Ready Player One
Ernest Cline
372 pages, read it
in hardback
I try to take my
recommendations seriously. Especially
when said recommendation comes from a really good friend with an extensive
reading background, what can I say; he has rarely lead me astray. This is the tale of one such read, Ready
Player One by Ernest Cline.
Ernest Cline gave
his literary debut at the Austin Poetry Slam in 1997 and was its winner in 2008
and 2001 respectfully. With a little
more relevance Cline also wrote the screenplay for Fanboys in 2009. Fanboys is about a group of high school
friends who travel the country to steal a rough cut of The Phantom Menace from
Skywalker Ranch. If this is all
gibberish to you, than we have already started on the wrong foot and do not
read Ready Player One. But I digress, so
let’s backtrack back to Cline. This guy
owns a DeLorean DMC-12 with the affects needed to go back to the future and
this very novel has already been purchased by Warner Bros to be turned into a
screenplay written by Cline as well.
Good things for a novel debut. So
let's get to Ready Player One.
Ready Player One
shoots us into a fictional world of 2044 where the world as we know it is in
ruin and disarray. Everyone now spends
as much as their time as they can in the OASIS, a completely immersive virtual
reality that serves as an expansive game, mall, school, private chat boards,
etc. The best way to think of the OASIS
is one virtual reality internet in which all of the players/users are on one
server and can simultaneously interact with one another within the confines of
the system and the places within the OASIS.
The creator of the OASIS, an eccentric and enigmatic James Halliday,
passes away and leaves a video will which is sent out to every user of the
OASIS. The video will is as puzzling as
the individual and starts the greatest scavenger hunt in existence within the
OASIS. The winner, and there can be only
one, will inherent absolute control over the OASIS and Halliday's fortune. Halliday is of course infatuated with the
80's, hailing it as the golden age of his youth, so upon his death an explosion
of 80's culture hit's the modern time.
Everyone immediately starts looking for the egg using the clues given by
Halliday but after five years, no one has managed to crack the code and
discover the combination, until Wade Wattes comes along. This is his story, told by him.
I loved every moment
of it. As a kid, I spent most of my time
in front of a T.V. or Computer monitor playing games. I have played EQ, DAoC, World of Warcraft,
and a long host of other games for longer than should probably be allowed. I have had friends online that I have never
met and I have wasted countless hours attempting to topple lava beasts and best
the Albions. I scanned forums and fought
with 'lessers.' I have found efficient ways to max XP and wasted hours in front
of Tetris Machines. I have been a loyal
fan of the internet since its conception and I work for a large software
company. I can see this future and I got
the references. Reading it was like
crack and I think anyone with an appreciation of good story telling and
internet culture will love it. With that
said, why didn't I give it five stars?
After all the writing is perfect.
The depiction and consistency is spot on. You will like all of the characters. You will be engrossed in the telling, hell I
read it in two days. So what gives? As much as I loved it, I think you have to
know and be interested in the culture, and you have to know the
references. I couldn't just give this to
my mom and expect her to enjoy it to.
That is why it didn't get the five.
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