Full disclosure: I read this book only to keep up with the 372 pages we'll never get back podcast (which I recommend and which had also done a running commentary on Ready Player One previously).

I struggle to rate this one fairly ... I mean, if you really liked RP1, you will probably like this one too. If you only sort of liked RP1, you could probably find better uses of your time.

This book really felt like someone trying to capitalize on a previous success; writing on a deadline and just turning in a first draft. The plot was a kind of half-baked pastiche of the Last Starfighter, Ender's Game, Starship Troopers, and that one episode of the Clerks cartoon where Randal is captured and put into slavery because of his prowess at a pyramid building video game.

To its credit, the book is kind of fun at times and at least a little amusing if you are able to not dwell on the plot holes, slapped together characters, cringe inducing one-liners, and droning lists of random video game facts.

The things that kill me are the giant narrative leaps, which really give me the impression that they had previously been a note the author left for himself meaning to come back later and flesh them out and then ran out of time to do so. To wit: compare the half page of descriptions of the "snackage" available to the intrepid star fighters to the literally single sentence devoted to curing cancer.

Anyway - decent enough for an airplane book or if you really liked Ready Player One and are really, really desperate for something kind of similar, though I suggest you do as I did and hit up your library to get your copy.