Ready Player One

Ernest Cline

Aug 2011 · Random House

About this ebook

*THE BOOK BEHIND THE MAJOR MOTION PICTURE DIRECTED BY STEVEN SPIELBERG*

'Wildly original and stuffed with irresistible nostalgia, Ready Player One is a spectacularly genre-busting, ambitious, and charming debut' Independent
'Part intergalactic scavenger hunt, part romance, and all heart' CNN
'Ernest Cline's novel deserves to be a modern classic' SciFiNow
'Gorgeously geeky, superbly entertaining, this really is a spectacularly successful debut' Daily Mail
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A world at stake. A quest for the ultimate prize. Are you ready?

It's the year 2044, and the real world has become an ugly place. We're out of oil. We've wrecked the climate. Famine, poverty, and disease are widespread.

Like most of humanity, Wade Watts escapes this depressing reality by spending his waking hours jacked into the OASIS, a sprawling virtual utopia where you can be anything you want to be, where you can live and play and fall in love on any of ten thousand planets. And like most of humanity, Wade is obsessed by the ultimate lottery ticket that lies concealed within this alternate reality: OASIS founder James Halliday, who dies with no heir, has promised that control of the OASIS - and his massive fortune - will go to the person who can solve the riddles he has left scattered throughout his creation.

For years, millions have struggled fruitlessly to attain this prize, knowing only that the riddles are based in the culture of the late twentieth century. And then Wade stumbles onto the key to the first puzzle.

Suddenly, he finds himself pitted against thousands of competitors in a desperate race to claim the ultimate prize, a chase that soon takes on terrifying real-world dimensions - and that will leave both Wade and his world profoundly changed.
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Readers can't get enough of Ready Player One . . .

***** 'THAT WAS SO TOTALLY AWESOME, WOW!'
***** 'This is an exciting story, especially for geeks, and the key word is FUN.'
***** 'Ladies and gentlemen, from this day this book is my life and I will obsess over it constantly.'
***** 'I just kinda wanna cry right now. I'll have a proper review at some point, but I gotta let myself recover.'
***** 'I had the feeling while reading this book that it was written expressly for me. This is my childhood captured.'

Ratings and reviews

Ok, so it's a good book... But not great. It made me want to go back and watch the movies I grew up with, play some retro games but there didn't seem to be much substance to the story and fell down at the end. When all the subtle nods to geek culture had been eliminated... There didn't seem to much else there and so it just ends all a bit to cliché. Don't let this put you off though. It's worth a read, especially for the laughs and the little nods and winks to what was a fantastic era for film and games.

The story line was interesting but the writing was just poor. The references were over explained to the point where it felt like the author was holding my hand throughout the book. The romance was flat. The world building was ok. The characters were mildly likeable. Worth a read if your a mega sci-fi nerd or were a child in the 80's. Otherwise I'd give this one a miss.

I found this book to be a cool adventure mixing role-playing game mechanisms like experience points, in-game gold and items with loads of references to 80s games, music and films. Although the real world isn't fully fleshed out (very few passages refer to it, although they aren't bad), it merely provides a contrast to the world of OASIS, where anything is possible. Nothing truly challenging or thought provoking, but still nice fun, especially if you can get the 80s references.

About the author

Ernest Cline is a #1 New York Times bestselling novelist, screenwriter, and full-time geek. He is the author of the novels Ready Player One and Armada and co-screenwriter of the film adaptation of Ready Player One, directed by Steven Spielberg. His books have been published in over fifty countries and have spent more than 100 weeks on The New York Times bestsellers list. He lives in Austin, Texas, with his family, a time-traveling DeLorean, and a large collection of classic video games.