Ready Player One: A Novel

Is it the lure of nostalgia or simply the epic feel of Ready Player One that makes it so deliciously entertaining? It is perhaps, a bit of both. Ernest Cline playfully reminisces while offering up a heady eighties banquet in his futuristic piece about a quest to end all quests that jet-propels the minds and hearts of readers from the very first page. I can still remember the very first time I saw Star Wars and Tron, the first time I delved into books that epically moved me...Watership Down, The Hobbit, Neuromancer, Holy Fire, Heart of Darkness, even Harry Potter...diving into Ready Player One, with my haptic gloves, visor, and OASIS immersion rig was no different-an absolutely electrifying and unforgettable experience. Cline manages to convey a bit of prescience in his portrayal of the world that Wade Watts lives in...a virtual world that is more comforting than a bleak future, where millions grow up in the OASIS, through its schools, its libraries, and its simulated cities and towns-all digitally recreated-its seamless worlds-within-worlds offering up a never-ending adventure. Sound familiar? Clines' futuristic grail quest takes off when the creator of the OASIS and owner of Gregarious Simulation Systems James Halliday dies, thrusting the entire planet into a frenzy (much in the same way Steve Jobs' demise did). Within the OASIS, Halliday has programmed clues to unraveling a treasure-his treasure-roughly two hundred and forty billion dollars' worth and a controlling interest of the most powerful company on the planet. All are at stake and up for grabs. One only needs to have an excellent knowledge of the eighties, the background of Halliday's life memorized, and an unbeatable strategy to unravel the scavenger hunt-like clues hidden within the OASIS. Cline plays up his inexhaustible eighties references, as Wade Watts does his pasty-white-best to unravel the clues to three keys left by his idol Halliday-whether it is acting out the scenes in War Games, playing Joust, Dungeons of Daggorath, or playing a perfect game of Pac Man (which is still on my bucket list) on top of competitively racing against thousands of gunters bent on finding the keys for themselves. At their heels an evil multinational company lurks in the wings willing to do anything, include kill, to get at all three keys. Cline manages to craft a formidable opponent out of the Sixers, those cretinous suits from innovative Online Industries (IOI) bent on sussing out the keys for their own motely gain and the inevitable control and monetization of the OASIS. With the emergence of the Sixers, Wade must pit his smarts and knowledge against them, and band together his friends and fellow gunters worldwide. With Wade's selfless perseverance to save the spirit of the OASIS from the Sixers, Ready Player One becomes ceases to be a quest and morphs into a worldwide mission. Instead of the billions at stake, the very life blood of the OASIS is threatened and the unified front that Wade and his teammates drum up conjures up visions of every epic fictional battle fought: the war of Middle Earth, the Battle of Endor, Luke Skywalker launching his torpedo into the Death Star's reactor...to Cline's Battle of Chthonia and Castle Anorak all thrust the reader from apathy to become a part of something greater. Cline has managed to imaginatively deliver the most essential ingredients to a great story or movie in a shiny, new, wrapper: charity, hope and faith. Ready Player One is striking, unstoppable and epically good. There are so many good and genuine aspects to Cline's novel that I don't even know where to start. Cline's peek at the future is believable at times with a hint of wry humor (i.e. the Portland Avenue Stacks where Wade lives...is freakishly comical...and yet just a bit sad) Who could imagine poverty-stricken families scraping out a meager existence in RVs stacked high in the sky? Visually it's like the Jetson's in HELL or the great garbage avalanche of 2505 in Idiocracy (2006). As is his reference to a C-section (cutting an OASIS user out of their apartment and haptic chair) nearly made me roll on the floor laughing and Wades' stint as an IOI indentured Tech Support employee was insanely good, (almost as good as his maniacal plot to somehow crack the hold of the Orb of Osuvox over Castle Anorak). After reading Ready Player One FIVE times, I have to say without a doubt it's been the best book I've read all year. Hopefully, Ernest Cline will channel Yoda's last words "...there is another Skyw-..." and deliver an equally geek-worthy sequel. Bravo! Parzival Lives! A Fiendishly Bookish Review

After reading some of the negative reviews of this book (some of them fair and balanced and helpful in giving a truly critical assessment), I feel compelled to offer an analysis that may help someone sitting on the fence about getting this book. (I have this fear that if I'd read all these negative reviews BEFORE buying the book I never would've given it a chance.) In a nutshell, I think a minority of the reviewers here are WAY overthinking their reviews of this piece. They're holding this book to a standard it was never meant to fulfill. If you like books that are analogous to gristly meat that needs to be masticated for days in order to extract the nutrients, you will not like this book. It is not a perfectly-faceted jewel painstakingly crafted to be part of humanity's canon of Great Literature. Go read some Joyce, or Marquez, or Margaret Atwood (well, maybe not Margaret Atwood). This book is analogous to a tasty, satisfying candy bar. Fun to eat every lip-smacking bite, and you wish it'd been bigger when you're done. Too many of the negative reviews are taking this book out of the context in which it was written. It's like criticizing Airplane! for not having the artistry of Raging Bull. It's a book about '80s pop culture, for chrissakes. I can't imagine a less-literary topic on which to base a classic good guys vs. bad guys, treasure-questing, straightforward romance. Yeah, so the characters are not stereotype-busting case studies in human complexity with deep-seated flaws that change how you view yourself and others around you. If they had been it would've ruined the book. It's an adventure. Too much depth and complexity would get in the way. I should add that I have a pretty eclectic literary diet and that I appreciate a deep book as much as any of these literary-minded wet blankets. It's just that I don't go into a convenience store hoping to find fair-trade, grass-fed, free-range organic milk. You gotta appreciate a book in context and adjust your expectations accordingly. If you want a quick-reading romp that's at once backward- and forward-looking, you won't be disappointed. If you were between the ages of 10 and 15 in 1980 you will get a huge dose of chuckle-worthy nostalgia here, especially if you played arcade video games. One reviewer criticized how so many of the '80s references went to too much length to explain themselves, but I'm sure this was an editorial decision to make the story more appealing to those who aren't aware of/don't remember everything about the '80s. (BTW, there were plenty of '80s references that weren't explained). The explanations didn't bother me in the least, especially when it came to Japanese-originated '80s pop culture. Since I'm American I didn't get exposed to much of that. I appreciated the explanation. And then there were those who took some of the limited social commentary personally (ever read any Neal Stephenson? Maybe you'd better steer clear of him too). To me these 'rants' simply helped flesh out the hero's character while evincing an atmosphere of futility in everyday life a la Catch-22. Maybe you're religious or you get frustrated by technology and have to call tech support a lot. I'm sure you're still basically a good person and that the author wasn't criticizing you personally. He probably doesn't even know you exist. Lighten up. One reviewer criticized the excessive use of 'pulling a rabbit out of a hat' plot devices. Yep, it's true. Fair criticism. A lot of the tight spots in the plot were resolved a bit too neatly. You could view these as plot cop-outs or cool ideas that save the day. But remember, the story takes place almost entirely inside a video game. Rabbits get pulled out of hats all the time in video games. Go with it. Enjoy it. Savor it. Revel in it. I just finished reading this book for the third time in two months. I haven't done that with a book since I was a teenager... in the 1980s. If you're in your 40s and embarked on a typical life full of the attendant commitments and time sinks that entails, you'll understand the volumes of praise that speaks for this book. Now I need to go cut some firewood before I involuntarily pick the thing up for a fourth reading.

First and foremost, your enjoyment of this book will be directly correlated to your enjoyment and nostalgia for 80's pop culture, most notably early era video games, music, and movies. I love a lot of that stuff, so simply reading about a book framed with topics I enjoy make this book a worthwhile read for me. The story does serve to weave many of these cultural references into a YA tale about a boy on a quest to solve a riddle. A reader's reaction to the title itself would probably be a decent indicator of how much you will like the rest of the book. I would ideally like to give this book a 3.5ish rating, because I enjoyed it more than just "it's ok", but the highly specific subject matter prevent it from being a "general read" Pros: When the book evokes memories of things long forgotten and expounds on them in a way you probably haven't though about for years, you do feel a satisfying sense of understanding. In many books, for myself at least, a description of an item may be ambiguous enough for me to not quite know whether the image I have in my head is accurate, but by relying on mostly things that exist, you KNOW when your mental image is spot on. Our main character has a lot of knowledge pertaining to his quest before the book even begins, but I bought his expertise. This may be a stumbling block for some, but it's clear that our protagonist (and author perhaps?) has spent almost a lifetime amassing knowledge required to complete his task, and while it does lead to some hand holding on his part for us, the audience, I never felt like it was TOO far of a jump. Cline does weave in a lot of his own fictional history alongside actual 80's pop culture in a believable manner. The trail of breadcrumbs that marks the main quest throughout the story is littered with games, books, and movies both real and factual, and the line is blurred well enough that many times I wasn't exactly sure if something mentioned actually existed, or was created solely for the story. This neatly leads into a plausible extrapolation of the future of technology and video games. Following the thread of the main riddle is entertaining and highly driving. The actual clues aren't really intended to be "solved" by the reader, rather than followed. Our protagonist is the brains of the operation here, not us. It's a fun ride along, sort of like watching a magic trick be performed. You don't have to figure out the inner workings prematurely to enjoy the show. The largely virtual setting of the story does allow for some fairly imaginative combinations of people and places, reminiscent of playing with a toy box full of dolls and action figures from all sorts of shows, cartoons etc. sort of mashed together in a sort of wish fulfilling way, not too much unlike seeing the many different Lego sets being used together in "The Lego Movie" Cons: While the references I got were satisfying, there were some parts where familiarity was implied and I felt a bit "out of the loop", particularly when referencing music from that era. the description might be "x song by y artist was playing", but with no other description of the song, I didn't know whether it was happy, sad, suspenseful, intense etc. It definitely isn't a show stopper by any means, and the context of the scenarios do help inform the tone, but sometimes requisite knowledge seemed just that--a prerequisite to understanding what was happening. Wade, our protagonist, seems to flip flop between self loathing, overly confident, childish, meticulous, immature, mastermind whenever necessary for the plot to progress. He doesn't seem so much like a dynamic character as much as possessing a convenient set of switches to flip when appropriate. Maybe a different style of writing would better suite bridging or informing these changes, but as it stands he almost seems like many different people controlling one body at different times Side characters are flat as pancakes. The permanent character list in this novel is already pretty small, but even the characters we have besides our protagonist are very one note. [MILD SPOILERS]]While some characters aren't exactly as they seem, even those differences when revealed turn out to be mostly superficial. [END SPOILERS] There are even Japanese characters that read completely like what a typical american would think a Japanese person is like, complete with adding "-san" to the ends of names and talking about honor. My last con is pretty plot specific so it might bare no relevance until you actually read the book so [MILD SPOILERS] Wade goes through a drastically life altering change that should have been the fire for the rest of his quest, but it seemed like little more than a plot device to cleanly allow him to be unchained from realistic consequences of his situation. It almost seemed like a quick and sloppy way to get rid of baggage as opposed to a full blown emotional catharsis. In fact, after it happens, it's mentioned maybe twice throughout the remainder of the book [END SPOILERS] All in all, the book does have heart, even if it is buried in an old trunk of 80's memories. There is an Earnest (no pun intended) core that you can feel throughout, and that emotional attachment and love for the source material really does frame the story. As I said before, if the era and source material seem interesting to you, then you will definitely get something out of this. If you're skeptical, the first few chapters will definitely help you decide whether it's for you or not, so previewing an excerpt is probably a good idea. If you don't really care for the material, then this book isn't going to change your mind.

Ready player one is the best book I’ve ever read. Its full of adventure and excitement and can relate to us in many ways. I would give this book 5 out of 5 stars. Ready player one is about a place called the Oasis” which we would perceive as super VR. Their whole life is centered around the Oasis and was created by James Halliday and Ogden Morrow. James Halliday passed away and left behind an Easter egg. You must get 3 keys to get the Easter egg. Once you obtain the Easter eggs. You get a ton of money and get to control the Oasis. Wade a.k.a. Parzival figured how to obtain the keys. IOI is a corrupt corporation who wants all power and money over the oasis. They try to take out Wade and his friends in the oasis but fail. Upon failure they decide to go after them in the real life. Wade, Art3mis, Aech, Shoto, and Daito are fighting for the key a and fighting for their life. Sonner or later IOI is catching up and captures Wade. While Wade is capture is hacks into IOI and finds out that they have been stalking all of them and found a video of IOI agents throwing Daito off the cliff. He meets up with all the squad and they prepare for the biggest fight the Oasis has ever seen. They fight IOI and win and Wade and his friends become the owners of the Oasis. The Story was amazing. It always stayed interesting and was filled with mind puzzles waiting to be discovered. It shows us many morals and teaches us about evil and good of man. There’re some things I would change like the part of killing Daito, but it shows the seriousness of the evil of man. The Characters fitted perfectly. Wade was the desperate gamer who loved the Oasis and Halliday. His personality fitted perfectly making him suitable to control the Oasis. His friends had their own identity, but all were very similar to Wade they were willing to fight for the Oasis no matter what. Nolan Sorrento is the head of operations of IOI. He is an evil man who is greedy for money and power. He gets so greedy he’s willing to destroy the oasis just to kill wade. His evil brings out the best in wade and his friends. The characters show their personalities very well which shows how good of a writer Ernest Cline is. His style was very modern and smooth. He included tons of humor while being serious at the same time. He showed lots of detail but kept straight to the plot. This book sounded personal to him at some points and so he tried to make it personal for us such as that we could feel what the characters were feeling. I liked this book a lot and I really don’t like books at all. It related to most modern people even though it was set in 2044. I will defiantly be reading his sequel he claims to be writing. It would really recommend it to people who likes video games or likes action packed books. It’s a funny book with some edgy humor which us modern kids love. I believe this book is on the best sellers list because it attracts its readers. It keeps you wanting to read more, and it doesn’t bore you with random details of how that tree at your grandparent’s house behind the farm where u used to play smelt or looked. It gets straight to the point and is good at doing so. It also is probably on the best sellers list because the movie came out this year and was a huge seller itself. All in all, this movie was 5 out of 5 stars. It was well written. Would recommend to anyone even if you hate books. The Story, characters, and everything about this book is amazing. I hope the second book will be as good as the first.

Ready Player One, Ernest Cline's 2011 debut novel, is set in the grim future of 2044, where economic collapse and energy shortages make life unbearable. Or, at least, part of it is. In this dystopian future, most people spend their days connected to the OASIS, an online virtual world where people can forget their troubles and be whoever they want to be while exploring thousands of exotic planets. Several years before the story begins, James Halliday, the eccentric creator of the OASIS who was obsessed with the 1980's of his youth, dies, leaving behind a message that the first person to solve his cryptic riddles and find a hidden easter egg he's left in the OASIS would win his huge personal fortune and control of Halliday's company, Gregarious Simulation Systems. Our hero, Wade Watts - or, as he's known in the OASIS, Parzival (Percival was taken) - is an 18 year old who has only known misery in the real world, but has spent five years hunting Halliday's easter egg and mastering every bit of obscure '80's trivia he can find to try to solve Halliday's obscure clues. Parzival's friends Aech (mentor and best buddy), Art3mis (rival and love interest), Daito and Shoto (a pair from Japan working as a team) are also gunters (as the egg hunters are known), and become his friendly competition. The unfriendly competition comes from Innovative Online Industries, led by the ruthless Nolan Sorrento. IOI and their hordes of corporate lackeys known as Sixers are also looking for the egg, so that they can rule the OASIS and "monetize" it properly. Monthly fees, advertising everywhere, an end to the guaranteed anonymity of the OASIS - it would be an end to life as Wade's generation knows it, and IOI will stop at nothing to reach the egg first and make it a reality. The novel is filled to the brim with '80's references from film, television, video games, books, Dungeons & Dragons, and more, and anyone who grew up in that era will appreciate many of them. Cline does a great job of explaining them so that even if you don't have the trivia mastery Parzival does, you can keep up, and he makes it entertaining. I was born in 1978 (or, to put in Ready Player One terms, my first video game system was an Intellivision, but I spent way more time playing on the NES), while the fictional Halliday and the real Cline and Wheaton were all born in 1972, so there are a few references to the really early '80's I wasn't initially familiar with, but it didn't slow me down. As fun as the fantastic voyages into the OASIS are, Cline does a great job of keeping the action in the real world important and exciting. Parzival finding the hidden keys, leveling up, and getting epic gear are very well done and entertaining, but the heart of the book is Wade's story and his personal growth and the struggle to juggle his quest for the egg and the need to survive and make personal connections in the real world. Those were the parts that really made me think (as I sit here typing the review to post in the internet - yes, I'm aware of the irony). Actor, writer, and geek Wil Wheaton narrates the book, and he does a fantastic job. His characterization of Wade/Parzival and his friends and rivals really makes the story come alive. You can tell that Wheaton loves the material as much as Cline and Parzival, and experienced it himself as he perfectly renders all the movie quotes and classic video game sound effects of the era. Truly, I cannot think of another audiobook narrator who could nail the Pac-Man death bwoop like Wil does. This is one of those rare combinations of book and audio narrator that really adds another level of enjoyment to the experience. Ready Player One is one of the best books I've read this year, and it has definitely put Cline on my radar as an author to watch. The film rights have been sold and Cline (who is also a scriptwriter) is working on the script. I'd love to see Ready Player One on the big screen. In the meantime, I heartily recommend you read Ready Player One, and if you are an audio book fan, definitely listen to it and enjoy Wheaton's fantastic performance. The only thing that would have improved the book for me would be if Parzival was a descendent of Erdrick.

First, a quick summary of the story. It's about a poor kid named wade who lives in a trailer park in a futuristic, barren and famine ridden America. Not quite a 'post apocalyptic' setting, but rather one filled with more hardship and desolation then today's world. In the future, they have this game or simulator called the OASIS. It's basically a life simulator that allows the user to enter this whole new cyber-universe with hundreds of different planets using a special visor and other haptic gear. In the future, this simulator is used by everyone from kids to adults to be used for everything from playing games to attending school and even earning a living. For most people it's really become more of a life than their actual lives are, as the world around them lay destitute, yet the OASIS serves as a means of relief and bliss. When the creator of the OASIS dies, it is learned that he left behind clues for a special contest he had set up in the simulator some time earlier. The contest was to basically find the special 'egg' located somewhere in the vast universe of the OASIS. The winner of this contest would receive his entire fortune that he had left behind, as well as complete control of the entire OASIS. Years went by after his death before someone(young Wade Watts)finally discovered the meaning of the first clue. In short, that is the main plot of the book. There's also a lot of 80's pop culture references, as the OASIS creator grew up in the 80's and everyone knew that being very familair with it would be essential to solving his riddles and puzzles. I really found this book to be a great read. I found myself not wanting to put it down almost everytime I started reading it. As a gamer myself, I may have found this more intriguing than say... someone who isn't as familiar with older games and technology. However, that's not to say that you must be technologically advanced to understand the story, you just may not quite understand some of the references to older games and gaming units. I really thought it was neat how the author was able to create a story about the future, yet have it based so intently around the past, mainly the 80's. Of course, not everything in the book was flawless. The only real main issue I encountered was that sometimes I found the author ocassionly rambling off details for too long. Details that really weren't needed to give the reader any more of a picture of what was going on, but I think more or less as page fillers. Don't get me wrong, the story still has plenty of meat, it's just that I've noticed this issue on a few occasions. The other problem I found was that there were a few times in the story when Wade would be stuck for months on a puzzle, but then breeze right through other puzzles that seemed harder than the ones he was stuck on, but maybe this is just my opinion. Overall, the few minor negatives of the book just wasn't quite enough to keep me from giving it 5 stars and great recommendation for anyone into cyber-type books. Again, very intriguing and addictive. I'll definitely be looking for more titles by this author in the future. Easily one of my favorite recent books.

First, the positive. This book has interesting characters, a compelling plot, and some occasional poignant insights about the world we live in, and why people often trade it for an entirely fictitious world of make-believe. It is well written, and most importantly kept me turning pages, often past bedtime, which everyone knows is the mark of a good book. Now the negative. Warning: HERE BE SPOILERS. The level of nostalgia in this book can become tedious. The main character (Wade) spends a lot of time recalling ALL the movies he watched from the 80's, ALL the music to which he listened, ALL the games he played, etc. At one point I literally felt like I was reading a list from IMDB. True to geek form, though, the protagonist is obsessed with his hobbies, so while it was annoying to read, it was true to character. There are a few plot holes that I found contrived. For example, the cover of the manual from Zork was a clue to finding one of Halliday's keys, but Wade misses it and laments that he just never really payed attention to the manual. After pages and pages of demonstrating a near encyclopedic knowledge of the minutia of far LESS important games/movies/songs/whatever than Zork. After reciting the ENTIRETY of the movie War Games by heart. And we are expected to believe he just glossed over the cover to the manual Zork. Right. The OASIS has become as important (more so, even) to the world's economy as normal commerce and industry, to the point where mega-corporations build virtual office towers and mega-plexes in the game world and populate them with avatars all controlled by human counterparts in the real world. Which sounds great, except in a virtual world where people can fly and have space ships and zap lightning from their fingers, why on earth would anyone build elevators, or ground cars, or other tools that exist because of limitations in the real world that do not necessarily exist in a virtual one? Businesses that depend on time-to-market, or JIT delivery of goods and services would optimize this all away to have a much faster workflow. Yet in the game, these things are still present. At one point Wade hurries to his spaceship hanger in his asteroid fortress because he is running out of time to find one of the keys. And he has to wait for and ride an elevator from his command center to his hanger. Why not fly, or beam, or take a rocket-powered train? Maybe it is a necessary rule of the game, or maybe it was just the aesthetic that compelled him to install a virtual elevator, but Cline doesn't explain it and it bugged me more than it should. We accept this mechanic in our games NOW because they are just that: games. But in Cline's world the OASIS has become, for all intents and purposes, reality for most people, and it would have been optimized as such. My last gripe is about the romance. I thought it was somewhat well executed until the end. Wade pines over Samantha in the OASIS, falling hard for her online persona. Samantha insists that Wade could never love her in real life, but doesn't tell him why. Wade insists that nothing could be so horrible that he wouldn't love her. When he finally sees a photo of her in real-life, he discovers that she has a birth defect that mars part of her face, and when he finally meets her, he insists that she is beautiful anyway. Contrast this with Wade's reaction when he learned that his best friend Aech (whom he assumed was a white, straight male based on his online persona) ended up being an overweight black lesbian named Helen. Wade was shocked, the situation was appropriately awkward, he felt a bit deceived, but then realized that those differences just didn't matter. This is a much more plausible, human response to rocked expectations. Wade's reaction to Samatha is more the stuff of Twilight where the stereotypical self-conscious, confidence-ridden female is reaffirmed by the strong male protagonist who has unconditional love for her, regardless of her looks, faults, whatever. This is further cemented by the fact that Samantha's avatar is described as "all curves" (and her real body is, according to Wade, a good representation), while Wade himself had taken up a daily exercise routine and ended up with "a flat stomach and muscles". I think Cline could have made the romantic connection stronger by picking a less stereotypical path, acknowledging reality for what it is, and having the characters struggle to accept that whatever physical issues they had in the real world. All said, though, I give this book a 5-star rating because I enjoyed it, and that's what matters. It is a worthy read for anyone who loves geek and gamer history, or who enjoys cyberpunk or similar genres.

Ready Player One is a thrilling adventure with an intriguing plot, captivating characters, and a unique virtual world. Cline's writing style is exciting and fast-paced, drawing readers into the virtual world of the OASIS. The characters are well-developed and real, and the book has great depth and detail. The story is full of suspense and surprise, and readers will find themselves rooting for Wade and his friends as they battle the corporate villains. It follows the story of Wade Watts, a teenage orphan living in a crowded future-world where the only escape is the virtual universe of the OASIS. When the creator of the OASIS dies, he leaves a challenge to find an Easter egg hidden within the virtual world. When Wade finds the egg, he must battle a powerful corporation to prevent them from taking over the OASIS and destroying it. Overall, Ready Player One is a great read for fans of science fiction and virtual reality. It is a captivating adventure that will keep readers hooked from beginning to end. Highly recommended! Thank you

Excelente libro, muy recomendable y de fácil lectura, además puedes practicar tu inglés y no tiene palabras tan complejas de entender.

I haven't read a book that I really liked for a while now, all of my recent reviews have been 1-3 stars, and I started to feel down about not being able to find a book I truly enjoyed. Therefore I could literally kneel down and kiss the feet of Ernest Cline, because I adored Ready, Player One , I loved every single page of it, and I powered through it over a matter of hours, I can't think of a single thing I didn't love about this book, it's both a thrill to write about and a massive sigh of relief. Ready, Player One takes place in the none too distant future the earth is over populated, resources are depleting, there's a Global Energy Crisis. In the midst of this James Halliday; eccentric billionaire computer inventor of the universally used OASIS virtual reality computer universe, dies leaving his fortune to the person who can solve the Easter Egg puzzle he has encoded within the vast system. Years pass, and the unsolved Easter Egg becomes an urban legend, but many computer geeks still hunt it. They are up against "The Sixers" employees of the dreaded IOI corporation hunting professionally for the egg in order to take control of Hallidays fortune and the OASIS system, and turn into a corporate entity. The genius of Ready, Player One is that while set in a future world within a kind of MMORPG that does not yet exist, the billionaire Halliday was a child of the 80s and the key to the Easter Egg is knowing enough about 80s gaming, films and pop culture to be able to crack his codes. So rather than a bunch of meaningless references to things that don't exist in the minds of the reader, Ready Player One is grounded within actual history, it's one long nostalgia trip, particularly for people of my generation. Our heroes Parzival, Aech and Art3mis live in the 2040's but need to know as much as they can about subjects like the Atari and all its games, the Commodore 64, the films of John Hughes, the music of the period, the developing reflection of computing within popular culture, and they do, because they study it as if it were a religion. The research in this novel is mindblowingly meticulous, rich and detailed on every level from the years certain games were released to the names of their programmers, no detail is too minor. It makes for an authentic, dazzling experience. It is the nerds dream novel, and there will be many a nerdgasm had over it and much envy from those who share these obsessions who will wish they had written it. It is a Herculean effort in terms of factual clarity. As a minor scale nerd, I too gave little jumps of joy when certain obscure references were made and I understood them. For example when "Setec Astronomy" is used as a password and not explained I knew that it came from the 1992 Robert Redford film Sneakers about a group of off the grid hackers and was an anagram found via Scrabble tiles for "Too Many Secrets" I loved that film, I saw it more than once. In addition to this rich detail, our characters are great, and uniformly easy to care about, and our baddies, faceless grunts working behind a smarm bucket called Sorrento easy to hate, which means that you root for outcomes and you get excited by developments as well as getting off on all the retro goodness. I cannot speak highly enough of this novel, I thought it was awesome. If you too were a child of the 80s and you played arcade games and you had an Atari or an Acorn or a Spectrum and you watched these films and you listened to these bands, or watched these shows I think you will love it too. Naturally there's a slightly skewed bias to American culture, but it really doesn't have a negative effect on the book as a whole. Yes, the outcome is always obvious, it's a hero's journey tale after all, but don't let the inevitable destination spoil the thrill of the journey!

My Thoughts: 1. Just like a real videogame, the plot had me addicted from the start. For me, being a medium gamer, I LOVED all the old classic 80's references. It's geeky, sci-fi and fun, all in one! 2. The author does an amazing job building such an intricate and yet simple, futuristic technological world. It felt like I was actually playing the game and experiencing virtual reality through the character. 3. Flawless. Is what I would describe the plot, the writing, and pacing. Cline's writing style seem so effortless and yet detailed enough for the reader to fully experience the story. 4. What I enjoyed most about the plot is that it has a realistic quality and believable element. Most dystopian or sci-fi novels I've read have far-fetched and over-the-top ideas that end up ruining the book. It's scary to think about how much time in our daily lives is spent on the internet and I wouldn't be surprised if in a few decades reality will be overruled by virtual technology. Cline does an amazing job with the plot by adding a few fun twists and turns which makes the journey much more adventurous and exciting. 5. I praise Cline for his ability to make so many connections from the 80's and incorporating them into oridinary clues and riddles. It amazing how every small detail plays such a crucial role in the hunt. I was so engrossed with the hunt that it felt like I was playing it myself. It was smart of Cline to get the reader involved and thinking along with the protagonist in solving the game. 6. I really admire Wade's character. He's just an ordinary, average-looking, slightly overweight teen who, like many of us, undergoes a virtual identity to escape reality (not to mention he has an adorable crush with a famous online blogger). Wade's character is much like James Halliday, the deceased multibillionaire, who never felt at home in the real world and is socially awkward. When Wade embarkes upon this new adventure, he soon realizes that not everyone is excited about his newfound discovery. I love how smart, determined, and calculating Wade is; he picks his battles rather than impulsively jumping into situations. Wade's journey was non-stop action and suspense and a total page-turner that kept me on my toes the entire time. 7. I had to pace myself and tell myself to slow down in order to enjoy the book or else I would have read it all in one sitting. Just like every amazing stand-alone book, I was so sad that it ended. I'm hoping Cline thinks about doing a sequel because there's so much more I want to know! 8. In all, if there's one thing I must say about Ready Player One is READ IT NOW!!

Ce livre est une tuerie. Je l'ai commandé en entendant parler d'une future adaptation de Spielberg en film, et je pense qu'on va se retrouver avec encore un chef d'oeuvre en puissance. Cette histoire de quète du graal pixelisée est palpitante. Et pour tous les enfants des années 80 comme moi, une vague de nostalgie assez rafraichissante. Le style est plutôt classique, mais les personnages sont attachants, les rebondissements nombreux et l'intrigue très bien ficelée. Au passage ces pages sont un vraie bouillon de pop culture qui ratissent large. Vivement le film !!!