Ready Player One: A Novel
#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • Now a major motion picture directed by Steven Spielberg.
“Enchanting . . . Willy Wonka meets The Matrix.”—USA Today • “As one adventure leads expertly to the next, time simply evaporates.”—Entertainment Weekly
A world at stake. A quest for the ultimate prize. Are you ready?
In the year 2045, reality is an ugly place. The only time Wade Watts really feels alive is when he’s jacked into the OASIS, a vast virtual world where most of humanity spends their days.
When the eccentric creator of the OASIS dies, he leaves behind a series of fiendish puzzles, based on his obsession with the pop culture of decades past. Whoever is first to solve them will inherit his vast fortune—and control of the OASIS itself.
Then Wade cracks the first clue. Suddenly he’s beset by rivals who’ll kill to take this prize. The race is on—and the only way to survive is to win.
NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY Entertainment Weekly • San Francisco Chronicle • Village Voice • Chicago Sun-Times • iO9 • The AV Club
“Delightful . . . the grown-up’s Harry Potter.”—HuffPost
“An addictive read . . . part intergalactic scavenger hunt, part romance, and all heart.”—CNN
“A most excellent ride . . . Cline stuffs his novel with a cornucopia of pop culture, as if to wink to the reader.”—Boston Globe
“Ridiculously fun and large-hearted . . . Cline is that rare writer who can translate his own dorky enthusiasms into prose that’s both hilarious and compassionate.”—NPR
“[A] fantastic page-turner . . . starts out like a simple bit of fun and winds up feeling like a rich and plausible picture of future friendships in a world not too distant from our own.”—iO9
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Community Reviews
What Bookclubbers are saying about this book
✨ Summarized by Bookclubs AI
Readers say *Ready Player One* by Ernest Cline is a fun, imaginative adventure packed with 80s and 90s pop culture and gaming nostalgia, immersing rea...
Ready Player One by Ernest Cline
372 pages
What’s it about?
It is 2044 and teenager Wade Watts is alone and abandoned, unless he is logged onto OASIS. OASIS is a virtual world where Wade has a best friend and an escape from the harsh realities of the actual world in 2044. Inside OASIS a game is being played with one winner who will come away with unimaginable wealth. This novel explores Wade's journey through the game.
What did it make me think about?
The whole game revolves around 1980's pop culture. It brought back memories!
Should I read it?
This is a most unusual novel. While I did enjoy it- I would not recommend it for most readers. The author seems consumed with anything 80's, and although I enjoyed the nostalgia, it was a bit over the top. The actual plot often took a backseat to this 80's obsession. However I did end up enjoying it more than I thought I would... I guess their is a movie in the works.
Quote-
"Luckily, I had access to OASIS, which was like having escape hatch into a better reality. The OASIS kept me sane. It was my playground and my preschool, a magical place for anything was possible."
If you like this try-
The Circle by Dave Eggers
The Girl with All the Gifts by M.R. Carey
The Dog Stars by Peter Heller
372 pages
What’s it about?
It is 2044 and teenager Wade Watts is alone and abandoned, unless he is logged onto OASIS. OASIS is a virtual world where Wade has a best friend and an escape from the harsh realities of the actual world in 2044. Inside OASIS a game is being played with one winner who will come away with unimaginable wealth. This novel explores Wade's journey through the game.
What did it make me think about?
The whole game revolves around 1980's pop culture. It brought back memories!
Should I read it?
This is a most unusual novel. While I did enjoy it- I would not recommend it for most readers. The author seems consumed with anything 80's, and although I enjoyed the nostalgia, it was a bit over the top. The actual plot often took a backseat to this 80's obsession. However I did end up enjoying it more than I thought I would... I guess their is a movie in the works.
Quote-
"Luckily, I had access to OASIS, which was like having escape hatch into a better reality. The OASIS kept me sane. It was my playground and my preschool, a magical place for anything was possible."
If you like this try-
The Circle by Dave Eggers
The Girl with All the Gifts by M.R. Carey
The Dog Stars by Peter Heller
This was such a fun read, I didn't want to put it down. But as always, work and life get in the way...
It's 2044, and the online culture has pretty much taken over people's lives (crazy, right???). The billionaire inventor James Halliday, who was responsible for creating one giant multiplayer game called OASIS, decided, when he died, that since he had no family and no heirs to leave his massive fortune to, he would leave it to whoever could solve the final puzzle he devised and collect three keys, reaching the final Third Gate to collect Halliday's "Easter Egg." This becomes known as The Hunt, and those who are searching for it are called "gunters," short for "egg hunters." Halliday was completely obsessed with '80s pop culture, since that was the time period when he came of age, so anyone who has any ideas about winning this game must have extensive knowledge of everything '80s - music, video games, movies, TV shows, cartoons, anime, books, etc. - and must especially be tuned in to Halliday's favorites in order to solve the clues each step of the way.
The book's narrator is Wade Watts (known by his online avatar name, Parzival), a high school teenager who, IRL (in real life), lives in "the stacks" somewhere in Oklahoma. The stacks are literally mobile home trailers stacked on top of each other, in a very poor area. His parents are both deceased, and he's left with an aunt who doesn't care about him, so he frequently escapes to hang out in an abandoned van, where he has his online setup. He even attends school online, so most of his life is spent being plugged in and avoiding people in "the real world" as much as possible. He is obsessed with Halliday and The Hunt, and has devoted his whole life to winning. His only friends are Aech, another online gamer who he's never met in person, and Art3mis, who he's got a huge cybercrush on, also knowing her only online.
Enter the evil corporate conglomerate IOI, who pretty much control almost everything. It's hard to find an internet connection without going through IOI (tho it is possible), and they control almost every other company in the U.S. They are working around the clock on The Hunt also, paying minions to figure out the clues so that they can attain Halliday's fortune and collections and gain even more control over people's lives. Parzival and his friends will do whatever it takes to stop that from happening.
This is going to be a great movie, if it ever gets made!
It's 2044, and the online culture has pretty much taken over people's lives (crazy, right???). The billionaire inventor James Halliday, who was responsible for creating one giant multiplayer game called OASIS, decided, when he died, that since he had no family and no heirs to leave his massive fortune to, he would leave it to whoever could solve the final puzzle he devised and collect three keys, reaching the final Third Gate to collect Halliday's "Easter Egg." This becomes known as The Hunt, and those who are searching for it are called "gunters," short for "egg hunters." Halliday was completely obsessed with '80s pop culture, since that was the time period when he came of age, so anyone who has any ideas about winning this game must have extensive knowledge of everything '80s - music, video games, movies, TV shows, cartoons, anime, books, etc. - and must especially be tuned in to Halliday's favorites in order to solve the clues each step of the way.
The book's narrator is Wade Watts (known by his online avatar name, Parzival), a high school teenager who, IRL (in real life), lives in "the stacks" somewhere in Oklahoma. The stacks are literally mobile home trailers stacked on top of each other, in a very poor area. His parents are both deceased, and he's left with an aunt who doesn't care about him, so he frequently escapes to hang out in an abandoned van, where he has his online setup. He even attends school online, so most of his life is spent being plugged in and avoiding people in "the real world" as much as possible. He is obsessed with Halliday and The Hunt, and has devoted his whole life to winning. His only friends are Aech, another online gamer who he's never met in person, and Art3mis, who he's got a huge cybercrush on, also knowing her only online.
Enter the evil corporate conglomerate IOI, who pretty much control almost everything. It's hard to find an internet connection without going through IOI (tho it is possible), and they control almost every other company in the U.S. They are working around the clock on The Hunt also, paying minions to figure out the clues so that they can attain Halliday's fortune and collections and gain even more control over people's lives. Parzival and his friends will do whatever it takes to stop that from happening.
This is going to be a great movie, if it ever gets made!
What a fun, escapist read! I listened to the audiobook, narrated by Wil Wheaton, on a recent long drive. It's a about boy, Wade, navigating through the Oasis, a virtual-immersive MMORPG (think: Guild Wars, WOW, etc., but more massive) to solve the Oasis creator's quest challenge, in which the winner inherits the Oasis and lots of moolah. Premise of the story is like an early 80s geek culture version of Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory. Despite being a bit slow during some parts, I enjoyed the world the author created and definitely recommend this to any gamer enthusiast.
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