Ready Player One

Posted by: Kelly on: August 16, 2011

• In: 2011 Books | Books I Received From The Publisher | Fiction | Pop Culture | Pop Culture Resolutions
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Finished Ready Player One by Ernest Cline.  I received a copy of this from the publisher.

An eccentric billionaire creates an online world named OASIS.  It’s like every role-playing game on crack and everyone (literally everyone) is part of it.  When he dies, he leaves his fortune hidden somewhere in OASIS.  To win it, you have to find each of three keys and use them to open three different gates.  It sounds fairly easy, but of course it’s far more complicated than I’m making it out to be.  It’s years later and no one has found even one key.  And then Wade does.

It sounds kind of Willy Wonka-ish, doesn’t it?  And it is.  But besides being a love letter to video games and the online experience, it’s also a love letter to the 1980s.  (Which is, of course, my favorite decade.)  There are so many references in this book, I’m not sure anyone could catch them all.*

This is just a completely fun book.  Even if you don’t like video games**, read this book. You’ll be so glad you did.

Highly recommended.

* = We need an annotated version! 

** = Like me!  I am more into books and movies than gaming.