Ernest Cline: Ready Player One (German language, 2012)
512 pages
German language
Published March 26, 2012
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.
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.
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.
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.
Nowadays I don't read as much, this is just my second book of the year, and this book was light enough to be finished quickly.
The history and characters are good but not great, not many surprises.
The last third has more action and really got me hooked.
Not finished. The story is bland, flat, and doesn't hold my interest. Which is a shame as I was really looking forward to reading it as I love video games & 'geeky' references, and the positive reviews by Rothfuss, Gaiman et al made me feel like this would be a book I'd adore.
A great story wrapped up in very uneven writing. And a few passages of just awful writing.
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