456 pages
Romanian language
Published May 9, 2016 by Nautilus.
Ready Player One is a 2011 science fiction novel, and the debut novel of American author Ernest Cline. The story, set in a dystopia in 2045, follows protagonist Wade Watts on his search for an Easter egg in a worldwide virtual reality game, the discovery of which would lead him to inherit the game creator's fortune. Cline sold the rights to publish the novel in June 2010, in a bidding war to the Crown Publishing Group (a division of Random House). The book was published on August 16, 2011. An audiobook was released the same day; it was narrated by Wil Wheaton, who was mentioned briefly in one of the chapters.Ch. 20 In 2012, the book received an Alex Award from the Young Adult Library Services Association division of the American Library Association and won the 2011 Prometheus Award. A film adaptation, screenwritten by Cline and Zak Penn and directed …
Ready Player One is a 2011 science fiction novel, and the debut novel of American author Ernest Cline. The story, set in a dystopia in 2045, follows protagonist Wade Watts on his search for an Easter egg in a worldwide virtual reality game, the discovery of which would lead him to inherit the game creator's fortune. Cline sold the rights to publish the novel in June 2010, in a bidding war to the Crown Publishing Group (a division of Random House). The book was published on August 16, 2011. An audiobook was released the same day; it was narrated by Wil Wheaton, who was mentioned briefly in one of the chapters.Ch. 20 In 2012, the book received an Alex Award from the Young Adult Library Services Association division of the American Library Association and won the 2011 Prometheus Award. A film adaptation, screenwritten by Cline and Zak Penn and directed by Steven Spielberg, was released on March 29, 2018. A sequel novel, Ready Player Two, was released on November 24, 2020.
To be honest it's been a while since I read the book so don't expect a full in depht review. Sorry.
I liked it, quite a lot indeed. I also enjoy playing video games and 90% of the action occours on a video game. I think that, as always, the book is quite superior compared to the movie.
In conclussion: I recomend it if you like cifi stuff.
Si eres una persona que a vivido la experiencia de un mundo virtual como Second Life, Osgrid(OpenSim) o otro este libro te va a encantar.
Soy un residente del mundo virtual Second Life y este libro me hizo sentir muy identificado. Esto es el futuro
A fun book that brings a video game to life. I read very little fiction but I thoroughly enjoyed this. The author is creative and has some fun twists on the combination of the real word with the game world.
One takeaway was the comparison of our pandemic school vs. the OASIS school. The contrast emphasizes that the pandemic move of school online was nothing more than adding a remote broadcast. Despite the incredible opportunity, we didn't innovate or re-invent. We just started lecturing through a computer screen.
You'd think I'd love this: I've played joust and zork and programed in BASIC and have feelings about THACO. And, well, I think I would have loved this had I read it in 2011, when it first came out, but in the last 9 years my tolerance for self-absorbed men who don't see women as human beings has deteriorated. You see, I've been a computer scientist while being a woman. You know that guy who begrudgingly tolerates you as long as you mind your place while he objectifies women, don't challenge his litany of his geeky obsessions and self-aggrandizing behavior? What if that guy wrote a not very well-written book (plot holes you could drive a spaceship through!), in which a thinly veiled version of himself was the main character, who became rich and famous for his geeky obsessions and then he became a multimillionaire? Yeah...
Nine years later it still holds up as a great exercise in fun SF world building. Cline isn't a particularly gifted writer from a technical perspective, and some of the middle part is cringey but it is important to note that this is a book for children.
Eight years later, I needed to reread this slice of science fiction bacon, in anticipation of the sequel that comes out in November.
I just can't get into this book. The premise is corny, and reads like a screenplay. Maybe it's because I actually know what goes into building virtual worlds. Sure, lone-programmers built entire games--in the Atari era--but today games are built by teams of THOUSANDS of programmers, each toiling on a minute detail. People get famous developing techniques for animating hair, but nobody builds entire games all by themselves. Even if they do they must use tools developed by thousands more developers. Easter eggs are ferreted out by decompiling and analyzing source code. A process that's not nearly as glamorous as pouring over '80 pop culture for clues. Everything about the world this is set in is disorienting and hard to follow. You're never quite sure what the rules are, and without any visuals to back it up you're lost. I'm sure the movie is better, though I've not seen that …
I just can't get into this book. The premise is corny, and reads like a screenplay. Maybe it's because I actually know what goes into building virtual worlds. Sure, lone-programmers built entire games--in the Atari era--but today games are built by teams of THOUSANDS of programmers, each toiling on a minute detail. People get famous developing techniques for animating hair, but nobody builds entire games all by themselves. Even if they do they must use tools developed by thousands more developers. Easter eggs are ferreted out by decompiling and analyzing source code. A process that's not nearly as glamorous as pouring over '80 pop culture for clues. Everything about the world this is set in is disorienting and hard to follow. You're never quite sure what the rules are, and without any visuals to back it up you're lost. I'm sure the movie is better, though I've not seen that yet.
This was a reasonably fun read, but not exactly well written. You know when a puzzle takes years in a book to solve, but then you read it once and think "it can't be that obvious" and then it is? Yeah, the first clue was a bit mediocre and that doesn't even get into the annoying protagonist, the comically evil villain, the autistic overexplanation of every reference and joke, and the predictable self-insert wish fulfillment of a plot.
But in spite of it being pretty bad, I was entertained. The references are nostalgic, the game system is typical of the genre but sounds fun, and the weird details in the worldbuilding were entertaining.
I'd give it one star for the writing and three for the entertainment value, so... let's peg it at a two overall.
Probably the cheesiest book I've ever read.
This is one that I have listened to many times, and did it again this past week - love it! Love all the pop culture references, and even I have had to google some at first even though I was a kid in the 80s. And I'm one of those people that I'm fairly certain is few in number that like both the book and the movie. Yes, they are pretty different in execution, and different in the pop culture icons that are used (mostly 90s for the movie), but they both keep the same points and lessons, which is the most important part - but you have to decide if you agree with that yourselves, obviously. :D
Entertaining quick read (if you like this genre). Although felt a bit like it was written for the movie rights...
Amazing book. Simultaneously SciFi and full of 80s references.
For someone in my generation, spending the 80s as a teenager, this was a fun and nostalgic ride. Looking forward to seeing the movie...
despite being so naïve, it's still a fun read.
