# Ready Player One



## Kelise (Jun 25, 2012)

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.
> 
> ...



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


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## Steerpike (Jun 25, 2012)

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


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## Penpilot (Jun 25, 2012)

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.


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## Steerpike (Jun 25, 2012)

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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