“Ready Player One” by Ernest Cline
Published: August 16, 2011 by Crown Publishing Group
Genres: Novel, LitRPG, Science Fiction, Fantasy Fiction, Dystopian Fiction, Pop culture fiction
Ernest Cline killed it with his first novel “Ready Player One.” This story takes place in 2045 when people have basically abandoned the real world for life in a virtual world called the OASIS. “Ready Player One” revolves around a teenage boy named Wade Watts, AKA Parzival, who embarks on a quest to find the Easter Egg that the creator, James Halliday, hid within the virtual world. To find the Easter Egg Parzival needs to enlist the help of a group of friends and complete smaller quests to find keys that will ultimately lead him to the Easter Egg and the keys to the OASIS kingdom.
If you are a child of the 80s you are going to love the pop culture references. All of the quests are based on Halliday’s life and in order to find the Easter Egg the “gunters” need to be experts in 80s games, movies, celebrities, etc.
The book is well written and the story is intriguing. Whether you’re into fantasy fiction or not, this is a futuristic story that will take you back in time and keep you flipping pages, or if you prefer listening it was released as an audio book the very same day the hard copy became available and is narrated by Will Wheaton. “Ready Player One” was adapted into a movie in 2018. I read the book before seeing the movie and though there are some glaring differences, which is to be expected, I thought the movie was pretty good.
The book won the 2011 Prometheus Award and in 2012 it received an Alex Award from the Young Adult Library Services Association a division of the American Library Association.
A sequel “Ready Player Two” was released on November 24, 2020 and yes I’ve read that one too so a review will be coming soon.
