Ready Player One

Listened to Wil Wheaton read this to me in the course of commuting this last week. Though I am a few years too young to understand all of the references, those I did understand were hilarious. Great plot, and it kept me interested through all 15+ hours.

Kept me interested in the story, but not the quality of writing I hoped. Bit to much telling me the point of the story and/or scenes vs letting the story tell itself.

The world is a grim place and the gap between the haves and have-nots is bigger than ever. The one thing they all have in common however it OASIS, a virtual reality universe far more attractive than the real world. Basic access is free and you can even go to school there. When the creator of OASIS dies he leaves his fortune of billions hidden within OASIS as a kind of ???easter egg??? and up springs a new culture, the ???gunters??? who spend their time looking for the easter egg and following clues through worlds of 1980s pop culture. But some gunters will stop at nothing to get to the prize first...

I found the start of the book slow-going at first, some paragraphs read like an encyclopaedia of the 1980s but as the story progresses it picks up and I started to enjoy it more. Having played video games myself and now watching my kids play them, I was able to understand the attraction of the virtual life and empathise with the main characters. It???s a simple good v evil story, with a race to see who???ll find the treasure first although there is never any doubt just who will that will be, it???s simply a matter of how he will get there.

I found Ready Player One to be a fun, entertaining read without a huge amount of depth but full of nostalgia for people like me who grew up in the 70s and 80s. It should appeal to all ??bergeeks out there, who love video games, dystopian stories and the 1980s.

Ready Player One is a celever romp through 80's geek culture, set in a moderately interesting world. While I was moved to finish it, I'm not sure how it will stand the test of time. In tone, it reminded me of Redshirts by Scalzi, which I think did a better job of integrating the nostalgic material into the story.

‘Ready Player One' just leaped to the top of my favorites list. Anyone who knows me (and reads the blurb) should understand why. ^_^

A well written book that catches you, a story that does not stop to amaze.
Wil Wheaton does a great job as a narrator on this.

Great book! Long time since I read a book where I couldn't put down and had to finish as soon as I started.

I couldn't stop reading...

Good start; predictable finish. But, the path the author took to get there was full of wit, and also reminded me of how much I have enjoyed so many other cultural items (movies, books, video games).

It started out incredibly slow and I lost interest within the first few chapters... took me months to read the first part and 2 days to read the rest. It was well worth it in the end.

I will end up keeping this book and force others to read it. Anyone who grew up in the 80's playing video games and watching TV will find many forgotten treasured moments (Monty Python!) These are perfectly set in a game and world very similar to what we have today with Facebook, internet, and rapidly improving immersive gaming. I do not know anyone who hasn't enjoyed this book (though the concept is a bit self-selective.

A decent first novel. The idea is fun and engaging. I think it will be a particularly enjoyable read if you have an understanding of 80s pop-culture and an appreciation of gaming. The references come fast and furious, perhaps a bit too fast. At times it seems the references are just being thrown out there to show how many can be crammed in there. I think I would have enjoyed the book more had there been some restraint in that regard.

Also, given the author had an entire virtual universe to create, the story felt rather predictable. Enjoyable, but not really much in terms of surprise along the way.

This is still a fun read. I probably wouldn't give it five stars today, but I'll leave it. On to the sequel.

I also listened to the 372 Pages podcast covering the book. Overall I disagree with them [obviously], but they had some good points. Mainly - the time in which Wade has had available to learn everything vs the amount of time it would take just... doesn't work. If you didn't like the book, or even if you did, you might enjoy the podcast.

Loved this book. Lots of 80's pop culture references.

I am, as I've so often and openly declared, a geek. I love fantasy, I love science fiction, and I play way too many video games for my own good. How much of a geek am I? I did my undergrad thesis on Lord of the Rings fan fiction. I suppose that helps? All right, perhaps it might not be enough in some circles, but I like to think putting the entirety of one's academic knowhow into studying something as geeky as fan fiction carries a certain cachet in its own right.

I do not, however, claim to be superior in my geekdom, even when it comes to fan fiction. I'm friends with people who could out-geek me on a whole number of things: comics, novels, video games - many aspects of geekdom that are either on my horizon but haven't gotten to yet, or which don't particularly interest me. This isn't a bad thing; we each have our own preferences and specializations, and while our interests overlap, there is no such thing as competition. As John Scalzi so eloquently put it, being a geek means “taking delight in sharing a thing,” not scorning those who share it with us - that's what hipsters do.

That being said, I was drawn to Ernest Cline's Ready Player One for two reasons: it's celebration of geekdom, and Hope had already started reading it, and was thinking I ought to give it a shot. I was due to read a science-fiction themed read anyway, after coming off Lev Grossman's The Magician King, though I did not pick up Ready Player One right away. I was still significantly dazed after coming off Grossman's book - an indication of just how amazing that novel is, honestly - and though I started Ready Player One, I didn't really making genuine progress in it until a few days ago, when the daze from The Magician King finally wore off, and I got over the hurdle that was the first chapters of Ready Payer One.

The premise of Ready Player One is grounded in the possibilities of contemporary technology, and inspired by the geek culture of the eighties, but carries both far beyond that. It is set in a post-apocalyptic world, where an energy crisis has caused everything to fall apart. The only escape people have from the depressing nature of their reality is the OASIS, an MMO life simulation game similar to Second Life, but far, far more enormous than that. People can sign into the OASIS and pretty much live their lives in it - all the way from going to school to conducting business. They are not, however, plugged-in ala Matrix, since the OASIS can only be interacted with via special suits, visors and gloves. It is the most popular form of entertainment in a crumbling world, the only stable point in an unstable existence. What makes the OASIS special, though, is that everything that can be imagined can be put in it. There are no limits: as long as one has enough credits, one can recreate anything one wants. This means that every single game, every single novel, every single world, reality, et cetera can and likely does exist in the OASIS, available to anyone with the means to see it and interact with it. It is, in essence, a fanperson's dream come true.

But the OASIS is not just a life simulation game. For the past several years, a generation of players called gunters have scoured the entirety of the OASIS looking for Halliday's Egg, a very, very special item hidden in the OASIS by its creator, James Halliday. At the moment of his death a video went out into the world, in which Halliday declared that whoever solved the clues he'd left behind and found the Egg, would gain ownership of his company, and inherit his massive fortune. The key to finding it is in understanding Halliday's greatest love: the pop culture of the 1980s - or, more specifically, the geek culture of the 1980s. Comprehend that, and finding the Egg shouldn't be a problem. Except, of course, it is, and an entire generation has emerged that is familiar with Halliday's Egg, but knows of no one who has so much as found the Copper Key: the first artifact in the quest to finding the Egg.

Until, of course, a name - Parzival - appears on the Scoreboard, indicating that the Copper Key has been found. And Ready Player One is Parzival's (real name Wade) story, as well as the story of his fellow gunters, and their battle against the evil IOI Corporation, which seeks to gain the Egg in order to gain control of Halliday's company and fortune so that they may profit and control it.

If this sounds a lot like a summary from a fantasy novel or movie from the 1980s, this should come as no surprise - the entire novel is built upon just such a structure. The references to 1980s geekdom are not only on the surface: they are pretty much built into the story itself.

Take Parzival, for instance. He is a typical geek: awkward in social situations, not entirely healthy physically, and has a powerful obsession with something - in this case, the hunt for the Egg. He has done everything he possibly can to ensure that he has the best possible chance of finding the Egg, except he's not entirely sure what he's doing wrong, or what everyone else is doing wrong. And then, as if out of the blue, he finally figures out what it is he needs to do, and then sets in motion a chain of events that leads to his life changing forever. If he sounds a bit familiar, then this should come as no surprise: he's pretty much similar to almost every male protagonist to appear in a 1980s teen movie.

Like the male protagonist of such teen movies, Parzival has his best friend: Aech, a fellow gunter who has had a bit more success in OASIS than Parzival, despite being a student himself. And then there's Art3mis (yes, that's how her name is spelled), a gunter whose blog Parzival has followed for years, and on whom he as a bit (okay, a lot) of a crush on. All three of them, along with a pair of Japanese players named Daito and Shoto, come together (sort of) when the hunt for the Egg kicks into high gear, spurred on by the fact that IOI is now pushing very hard, to get the Egg for themselves.

It might be argued that Aech and Art3mis fit into the mold of The Best Friend and The Crush in 1980s teen movies because Parzival does tend to fit rather neatly into the male protagonist role for such a film, but they don't, either. Art3mis, especially, is far more reminiscent of the best sort of twenty-first century female character, despite my initial off-the-cuff assessment of her as a Manic Pixie Dream Girl (I'm not ashamed to admit was completely wrong). Her focus on the hunt for the Egg is admirable, especially when Parzival himself begins to flake out because he's focusing far too much on his relationship with her. It's great to see a female character who is capable of the intense focus on a goal that most other writers would attribute to a male character.

If Parzival's social interactions resemble the plot of a teen movie, his hunt for the Egg resembles that of a Dungeons and Dragons quest. He has to gather these specific items and work out these clues in order to get to the Gates, and to acquiring these items and overcoming the challenges beyond the Gates involve having a very specific skill set, and having a particularly high level in those skills. Again, this is hardly surprising: any novel that's a love letter to 1980s geek culture should have at least some grounding in D&D, and Ready Player One goes one step further by having the entire novel follow the typical structure of a quest as it would be played in D&D, with some elements of Japanese RPGs (the giant final boss with matching epic boss battle towards the end of the game).

The greatest appeal of this novel is, I think, its nostalgia factor. It has been described in other reviews as “a love letter to the 80s,” and I will not disagree. The hunt for Halliday's Egg is, after all, a giant monument to one man's nostalgia for all the things he loved, and which he turned into a quest which required all of its participants to love the same things he loved - fitting perfectly with Scalzi's description of what a geek is.

All of these details are, of course, interesting, but don't spark anything in me. I was born in the 80s, so technically speaking the geek culture of that period isn't quite where I belong: I'm more a 90s girl, who read Lord of the Rings when she was twelve and got her first video game console (a Playstation 1) at thirteen. All this talk of penny arcades and Pac-Man and 80s movies don't quite resonate strongly with me. I have seen some of the iconic films of the 80s, of course: Back to the Future is a big one, and I do have a strong memory of some of the giant-mecha Japanese anime like Voltron and Voltes V, (which was not mentioned at any point in the novel, interestingly enough). I also have a strong attachment to Picard-era Star Trek, because I recall catching several episodes of that as a child. But beyond that? A lot of the references don't have the same power of nostalgia as, say, The Magic School Bus or Hey Arnold. I see them, but they don't spark any particularly powerful emotional reaction in me. This isn't a bad thing, though: I'm just very much aware that a lot of this just wasn't “in my time,” so to speak, so I don't feel any great attachment to any of it.

Another thing that bothers me about this novel is the way it ended. Again, let me reiterate that I'm not against a happy ending, but I do rather think that the ending was rather too tidy. I suppose it has to be that way, since Cline appears to be following the standard plot of both the average D&D campaign and the 1980s teen movie, but its very obvious, right from the beginning, that there's something wrong with the world, and much needs to be done in order to solve it. There was a small hint in the ending that Parzival and Art3mis do plan to change the world for the better, but it's only a small hint, and gets lost in the romantic connection that's re-established between the two of them. This isn't entirely a bad thing, but I do find myself wishing that there were more concrete plans to improve the world, one that didn't necessarily involve the OASIS. Hope has suggested, and I agree, that this ending may emphasize the protagonists' disconnect from the real world, since they were practically raised by the OASIS, and if seen in that light it casts a sad pall over the happy ending.

One other issue I have is with the antagonists, who struck me as being rather cliche. The Sixers, their leader Sorrento, and IOI itself seem to slot rather neatly into another 1980s trope: that of the evil corporation. Again this make sense, given the nature of the novel, but I did find myself rather wishing they were a bit more fleshed out than simply being labeled an evil corporation. As I type this I'm conversing with Hope, and she says that perhaps the reason why the Sixers and IOI seem cliched is because the reader is seeing them through Parzival's eyes, and it must be said, Parzival is hardly an unbiased narrator. He and his fellow gunters tend to follow video game logic, and in video games the final boss is merely something that needs to be overcome to win the game, never mind said boss's motivations. This thinking will definitely color any attempt to characterize the Sixers, but at the same time both Hope and I cannot help but wonder if it was a deliberate choice on Cline's part to characterize them as such because of that reason, or if it is well and truly cliche and therefore a flaw in Cline's writing.

Overall, Ready Player One is exactly what other reviews have purported it to be: a love letter to the 1980s, and to geek culture as a whole. In this aspect, it succeeds entirely - particularly if the reader identifies with the era in question, which means they will greatly appreciate the nostalgic feel of the novel. Other readers (such as myself) may find it that it goes a bit over their heads, especially if said readers arrived onto the geek scene a little later. There are some references that they may remember from childhood, or from encountering the source of those references later on in life, but it will not have the same resonance as they would for someone who was into geek culture in the 80s. However, the too-tidy ending and cliched characterizations of the antagonists may be prove to be a deal-breaker for some readers, though there are also some possibly valid reasons for those issues. Regardless, it is a fun story to read, with details that will, without a doubt, tickle readers who love video games about as much as they love to read books.

Loved it, if you were raised in the 80's and were into videogames and pop culture then the likelihood is that you will love it too.

Deliciosamente geek, este libro tiene todo lo que un verdadero nerd podría querer: infinitas referencias a películas, libros, personajes, series, momentos y, por sobre todo, videojuegos. La trama se descompone un poco sobre el final, pero no deja de estar muy bien. Se nota mucho la influencia de Ender's Game, pero más bien como un tributo que otra cosa. Vale la pena.

Good fun.

Started slow, but got a bit better. Unfortunately, any potential conflict in the book was wrapped up quickly and neatly. I feel like I read “I got away, but just barely,” more than once. Lots of telling, not so much showing. At the end, I totally expected a big showdown between The Good Guy and The Bad Guy ... but it never happened. There's a distinct lack of action that I'm sure will be made up for in the screenplay.

I give it 3 1/2 stars, but that extra half is just because the author is from Austin.

The writing was actually a little rough, and things for the protagonist got WAY too easy from halfway through. But, it's still a fun read.

Executive Summary: This is an excellent book for anyone into gaming and/or 80s pop culture. There are so many little references all over the place. I absolutely loved it.

Audio book: Wil Wheaton is an excellent choice for this book. He just fits the story so well. I like him as a narrator in general, but think this is by far the best thing he's read.

Full Review
I've wanted to re-read this book almost as soon as I finished it. It's just one of those books that just clicked for me.

It's not the best written, and the characters can be a bit eye rolling at times. It also starts a bit slow and feels a bit preachy.

So how is it 5 stars? Because I just never want to stop listening, and soon as I finished it, I wanted to reread it again. I definitely think this is one of those books I'll reread every few years.

This book is a love letter to people who grew up in the 80s. I think anyone born between 1970 and 1985 will find a lot to love in this book. Movies, music, and most importantly games. If you were born outside that range, it may just feel like nothing but nostalgia and little

I was born in 82, so there are definitely a lot of things I didn't experience, or get as well as someone a bit older probably does. But that doesn't matter to me. I've been re-watching 80's movies for the last two weeks, and to a lesser degree listening to a bunch of 80's music.

The relationships in this book may seem strange to anyone whose never made lifelong friendships or fallen in love with someone they met online. I spent the better part of the last decade playing World of Warcraft, and the parallels to life in the oasis are apparent. The oasis really is the next evolution of MMO's and I both hope for and fear the day someone builds something like it.

I know I could never compete in the contest. Despite being a lifelong gamer, I'm just not that good. For me the joy is in playing the game, especially with friends, and not so much the winning. Winning is a bonus.

I could certainly see myself getting caught up and obsessed with it though. Especially at Wade's age.

This book just makes me feel happy, and nostalgic and want to rush out and watch the movies, listen to the music and play the games I love all day long. Very highly recommended.

Speculative Fiction comes in many flavors. I prefer the kind where the author develops an idea, thinking it through, taking it (and you) to new and surprising places: [b:A Deepness in the Sky 226004 A Deepness in the Sky (Zones of Thought, #2) Vernor Vinge http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1316729499s/226004.jpg 1270006], [b:The Sparrow 334176 The Sparrow (The Sparrow, #1) Mary Doria Russell http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1333578682s/334176.jpg 3349153], anything by [a:Iain M. Banks 5807106 Iain M. Banks http://www.goodreads.com/assets/nophoto/nophoto-U-50x66.jpg]. Then there's the bubblegum kind where you just take a story that could be today, add a hefty dose of magic wish fulfillment, and call it SF. Ready Player One is not the first kind.I feel a little weirded out. The pervasive 1980s nostalgia is bizarre, and the book at times feels like a collection of 80's trivia in search of a story. At page 54* I paused but deliberately chose to keep reading, mostly because of this rave review on boingboing but also because, hey, Underdog Makes Good Against Big Mean Bullies And Gets The Girl. It had its fun moments, but on the whole: don't bother. This isn't SF, it's pure Fantasy thinly disguised with technospeak. The economics of that world (real or virtual) make no sense, there's so much Deus ex Machina that my eyes are tired from all the rolling they've done. And did I mention how jarring all the 80's trivia was? Who is Cline's target audience? YAs won't know or understand or care about the Eighties; those of us who lived through them are old enough to appreciate a more solid story. (And OBTW we don't care to relive Eighties videogames or music either).Oh well. I won't get those hours back, but I've reinforced my Be More Skeptical Of Rave Reviews brain module. And that's good.*page 54: common rule of thumb. Give a book (100 minus your age) pages before giving up on it.UPDATE, same day, a few hours later: after reading a number of glowing reviews here on Goodreads, and feeling baffled for a while, I believe I understand my disconnect. I think we may be seeing the beginnings of Those Were The Days in my generation. There are people who like to live in the past and who light up at the mention of those memories. (I don't understand that quirk, but I accept that it is eerily common. And I hope it's not contagious). If that hypothesis is true I predict we will be seeing a lot of this type of book in the future: our generation is an easy target, because the Eighties is really when mass media came of age... and made us all so homogeneous. There may be a big market for this sort of shared-experience-nostalgia thing, even if there are millions who “shared” the same thing.

Listened to the audiobook on a long drive. Wil Wheaton is fantastic narrating this futuristic tribute to the 1980s.

Well, it took me almost one full year to finish this book – that should tell you something. It has a few clever moments and the premise is an interesting one. However, the author went waaaay overboard with the pop culture references. It seemed like you couldn't go one page without a nod to some 80s show/movie/game/etc. OK, I GET IT – the 80s WERE TOTALLY AWESOME DUDE, etc etc. I wish more time had been taken to flesh out the characters, instead of trying to find another way to fit in a LADYHAWKE reference (or whatever).

If you are a child of the 80s (like me), you'll probably get a slight smile out of the book one or two times. However, don't go into this looking for anything deeper than “Oh wow, I remember REAL GENIUS!!”

Short Review: This is a very good, fun, young adult science fiction book that should be read by people that don't like science fiction or young adult. It is 2044 and the world is falling apart, but mostly people do not care because they live their lives primarily in the Oasis (an immersive online world). Kids go to school there, adults work there, everyone escapes there. But the creator of the Oasis died and created a game, and the winner inherits all of his money and the company. What will make it enjoyable to many is that the entire book (and the game) revolves around the 1980s culture that the game creator loved.

My longer review is on my blog at http://bookwi.se/ready-player-one-by-ernest-cline/