Ready Player One

This book has been recommended to me by probably four separate individuals who didn't understand that it was on my list and I MUST FOLLOW THE LIST. That said, I'm glad to have finally reached it in the list because it was everything I enjoy about light-hearted sci-fi.

Since I've never been huge on video games, I thought I might miss out on some of the humor, but there was plenty of referential humor for every 80s child. It's basically 400 pages of nerdy peacock displays. I am ... basically all about that. The actual story, though, is not in any way devalued by the references. Cline's characters are a diverse bunch who are very real in an unreal world. The pacing is lightning quick and I stayed up way too late last night trying to knock out the last hundred pages because there was just no where to stop. Also there was a frickin' Gundam.

The world-wide Easter Egg Hunt is a pretty simple premise that goes off on a thousand tangents, each one more enjoyable than the last. Admittedly there is an Evil Corporation and a 80s high school Love Story with the standard arcs and valleys, but part of that is the homage to the genre, in my opinion. My favorite part was the bits with Wade working within Evil Corporation. Cline reinvents indentured servitude in a very page-turning away.

The only thing that kinda bugged me was the portrayal of the two Japanese characters. I have never known any Japanese person to say “he has no honor.” Klingons say that. Not Japanese. Not even Japanese who enjoy samurai films. They had this stilted, austere presence which in no way resembled anyone I met in Japan. It's very hard to write someone who is not fluent in the language of the author, and I think those characters stuck out against the rest of the cast.

Overall, though, if you have an ounce of 80s nostalgia in your body, you will enjoy this book and should definitely give it a read.