Ready Player One [Kindle Edition]

READY PLAYER ONE is one great piece of literature, a book that not only will get hold of you from page one and never let go but it will also speak directly to your soul. At the same time though, Gen-Xers will have the time of their life in a nostalgia trip of the 1980's like no other.

Wade Watts is an 18-year old orphan living with his heartless aunt in a stacked trailer park. He is obese and suffers from acme and severe lack of social skills but to him it matters little because he is almost always online, getting schooled and hanging out with his friends on a massively multiplayer online environment named OASIS.

OASIS consists of a virtually endless number of worlds, some magical, others cyberpunk and yet others approximating the real world. OASIS is a huge success as in 2044, when the gap between the rich and the poor has grown into an unbridgeable chasm and all of the fossil fuels are gone (but not the environmental problems their abuse caused), life is bleak for the great majority of humanity. The only sane refuse is to get lost in this digital heaven.

When James Halliday, the insanely rich and eccentric creator of OASIS, dies he wills his multi-billion company to the first person who will discover the three keys he Easter-egged into his digital universe. So the worldwide stampede of egg-hunters (known as gunters) starts off, people searching for the ultimate video game prize. Their only clues are Halliday's video message and known 80's fixation. With such a global race, a race that takes the masses back to simpler and happier times, the 80's come back in fashion.

Early video games, taking their first steps just out of the primordial sea and capturing the imagination of an entire generation with only some blinking pixels. Classic RolePlaying Games with dungeon crawling, looting, re-equiping and leveling up. Sit-coms of unique determined optimism, springing from an era of a growing economy and reigned-in capitalism. SciFi TV series offering immersion that was never again replicated. Toys and gadgets that sprung from instances of pure genius. Movies so epic in scope and impact that one developed blind-spots to their cheesy props and plot holes.

Like a good 80's pop-culture narrative the hero (known by his handle of Parzival) has companions (Aech and Art3mis, Shoto and Daito), he has to face powerful villains (Sorrento and his army of Sixers), overcome insurmountable obstacles and find his destiny. A classic piece of literature that will find its rightful place in the 21st century canon.

The pop-cultural zeigeist shows a strong geek-chic bias lately but even if the 80's were before your time or you never played any MMOGs or even any video games you will still love this book. You will not want to miss a single line of code, you will more fun than Ferris Bueller on his day off and, when done, you will feel the urge to start it all over again. And again.
Because you too will ask yourself: did Ernest write this book especially for me or is the gravity tag of the pop-culture during our teenage years so powerful we have all unknowingly turned into its image?

Can you hear the 28K modem screeching its connecting handshake in the background?

WITH MY HIGHEST RECOMMENDATIONS!

Reading the reviews and the book blurb, most of you are going to think -it doesn't sound like something I'd enjoy. I'm not a gamer, and I didn't grow up in the 80's.
Ignore all that and immerse yourself in this excellent novel set in 2044 where everyone spends most of there time in a virtual world called OASIS, Our hero Wade Watts is looking for the clues to find the 'golden egg' and the fortune of the now dead creator of the OASIS world. He must find 3 keys and 3 gates and undergo a series of tests to progress and win the prize ahead of the corporate monsters striving to change OASIS into a money making machine.
This is one of the most fun and exciting books I've read this year.
Once you start reading this you simply will not want to put it down, the story flows very well and is very entertaining, the only slight criticism would be the seemingly quick ending. The tension could have been built better and the final challenge should have played out longer.
That said, I did read it in 4 sittings it reads quickly like a movie and will definitely make a fantastic movie when and if it eventually gets made.

Wow. Where do I start with this book.

I hate using clichéd expressions like `page-turner' and `I couldn't put it down', but words fail me. This book is a complete page-turner and I simply couldn't put it down. As an avid lover of dystopian fiction, gaming and 80s pop culture, I honestly feel like Cline wrote this book specifically for me. In fact, while reading Ready Player One I constantly found myself wishing I was best friends with the novel's protagonist and, indeed, Ernest Cline himself. If that's not a sign of a good story, I don't know what is.

Ready Player One is set in a bleak, ravaged world 40 years in the future. Our protagonist, Wade Watts, like most of the population, spends his days escaping his depressing reality by living his life in a virtual world, the OASIS. In the OASIS every individual has the potential to be who they want and do what they want. Wade's personal ambition is to be the first `gunter' to uncover James Halliday's egg, inheriting his massive fortune.

Admittedly, the outlandish subject matter takes a while to get used to and the sheer magnitude of the virtual reality we enter into takes a great deal of prior explaining. Whether or not Cline does this as succinctly as he possibly could - I'm unsure. The first 70 pages or so of the novel are devoted to an explanation of the disastrous state of planet earth, an outlining of the basic principles of the OASIS and an introduction to the Hunt for Halliday's easter egg. I found this section of the novel flat and tiresome but I can, somehow, manage to forgive Cline for this. A plot of such absurdity takes a bit of an introduction and the novel's subsequent action more than makes up for it.

I think the moment I became hooked with Ready Player One was when Wade discovered the first key. From then on I was just as immersed in this novel as Wade is immersed in the OASIS. The story is truly compelling and the characters, paradoxically, are real and vivid despite existing in an unreal world. Of all the emotions I've experienced with fictional characters, jealousy had not been one of them until I discovered this book. I had a full-on geek out and was actually jealous of Wade when he finally attains the hidden egg.

I don't think anyone reads this book expecting to discover a literary masterpiece, but what the book lacks in evocative language it more than makes up in its captivating storyline. I would have awarded Ready Player One 5 stars if it were not for a few bothersome issues. Firstly, like other reviewers , I found the 80s references a bit pointless at times. Where they advanced the plot they were a fun bonus to the novel, but all too often they just seemed like gratuitous name-dropping.
Secondly, the dialogue between Wade and his best friend Aech borders on unbearably cringey at points. I quote: "Yo, Z! What are you up to? Jerking off to Ladyhake? Give me a shout. I'm still planning to pop some corn and have a Spaced marathon. You down?" Yes, I know this is a matter of personal perception and what could I have possibly expected from two mega-geeks but this sounds more like my parents trying to be cool than a real conversation between two close friends.

Above all, I felt that the novel could have been vastly improved if Cline had have considered some of the more serious issues of living your life through a virtual reality. For example, the aspect of alienation is touched on briefly but not explored with any depth. Furthermore, Wade's aunt along with several innocent people are killed in an explosion which is, essentially, his own fault. Apart from brief moments of reflection, Wade shows little evidence of guilt. This doesn't ring true of a character who, at several instances, shows himself to be admirably selfless. It's also a missed opportunity by Cline to explore Wade's personal turmoil in greater depth.

Despite my minor concerns, I thoroughly enjoyed Ready Player One and am genuinely disappointed to have finished it. All things considered, a damn fine debut novel. I can hardly wait to find out what else the riveting imagination of Ernest Cline has in store for us.