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Ready Player One

Kelise

Maester
Who's read it? So incredibly geeky - not entirely fantasy (more science fiction), but an incredible number of references to everything we know and love.

Ready Player One by Ernest Cline - Reviews, Discussion, Bookclubs, Lists

It's the year 2044, and the real world is an ugly place.

Like most of humanity, Wade Watts escapes his grim surroundings by spending his waking hours jacked into the OASIS, a sprawling virtual utopia that lets you be anything you want to be, a place where you can live and play and fall in love on any of ten thousand planets.

And like most of humanity, Wade dreams of being the one to discover the ultimate lottery ticket that lies concealed within this virtual world. For somewhere inside this giant networked playground, OASIS creator James Halliday has hidden a series of fiendish puzzles that will yield massive fortune--and remarkable power--to whoever can unlock them.

For years, millions have struggled fruitlessly to attain this prize, knowing only that Halliday's riddles are based in the pop culture he loved--that of the late twentieth century. And for years, millions have found in this quest another means of escape, retreating into happy, obsessive study of Halliday's icons. Like many of his contemporaries, Wade is as comfortable debating the finer points of John Hughes's oeuvre, playing Pac-Man, or reciting Devo lyrics as he is scrounging power to run his OASIS rig.

And then Wade stumbles upon the first puzzle.

Suddenly the whole world is watching, and thousands of competitors join the hunt--among them certain powerful players who are willing to commit very real murder to beat Wade to this prize. Now the only way for Wade to survive and preserve everything he knows is to win. But to do so, he may have to leave behind his oh-so-perfect virtual existence and face up to life--and love--in the real world he's always been so desperate to escape.

A world at stake.
A quest for the ultimate prize.
Are you ready?

Especially excellent for those who grew up playing video games in the 80s. Impossible to count the number of pop culture references within.
 

Steerpike

Felis amatus
Moderator
I almost bought this last weekend. I am sure I will do so on the next few weeks. Looks interesting to me.
 

Penpilot

Staff
Article Team
Oh... I wouldn't buy it. Borrow maybe, but don't buy. I read the thing and yes it has an incredible amount of references to the '80. The video games, the shows etc. But the book fails to make any of those things come alive. I've played almost every video game mentioned in the book and have seen almost every tv show. Not once did the author convey to me any feeling of authenticity, the feeling of what it was like to play those games and watch those shows, and what made them so awesome. It felt like all the author did was look up a bunch of '80s facts from wikipedia and vomited those onto the page.

To me the writing isn't very good either. The book did a lot of telling and not a lot of showing. The world lacks real depth. The villain is worst kind of moustache twirler, the boring kind. The youthful characters are flat and several times I did the dreaded eye roll because their shallow characterizations ring like an adult's skewed image of how they think kids act and think like. It all just rings false.

IMHO read it to learn how not to write.

My apologies if this is a bit rant-ish. Maybe I'm just and old man shaking his cane, but in this instance, I doubt it.
 

Steerpike

Felis amatus
Moderator
I hear you, Penpilot. People's comments can affect my decision to read it at all, but if I'm going to read it and gain the benefit of the author's labor (however scant the benefit may be), then I'll pay for it.
 
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