eBook, 384 pages
English language
Published March 10, 2014 by Crown Publishing Group.
It's the year 2044, and the real world is an ugly place.
Like most of humanity, Wade Watts escapes his grim surroundings by spending his waking hours jacked into the OASIS, a sprawling virtual utopia that lets you be anything you want to be, a place where you can live and play and fall in love on any of ten thousand planets.
And like most of humanity, Wade dreams of being the one to discover the ultimate lottery ticket that lies concealed within this virtual world. For somewhere inside this giant networked playground, OASIS creator James Halliday has hidden a series of fiendish puzzles that will yield massive fortune--and remarkable power--to whoever can unlock them.
For years, millions have struggled fruitlessly to attain this prize, knowing only that Halliday's riddles are based in the pop culture he loved--that of the late twentieth century. And for years, millions have found in …
It's the year 2044, and the real world is an ugly place.
Like most of humanity, Wade Watts escapes his grim surroundings by spending his waking hours jacked into the OASIS, a sprawling virtual utopia that lets you be anything you want to be, a place where you can live and play and fall in love on any of ten thousand planets.
And like most of humanity, Wade dreams of being the one to discover the ultimate lottery ticket that lies concealed within this virtual world. For somewhere inside this giant networked playground, OASIS creator James Halliday has hidden a series of fiendish puzzles that will yield massive fortune--and remarkable power--to whoever can unlock them.
For years, millions have struggled fruitlessly to attain this prize, knowing only that Halliday's riddles are based in the pop culture he loved--that of the late twentieth century. And for years, millions have found in this quest another means of escape, retreating into happy, obsessive study of Halliday's icons. Like many of his contemporaries, Wade is as comfortable debating the finer points of John Hughes's oeuvre, playing Pac-Man, or reciting Devo lyrics as he is scrounging power to run his OASIS rig.
And then Wade stumbles upon the first puzzle.
Suddenly the whole world is watching, and thousands of competitors join the hunt--among them certain powerful players who are willing to commit very real murder to beat Wade to this prize. Now the only way for Wade to survive and preserve everything he knows is to win. But to do so, he may have to leave behind his oh-so-perfect virtual existence and face up to life--and love--in the real world he's always been so desperate to escape.
A world at stake. A quest for the ultimate prize. Are you ready?
Futuristic techno-porn. Fast-paced storyline that keeps you wanting to know what is going to happen next.
So much better than the movie. I won't explain why so as not to spoil it, but it felt like the book had a lot more nuance and depth.
Well, I can see why this divided readers as much as it did, but despite being a pretty much unending chain of 1980s esoteric name dropping, I had a good time with it.
Great references, it's a great book, loaded with a lot of 80's and 90's references to pop culture, music, tv, movies, everything that really make an enjoyable read, i saw myself smiling at certtain references that i could understand.
The plot seems very juvenile, intender for teenagers, but if you like videogames and grew up on the 80's and 90's you gotta like a lot of this book.
Meh. While there certainly is a lot of imagination and work put into the plot, the actual writing is so BANAL that it ends up reading like a laundry-list namedrop of video game and 80's pop culture references draped over a freshman creative writing effort.
Started reading it purely because of peer pressure and FOMO. Also wanted to get started into the genre sci-fi for some time but wanted something that is easy.
This was a jolly good listen. Wil Wheaton’s narration was really fantastic and mesmerising. The story is in a typical Dan Brown template and perfectly follows Joseph Campbell’s Hero’s Journey. So nothing marvelous or pathetic.
The main motivation for reading this is: Steven Spielberg is directing a movie based on the book. For a die-hard Matrix trilogy fan in me, Spielberg’s Minority Report was a watershed moment. The jetpacks, interactive gloves, and host other innovations were mind-blowing moments of Minority Report. Wanted to know Spielberg’s interpretation of the story. Most importantly, the depiction of the visor, haptic rigs/gloves and in general every futuristic gadget.
This book is absolute garbage. It is a one-celled animal in a Day-Glo banana hammock. Nothing more than a list of 80s references forced sideways into writing so abysmal that I've literally encountered better writing by third graders. It disgusted and angered me to consider the fact that this has been deemed worthy of publication. Bonus: the narrator is so solipsistic and sexist that I'd be shocked if the MRA crowd hasn't made him a hero. 100% the worst thing I've ever read, and its popularity is endlessly confusing and disappointing. Normally I try to just LPET (let people enjoy things) but this misbegotten pap is a pimple on the ass of literature and I am duty bound to oppose it with all my might.
Full disclosure, I tried twice but couldn't finish it because I have a modicum of self-preservation and self-respect left.
Poor writing, empty characters, narcissistic male gamer nerdism, zero sense of humour, endless boring namedropping of 80s pop culture, future as nostalgia.
This isn't high-brow literature or flawless story-telling by any stretch of the imagination. It is, however, damn good fun.
Having been born in the mid-80s and growing up in the 90s, many of Ready Player One's references were a little lost on me. But as a complete nerd, I didn't care and loved every second of it.
It's a fun story, with a few predictable turns, a deus ex machina too many, sometimes laying on the nostalgia a bit thick, and gender/race/ableist tokenism that borders on excessive. But it IS fun.
If those few concerns (and they are quite minor, only appearing a couple of times each in the whole story), this could easily have been a five star book.
Pure fun!
I have a lot of mixed feelings about Ready Player One. All in all, I enjoyed it, but it took work. The biggest challenge for me is that I have no particular affection for the 80s. I found a lot of the book to be, as other reviewers have put it, useless nostalgia porn. It wasn't until the end that Cline had enough depth and tension to tell a compelling story, but he didn't do very much with it. Was he trying to? I doubt it and in the end, that's fine. The book was fun and, for many people, entertaining. But for me, it didn't live up to the hype.
I listened to this book as an audiobook. As it turned out, I ended up listening to this author's other novel "Armada" first as that was what I was able to get at library first. This is much the same book with its homages to the 1980s and geek culture. It was entertaining enough but I've read/listened to much better books this year. It's a fun read but not earth-shattering.
I typically don't like excessively long narrative, especially by an unreliable narrator, and this book is that in spades. But it's FUN, especially if you grew up in the 80s.
The pop culture references are relentless and never-ending, and I imagine they must be exhausting for someone who doesn't get any, many or most of them. The problem with this nostalgia overkill is that it hits a saturation point where it becomes pedestrian, and at times it completely misses the mark. (Such as a character liking everything, just so Cline can include everything, or having a Japanese character use the term seppuku incorrectly.)
The writing is not-great-not-terrible, kind of like a "What I did on my summer vacation" essay. But the story is entertaining and well-paced, even if it becomes a little repetitive and thus predictable.
I'm no doubt biased because it's packed full of stuff I grew up …
I typically don't like excessively long narrative, especially by an unreliable narrator, and this book is that in spades. But it's FUN, especially if you grew up in the 80s.
The pop culture references are relentless and never-ending, and I imagine they must be exhausting for someone who doesn't get any, many or most of them. The problem with this nostalgia overkill is that it hits a saturation point where it becomes pedestrian, and at times it completely misses the mark. (Such as a character liking everything, just so Cline can include everything, or having a Japanese character use the term seppuku incorrectly.)
The writing is not-great-not-terrible, kind of like a "What I did on my summer vacation" essay. But the story is entertaining and well-paced, even if it becomes a little repetitive and thus predictable.
I'm no doubt biased because it's packed full of stuff I grew up playing, reading and listening to.
Ugh the ending - I wished there was something else when it came to the foreshadowing. Also I think it hinders the character development of the main character quite a bit. Very clichée.
The main character annoyed me quite a bit, he's not very well thought out imho, seems like just another Harry Potter: Entitled, unthoughtful with a big portion of luck and a little clueless. Well a lot clueless. The motivation just seems so ... superficial.
I think without the references to games and stuff I'd given up much sooner.
The development of H was cool, but cut very short.
There was so much potential for a good character story, but it was rather like a 0-8-15 (boring, normal) game story, very one-dimensional.
If you get all the references and are nostalgic for 80s pop culture, this book is probably for you. If you don't and you aren't, it's probably a 2-star disappointment.
