Ready Player One by Ernest Cline

Amy      
Lynnie   

science fiction, young adult

In this future version of the world, a gaming legend dies and bequeaths his entire fortune to whomever can win a game he has created.  However, after five years, no one has accomplished the first hurdle and attention to the challenge is largely dimmed. High school senior Wade is obsessed with the game and its creator.  He lives unloved and unfunded in his aunt’s trailer and wants to win the fortune in order to pull himself out of the misery of his non-virtual life as well as to be able to explore more of the virtual world of the OASIS.

Amy's Review

Reading Ready Player One is very much like the experience of playing a long-lasting adventure video game including, unfortunately, the ebb and flow of holding my attention.  Some parts are gripping. Others are slow and take forever to get through. But I really enjoyed it overall! The story itself is engaging, suspenseful, and creative.  And by creative, I mean that Ernest Cline has created his own lifestyles, economies, infrastructures, and worlds.  I believe he also created a few cool gaming ideas but I really don’t know that for a fact. The main character is loveable and has worked hard at his life’s passion and purpose—to solve the game that will allow him to inherit greater wealth than he could ever imagine. And, the fact that the game requires complete knowledge of 1980s pop culture made it enjoyable for me since I was in high school and college in the ‘80s. But the aspect of the novel that really intrigued me was the author’s vision of the future—one in which real life is so difficult that most of the people on Earth prefer to live virtually in the OASIS. No one actually travels any more since nothing compares to the sights and entertainment in OASIS, let alone the ease of “travel”, so hotels are no longer needed.  People spend almost all their time in a virtual world and the real world crumbles around them.  The novel was written over 8 years ago and much of the things envisioned have come to pass or seem extremely likely to happen.  It’s exciting, chilling, and eye-opening in that regard.

Overall, I felt it was extremely well done. Sometimes the reading of this novel felt as clunky as playing video games before computers were able to display visual scenes--limited by reading the amber-colored words on a tiny screen which described the scenery. But I appreciated the future world this author drew and the High Five characters. I also love a story where good triumphs over evil.

The audiobook narrator, Wil Wheaton, was appropriate for this novel.  I kept wondering if he would be mentioned in the novel and was delighted when he finally was! His voice acting was fantastic. I only wish that he had made more of an effort to distinguish individual voices.  I’ll give him an A-.

Lynnie's Review

A future where people are so wrapped up in a virtual reality game that most people choose to live in it rather than the real world that surrounds them because the real world has become such a lost, depressing, and depressed place isn't that far-fetched. In the OASIS, you can be anyone you want to be, build relationships, go to school, even build your own planet if your resources allow. Of course, the fact that most of the OASIS is fixated on the 1980s is the catch and it's amusing (and tiring at times).

When the real game starts--the hunt for Halliday's Egg--to gain control of the entire OASIS, the action begins and the story takes off.  What makes this story fun (particularly to those of us pop culture vultures),its unending references to all things 80s, is also its downfall. Fun at first, it tends to drag it down toward the end. I could live without the blow by blow recaps of some movie scenes that I, too, know by heart or the complete history of some video games that I, frankly, didn't care that much about.

This book was essentially a love note to the 80s with a little sci-fi story thrown in for fun. So, if you loved the 80s, it will definitely make you smile. If, however, John Hughes, leg warmers, and Sarah Jessica Parker in her dorkier days make you break out in hives, you might want to skip this one.