Ready Player One

I cannot begin to tell y'all how much I enjoyed this novel! I mostly listened to Will Wheaton narrate because I was having trouble getting into it. Once I started listening to Will though I couldn't stop! It was fast-paced, clever, and thoroughly enjoyable. I loved everything about this book. The 80s throw back, the characters, the highly emersive environments, the challenges...it was full of action and adventure and took to me place I could see myself living in (not that Id want to)... Overall cannot recommend enough.

I LOVED this. I won't spend too much time on this review, because you can tell from the overall rating that it's a great read, but you should know that I LOVED this book. It's intelligent, it's funny, it's a love letter to all things 80's nostalgia and it has the kind of plot line that makes me smile because it all wraps up beautifully. Were there perhaps some convenient things that happened now and then? Sure. Did I have any nagging questions left at the end though? No, I did not. That makes me more happy than I can express. I had a blast navigating this world with Wade, but I loved that all the main characters got enough love to be really fleshed out and enjoyable. I also so appreciated the attention to detail in the world building, both inside and outside the simulation. I felt like I was there, and that made all the difference. This book was excellent. Period, end of discussion. I'm glad I finally buckled down and read it!

Absolutely loved this book. I highly recommend it to people who love video games and are in their late 30's to 40's - all of the 80's references will bring a smile to your face :)

“I could master most action titles in a few hours, and there wasn't an adventure or role-playing game I couldn't solve.”
LIES! No one has ever or will ever defeat Battletoads!!!


__
I wasn't very interested in Ready Player One when it was first published and in the years that followed. I'd known several readers who gave it very high praise, but I wasn't convinced. The reasons they supplied rested primarily on nostalgia. It sounded like the kind of story I'd love to snub, but, I admit, I was curious. I figured I might pick it up if I made it through the books I really wanted to read. (But that day would never come.)

One might imagine that the turning point came as a result of the forthcoming film adaptation of Ready Player One. The movie trailer has been quite popular in recent months. Many are picking up the novel for the first time. For me, it wasn't the movie trailer. My reason: my library is currently doing a community read of the novel and as I passed by a table filled with a hundred copies, I went with a whim. (Rather spontaneous of me.) I picked it up and started reading.

And I hated it.

Seriously, I. HATED. IT.

I don't abandon books often, but I was freakishly close to abandoning Ready Player One. I was seventy or eighty pages in. Not only was I bored, but I was angered. This was terrible writing. The plot was contrived. A flurry of action was followed by ten pages of info-dropping. Our protagonist goes on an endless rant about religion that has nothing to do with the plot. Why? Because clearly the author wants us to know how he feels about religion. Irrelevant. The world building was chaotic—oh yeah, it's the future, so much has changed, but only things that relate directly to the plot—everything else has remained the same. Apparently, we as a society have reached the height of interactive virtual reality, but still deal in basic ATMs, message boards, YouTube, laptops, and parcels and pizzas delivered by humans. Lazy. Uninspired. The story was unbelievable. No one could do the things these characters were doing. We're supposed to believe that people in their early twenties could tear through every bit of significant pop entertainment of the 70s, 80s, and 90s, and somehow have time to scour over much of it hundreds of more times. No world that is in such desperate need for energy is going to waste such vast amounts of energy playing 8-bit video games. Somehow, this is supposed to save the world? Ready Player One sells itself as some brilliant vision of the future, but in reality it is a preposterous, self-absorbed fantasy by a nostalgic author with a major fetish for the 80s. Ugggghhhh.

I was so close to abandoning this novel. Why didn't I? One reason: I didn't have anything readily available to read in its place. I told myself I'd pick up another book next chance I got, but in the meantime I'd read another chapter to two, just to have something to read.

And then the bastard of a book pulled me in.

How sucked in was I? I'm almost embarrassed to say that I tore through this book. Like the next 300 pages in 24 hours. Does this mean the story became more plausible? That some deep meaning was unearthed in the OASIS? The juvenile writing improved? No. It means that I, a literary snob, was pulled into the... the... action of the story. Dare I say, the action was riveting. The story was... fun.

But it was fun the same way eating an entire package of pre-packaged cookies is. You know you can do better as far as taste. You know you should do better in regards to nutrition. But you can't stop. Your fat cells are screaming for more and it's all you have in the way of sweets. Okay, maybe that's a bad analogy. A more apt analogy might be... it's like a video game. Or binge watching your favorite series. You know there are a million ways you can better spend your time. You know that when you reach the end of your life, you're probably not going to say, “Dang, I wish I'd played more Dig Dug.” But you're enjoying yourself; what's the harm in that, right? Maybe.

That's what it is to read Ready Player One. It's low on substance, but it's a good action story. I wanted more from it and, had I known how it would turn out, I probably wouldn't have read it in the first place. But I don't regret reading it. It was enjoyable in its own way (but now I need to go on a reading diet).

Before I close, I'd like to take a moment to address one final thing about Ready Player One. While Cline may have had the best intentions in heart, his inclusion of a “heavyset African American” lesbian left me very uncomfortable. Why? It felt horribly, horribly forced. To me, this seems an example of someone trying to be inclusive who just doesn't get it. Whether the author was trying to be all-embracing out of the goodness of his own heart, or merely satisfying political correctness hoping it would find him readers, I cannot say for sure, but the portrayal is insensitive at best. The attempted message seems to be “look at the character, not the skin,” but how it's delivered is more of a message of “isn't technology great? Finally, everyone can be a thin straight white male!” Ugh. Like I said earlier in my review, the future is completely different, but it sure does look an awfully lot like 2011 to me: people live in stacked trailers, the world has run out of fuel, virtual reality reigns in the OASIS, there are only six Star Wars movies, one Blade Runner movie, and too many people just don't get it.

Ready Player One is a novel that I would normally award no more than two stars to. It failed in regards to the characters, the setting, the plot, and the prose—all lacked exceptionality. But I had so much fun. And I guess that should count as something.

(This review can also be found on my blog.)

cw: transphobia

Obviously, Ready Player One is one of the most hyped books at the moment. While it was published in 2011, the movie releases in just a few short weeks. Since I'd never read it, I figured now was the perfect time to. I've seen many conflicting reviews from many people I trust, and wasn't sure what to expect when going into it.

At the beginning, I found the story fun and endearing. The world Cline had created was interesting, as was the way OASIS had taken over as the both dominant means of interaction between people and the most common form of escapism. I found Wade (aka Parzival) to be a bit of a cringey, although fairly realistic, character and enjoyed becoming immersed in his day-to-day life.

Anyone with a penchant for 80s nostalgia will love the pop culture references in this book, as they hit hard and heavy. Even though a lot of the stuff referenced was over my head, I still enjoyed following Wade as he solved the puzzles — and I thought the DnD-related bits were great. There were also a lot of humorous moments peppered throughout the book, which were nice.

There were also some not-so-great aspects. For one, I felt very uncomfortable with a lot of the ways Wade spoke about and to his love interest. He joked about cyberstalking her, and actually did cyberstalk her, which I don't consider to be a funny topic. During one conversation where they talk about how he only knows her through OASIS and has no idea what her real-life identity is, he makes a comment about how as long as she's a “female human who hasn't had a sex-change operation,” he still wants to date her. Glad to know transphobia is alive and well in 2045 (/sarcasm).

Avoiding specific spoilers, there is one point during which Wade puts the integrity of the hunt over the actual lives of actual human beings, which kind of ruins his integrity as an empathetic human being in my eyes. The second half of the book as a whole kind of made me lose interest. Things continually drop into Wade's lap in increasingly unbelievable ways, until it hits a point where the stakes don't really feel like they matter anymore. No matter how dire things become, as a reader you just kind of assume he'll figure it out and don't really care how, because the solution will just turn out to be absurd anyway. For me, it ruined any suspension of disbelief I had and was a large part of why this didn't receive a higher rating from me.

Clearly Ready Player One is a much-beloved book with a large fanbase. I definitely think it was worth reading, and I definitely expect a lot of the people going into it to like it. It just didn't hit expectations for me and really does read like a debut novel, particularly in the second half. I'm interested to see what Cline does in the future and will certainly pick up other books by him. If you think Ready Player One sounds like it's in your wheelhouse, I would recommend you give it a shot.

Solid 4.5
-0.5 thanks to that predictable?????? romace .
The rest made my geeky heart and soul scream with joy :)

It has been a LONG time since I've been so enthralled in a book. This was enjoyable, fast-paced, and suspenseful. I thoroughly enjoyed all the 80s references. I loved this.

Finally a book that drew me in completely, I haven't read one of those in a long time! Those books that make you forget that you are reading, “Ready Player One” was one of them.

I loved the world building and the character building in this book a lot. I really developed feelings for the protagonists and I hated the IOI Sixers. Sometimes I would groan or shout out loud as something I didn't want to happen happened. Ernest Cline truly did a great job making the book entertaining and suspenseful. When I finished the book, all I wanted to do was turn back to page 1 and start again.

Loved the book :) So much concentrated geekiness :) Can't wait for the movie, too. Thanks to Racheli for recommending it to me

Ultimately, I was entertained and engaged, but found the sexism reprehensible and short-sighted. I had to do 4 stars out of admiration for the concept and execution, which I couldn't deny, but I'll be damned if I give it 5 stars.

2 female characters, one is the love interest and the other is believed to be a male until almost the end, and then the main character still sees her that way and uses male pronouns anyhow. We are told that few girls/women are gamers in the future, just as we're falsely told few are gamers now, and so Wade falls for Artemis since she is a real girl and a real gamer, and her prowess is on display. If her prowess had not been on display, I am sure he would have tested her to prove she was real, harkening back to, oh, today, when all females around geek culture are assumed to be attention seekers rather than fans.

Wade asks her (paraphrasing) if she is a real girl, making clear trans girls don't/won't count. I mean, the future is painted as a hellscape, but this is presented as a reasonable, normal, funny?, thing to ask.

On a discussion board talking about Matt Lauer, I wrote:

Straight white guys have empathy for other straight white guys, which is how they can argue a guy shouldn???t lose everything for an assault/assaults that only lasted for a short time. They can relate to this other man more than the woman he???d assaulted because they???ve rarely to never been asked to imagine being anything else other than a cis white man. In their minds, they???re always the dude over the unconscious woman. Never, ever the woman, or the trans person, or the PoC just wanting to make it home.

As if this isn???t advantage enough, everyone who isn???t a cis white man has also spent a lifetime being asked to relate to the cis white guy through books, movies, etc. It becomes second nature for ???the other??? to do this in a culture that limits portrayals of someone who better represents you.

token gay representation/minor surprise.

Easy and fun read. I thought the world-building was beautiful and elaborate, a bit hard to follow at times though because of all of the descriptions. I didn't particularly like the dialogue used, but I guess that's just how I don't talk to people. Sometimes I felt that the repetition of an adjective or adverb ruined it for me, especially if it appeared a few lines after the first usage. But it was still enjoyable at some parts. Excited for the movie now.

Ready Player One is a fun and engaging read, I breezed through it with little effort and really enjoyed it. That said, there were times I felt that Cline could have used a bit of a more heavy handed editor. Perhaps this is because I don't share all of the author's passions to the same degree which, although not prerequisite to enjoyment, does probably heighten the enjoyment.

Amazing!

Do you wish someone - JUST SOMEONE - would make a 1980s-fetishizing nostalgia-fest of some mainstream hegemonic geekery? And did you somehow miss: the Blade Runner reboot, the Star Wars reboots, the Indiana Jones reboot, the Battlestar Galactica reboot, the goddamn Fuller House reboot, Stranger Things, and the fact that Hollywood no longer makes any original content?!

Do you YEARN for someone to retell that plight of the white boy geek, with all its hilarious and heartbreaking stereotypes such as: (1) being pale and socially awkward while pining after a girl you don't know anything about! (2) attributing a sacred romantic connection via your certified Nice Guy(tm) behavior! (3) attributing sacred importance to knowing obscure pop culture (American, middle class) trivia! (4) the HIERARCHY OF POP CULTURE - for example, the received wisdom that Empire Strikes Back is the best Star Wars, synthwave is good music, and other Received Wisdoms that YOU SHALL NOT DOUBT!

Do you also enjoy having this tale of the worship of a totally corporate hegemonic geekery wrapped up in a moral fable that is ostensibly about how EVIL corporate hegemonic geekery is!?! Ha HA!

Well... maybe you do. I certainly don't! And so I found this book boring as hell, with ugh values. Look. I grew up as a geeky girl in Pennsylvania, right next door to Ernest Cline's Ohio. I was a middle class American geek. I thought Blade Runner was the pinnacle of fine cinema, I played text-based RPGs on my crappy ass AOL 56kbps connection, and I re-watched Star Wars many times. In other words, I was a super basic, standard issue geek, with nary an original thought. Now, together with the rest of my geek generation, we're using our consumer spending power to protract this adolescence and further idolize Boba Fett and inculcate this stuff as a cultural religion. It's SO BORING. Simon Pegg had some good thoughts about this a few years ago.

Anyway, I grew up becoming more and more aware of how Mainstream White Dude Geekery often gate-kept me out of their shit. I didn't realize this at first, but now that I'm an older lady, I notice it fast and have zero patience left.

WHICH BRINGS ME TO THIS BOOK!

This book is the PINNAAAAACLLLE of gatekeeping white boy geekery. It perpetuates a super narrow view of what it means to be a “real geek”, and its ideas of geekery are completely frozen in time in the 1990s. The banter of Parzival, the hero, and his buddy, Aech, as they hang out in the virtual reality World of Warcraft-esque “OASIS” reminded me of middle school; not in a good way. “Chick flick” and “fag” are early insults, and the whole book can be summarized as a laundry list catalog of 1980s cultural references (as well as lots of our narrator TELLING us about how deep the laundry list goes - dude, oh God, I don't care).

The plot is a “capture the flag” tournament, embedded in the OASIS virtual reality world. The real world is a standard issue shitty dystopia, with paper thin worldbuilding. There's some awed references to “coding” and “l33t h4x0rs” that felt really tired. And, oh yeah, the only ladies in the story are a love interest (who the hero falls in love with instantly) and a shock reveal that felt, oh man, pretty social justice shoe-horned in.

Throughout the book, I was like, but how self-aware is all this? Is this a kinda meta commentary on white guy hegemonic geekery? The social justice shoe-horn towards the end of the book shows Cline means well. There's scenes where Parzival, in the real dystopian world, seems to be aware that he's missing out on reality outside. These scenes feel like they might be from The Machine Stops, an early 1900s proto-sci fi about a world where people fear direct, unmediated interaction with reality and live in underground hives. I laughed out loud about how Cory Doctorow and Wil Wheaton are the politician-gods of OASIS. BUUTTTT then we get more and more laundry lists of 1980s cultural paraphernalia, and we're off again.

I mean, for the love of God, this imagines a future world (WORLD, WHOLE PLANET) that is frozen in cultural time, has had no progress, diversity or advancement of its world culture, and everyone just frickin' loves their spoonfed Lucasfilm. Aaaaaghrhrghgrhh I DON'T CARE ABOUT YOUR XP POINTS, I DON'T CARE ABOUT INANE TRIVIA, AND I SAY THIS AS A PERSON WHO REALLY DOES ENJOY LUCASFILM, ZEMECKIS, SPIELBERG AND ALL THAT SHIT, BUT I WANT MORE FROM MY LIFE OKAY I WANT THAT AND OTHER THINGS, OTHER IDEAS, OTHER VIEWPOINTS

Okay, okay, sorry. It got away from me. But the thing that's especially disappointing is that the whole “virtual reality as safe space for geekery” HAS been done well and better by Cory Doctorow (!) indeed in the much smarter In Real Life and For the Win. So yeah, read those instead.

I don't know why it took me so long to get around to this book. It really was genius. Creative, fun, clever, and it just kept getting better with each chapter.

Loved every single sentence I read. I am a MMO-playing, 80's loving, Rush Super-fan and I can't believe it took me this long to discover the book that was waiting for me. ugh, I cant explain how perfect this book was for me and my interests :)

Konečně jsem se k tomu dokopal. Knihu už jsem měl v hledáčku dlouho, ale poté, co vyšel trailer na filmovou adaptaci, jsem se musel na ní vrhnout. A kniha mi přinesla neskutečný zážitek. Naposled jsem takovou euforii a napětí prožíval při čtení knihy Marťan. Skvělé zvraty, skvělé postavy a hlavně skvělé odkazy na kulturu, ve které jsem také vyrůstal. Člověk hned dostane chuť si zahrát staré hry a věřím, že se po filmu YouTubeři zblázní a začnou natáčet Let's playe ze starých osmdesátkových her minulého století.

This was so much fun! It takes a bit to get into, but then, especially for those who remember the 80's, it becomes everything it should be.

How did a 18 year old watch most of the series of the eigthies and play videogames in just 5 years? And some of them multiple times, I cannot understand.
The writing was flat and repetitive. I predicted the references of the key and gate quests, way before our main character did. After the first half I couldn't care less what would happen to our main character, who was either absolutely stupid or in the zone and a true gamer. No in between.

What also unnerved me to no end, was that there were no real dead ends. Almost everything had a point and the characters only didn't guessed it. Also the repetitions got on my nerve. Perhaps it was the fault of the translation but reading the same lines every few pages is exhausting and not helpful.

I thought that the ending could have helped this book, but I would have liked a different, not so open ending or an epilogue.

So one and a half quite generous stars for the references and the nostalgia factor.

2023: Yup, I still love this book even reading it for the 5th time. It is definitely comfort food when it comes to reading for fun.

2020: Yes, I read this again already. Yes, I still love it! It's basically comfort food at this point!

2019: Just finished re-reading it again. I still love it! I'm sure I'll revisit it again at some point!

2017: I love this book so much! It is especially fun to listen to Wil Wheaton read the audiobook. Is it fine literature? Of course not. But it is so much fun! This was my second time to read it and I'm fairly certain it won't be my last!

2015: First time I read it but apparently I didn't write anything about it.

ALL OF THE STARS. It's been a minute since I've read a book that I couldn't put down. My house is a mess and I have guests coming and I haven't eaten properly and none of that matters because I had to finish reading this story.

It's interesting to read my friends' reviews of this book. Geekery levels being equal, I find that the younger they are, the less they liked it: my friends currently in their 30s consistently were more critical of it than my friends currently in their 40s. Honestly, I don't have a whole lot of love for the 80s. I wasn't allowed to play those games or listen to that music or watch those shows/films, so the nostalgia doesn't mean much to me. But what struck a chord was the adoration. Like, if you put so much love into something, it's hard for me not to love it. And this world is very, very lovingly created.

And what a world it is! If you've ever played World of Warcraft or a similar multiplayer online game and wished the simulation could be more realistic, the experience more visceral, you'll really enjoy what Cline has done with OASIS. And with virtual reality taking off (again), it feels like that kind of thing isn't completely out of reach anymore. I could do without the real-world-falling-apart aspect of it—I'm fine with that not actually happening, but I hope I live long enough to see such immersive environments become reality (outside of specialised fields like the defence industry and such).

I'm still grinning! What a fun read.

Poor writing and a naïve plot. The book plays on nostalgia and emotions way too much. Moreover the amount of descriptions on games/movies/pop-culture from '80s breaks the flow for me. I don't consider it entirely bad though. I liked the setting (even poorly executed, with horrible black and white characters) and the idea about the hunt was pretty cool. Such a shame it wasn't better written. I can totally understand someone will like it, similarly as just another comic book movie adaptations, etc.

One of the most FUN books I've ever listened to – and read by Wil Wheaton. The premise for this one takes place about 30 years in the future, where the creator of an MMO dies (imagine 2nd Life + WoW + Eve + the web itself + more). His will leaves his assets, and the fate of the game itself, to whoever can find the Easter Egg he hid within Oasis, his game.

The quest to find the Easter Egg dives into geek culture – specifically from the 80s. Games, TV, movies, anime, cartoons, computers, music and too much more to count are referenced. Most of the book takes place in the game itself, allowing for a world where anything can happen without the need to justify. Things get interesting when the high score list highlights names of players – effectively making them targets both in the game and in the real world.

If you're up for an 80s pop culture history lesson in the form of a book, that reads like a game, you should check this out.

???No one in the world ever gets what they want and that is beautiful.???

key words: minecraft but Cooler, the internet is forever kids, charlie & the chocolate factory but with gaming and john hughes movies.

DISCLAIMER: don't read this book if you're looking for well shaped characters who go through a lot of character development throughout the story. You're not going to find it here. Do read this if you're looking for a fun ride filled with ‘80's references and gaming.

I think that's the best way to describe this book. It's fun. It's high levels of fun are why I'm giving it four stars. It was just a fun, cool, easy read. Really enjoyable. The characters weren't that special, but the story was refreshing and exciting. It really was a little like reading Charlie & the Chocolate Factory but with less chocolate and more tech. It had a lowkey love story that I didn't really care about but also didn't really mind so that was fine. It wasn't completely surprising but not predictable either. It was just a lot of fun. I'm going to stop saying that now and just end with that this book is a nice in-betweener. It's nothing heavy. Just fun. (LAST TIME PROMISE)

One of the most FUN books I've ever listened to – and read by Wil Wheaton. The premise for this one takes place about 30 years in the future, where the creator of an MMO dies (imagine 2nd Life + WoW + Eve + the web itself + more). His will leaves his assets, and the fate of the game itself, to whoever can find the Easter Egg he hid within Oasis, his game.

The quest to find the Easter Egg dives into geek culture – specifically from the 80s. Games, TV, movies, anime, cartoons, computers, music and too much more to count are referenced. Most of the book takes place in the game itself, allowing for a world where anything can happen without the need to justify. Things get interesting when the high score list highlights names of players – effectively making them targets both in the game and in the real world.

If you're up for an 80s pop culture history lesson in the form of a book, that reads like a game, you should check this out.