the fear of death, although I cannot weep, and I want nothing, and I cannot die. I am not like the others now, for no unicorn was ever born who could regret, but I do. I regret." |