Ready Player One by Ernest Cline

Ready Player One (Ready Player One, #1)

by Ernest Cline

#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

Reviewed by EBookObsessed on

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DNF -

In this dystopian society where resources are scare, most people have learned to hide in a virtual reality world of the Oasis. Even is a dystopian society, consumerism runs strong. In the Oasis, you buy things for your avatar to make it more successful that you are. Your avatar can be more beautiful than you are, a different sex, it can even be a creature out of one of your favorite video games or movies. When the creator of the Oasis dies, his Last Will and Testament indicates that whoever finds his hidden Easter egg, wins all his money and control over the Oasis.

For seven years, no one has found anything until a 17 year old boy (our narrator) finds the first key.

I was four hours into the audiobook and I just couldn't anymore. I am sure I ended it too early, but it was just blah, blah, blah, list of everything 80's the fictional programmer of the Oasis loved about the 1980; books, movies music. Explaing how life deteriorated due to the energy crisis. Explaining how the Oasis came to be.

One of GSS's biggest competitors has hired people just to find this easter egg so that it would start charging for the Oasis (currently free). I could see how the company GSS, might also be working against our main character since someone is making money controlling the Estate for the last seven years.

There is a movie coming out shortly, and hopefully Spielberg does a better job grabbing the audience's interest because the world building in the novel was taking way too long.

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Reading updates

  • Started reading
  • 21 January, 2018: Finished reading
  • 21 January, 2018: Reviewed