Ready Player One by Ernest Cline was loaned to me last year from a good friend who is a 'gamer', meaning a person who plays computer games. We had often talked about games from our childhood and new games we were playing now. I do play games but my knowledge and enthusiasm is of a lesser nature than my friend Richard. I guess he is a geek, very much like myself! It was from these conversations that he recommended and loaned me this book.
Ready Player One is set in the year 2044, the world has been in a sustained and endless recession, where resources are limited and most people live in what we would call poverty. The main character is Wade or his online pseudonym Parzival a young boy who lives in the "stacks". (Stacks are constructions of trailer homes place on top of each other to create a tower) and where the majority of the cities citizens live. In this world people seek refuge in the simulated reality of a game called OASIS. I would describe the OASIS as Secondlife meets Sims meets World of War Craft and all encompassing simulated world where anything is possible. Wade even goes to school in the OASIS rather than to one in real life. The game was created by James Halliday who I would describe as having the rock star profile of Steve Jobs and the geekery of Bill Gates with maybe a little of the philanthropy of Jimmy Wales or Larry Sanger. Halliday encompasses virtues, skills and status of real people in our own reality.
As usual I do not want to give away to much from the book so here is a small over view taken from Wikipedia, that does not contain many spoilers!
James Halliday suddenly dies, leaving a will that states that whoever can collect three keys hidden in OASIS and pass through the matching gates will receive Halliday's fortune and a controlling stake in his company. This contest becomes known as "the Hunt" and people immediately begin the search for Halliday's Easter Egg, with the only clues being Halliday's will and his journal, the Anorak's Almanac. Those searching for the Egg are referred to as "gunters," a portmanteau of "egg hunters." Gunters devote an enormous amount of time to studying pop culture of the 1980s, the decade that Halliday grew up in and was perpetually obsessed with, in the hope it will assist them with locating and solving the puzzles involved with the egg.
As a gamer, a long time gamer this book is easy for me to read, I get the references I know a lot of the games and the 1980's pop culture, which certainly makes this book a better read for me. It is a homage to early gaming/coding and the pioneers of a new art form (and I will argue to the death that games are an art form as much as a movie or a book is). But I would totally understand that for many who don't know or have never played Zork that this book would be less compelling or even tedious. Yet put this to one side and look at it like any other Sci-Fi or fantasy novel that you have ever enjoyed with its own language and cultures and you will get the very same experience. Remember what the Lord of the Rings book was like with its Hobbits, Orks and whatever???
What I do find compelling is the plausibility of this future Earth, a world in recession where people seek solace in a computerized world..... we are half way there already. The story which unfolds in this world is enjoyable and exciting (especially to my game oriented mind) but again I will state that this book is game heavy. Not that this is a bad thing. As soon as I started this book I could not put it down, it was one of those occasions where I was trying to read at every available moment and long into the night when I should have been sleeping. That last sentence says it all really.......................... Must read.
Anthony's bookshelf: grasshopper
I really enjoyed this book, from beginning to end, a a valid an very possible future mixed in with a fantasy style ending made it compelling to read. The many references to 1980's pop culture and gaming really made it more authentic, alt...
