As I mentioned a few days ago, I downloaded the audio book version of Ready Player One by Ernest Cline. I finished it on Tuesday morning, which is pretty quick for a 16 hour book. I spent a good chunk of my weekend playing Super Mario 64 and listening to the book, which was a great combo.
I like to think of Ready Player One as a Charlie and the Chocolate Factory for quips nerd culture. I thought Ready Player One very enjoyable to listen to, Will Wheaton did a good job narrating the story and gave a good voice to the stories main character.
Ready Player One follows the exploits of Wade Watts, user name Parzival, in a near future where the world has used up most of its natural resources and now relies on a immersive gaming experience called the Oasis. The creator of the Oasis, James Halliday, user name Anorak, created a challenge in the game near the end of his life by hiding an Easter egg in the video game in the form of a quest related to his interests, which were classic video games, science fiction and fantasy, and classic rock. The prize for finding the egg? Halliday’s entire inheritance, the billions of dollars of revenue for the Oasis.
The book starts with Wade 5 years after the quest is announced, living in a trailer park known as the stacks, living in poverty and working his way through school. Egg hunters, or Gunters, have devoted their lives to finding the egg, spending countless hours every day researching the interests of Halliday and searching the countless worlds stored in the Oasis. Because of his lack of funding, Wade is not able to explore past the starting world of his virtual high school.
By a strange turn of luck, Wade is the first Gunter to find the first clue. Wade eventually becomes famous through the process. Wade makes friends with the other Gunters who are able to make it through the challenges, and they begin to face the challenge of competing with a technology corporation that is attempting to win the challenge to acquire control of the Oasis. The employees of this corporation are known as Sixers, due to their user names being 6 didget employee codes.
The competition intensifies through the hunt for the multiple keys and clues to find the egg, and eventually climaxes in an all out war between the Sixers and the Gunters at the location of the final gate.
I enjoyed the story very much, even though I don’t usually go in for young adult fiction. There were a few issues I found with the story telling method, mainly, I found the voice used for the teenage characters a bit oversimplified, including lots of cliches and stereotypes. The book also contained many extensive explanations about things like classic Atari and computer systems, descriptions of role playing game formats, and 80s pop culture. Which, if you didn’t have any previous knowledge, it would be very helpful, but as someone who has an extensive knowledge of the 1980s, it was a bit redundant and seemed unnecessary. One other note would be that there were a few references that were a good deal late for a 1980s focused story line, namely references to Firefly and Stargate.
As a whole, Ready Player One was a very solid book, which I would recommend to anyone interested in 1980s or nerd culture.
Ready player one: 7.5/10
Availbile on Amazon http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/0307887448/ref=tmm_pap_title_0?ie=UTF8&sr=&qid=
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