Ready Player One

A Review of Ready Player One ~ by Ernest Cline

It is the year 2045 and Wade Watts, an eighteen-year-old living in a trailer park – nicknamed “The Stacks” – outside Oklahoma City, has accomplished what no one else could in the five years since the passing of Gregarious Simulation Systems (GSS) owner: James Halliday.

Halliday and his partner, Ogden Morrow, are responsible for the creation of the virtual world called the OASIS. The OASIS serves as a VR-MMORPG (Virtual Reality Massively Multiplayer Online Roleplaying Game). In the OASIS players are able to escape the poverty and depression that surrounds them in the real world, caused by the energy crisis and global warming, and be anyone, or anything, that they want to be. The OASIS has become such a revelation in the world that most business and social interaction occurs solely within the OASIS.

When James Halliday passed away he left behind an Easter Egg (a hidden message or secret in a game) which could be found by solving riddles, puzzles and playing various games all in the effort to obtaining the three keys. The player who obtains all three keys will win the Easter Egg which just so happens to be the rights to the OASIS. Everyone wanted to be the owner of the OASIS which gave rise to a vast number of Egg Hunters, nicknamed “Gunters”, who all studied Halliday’s obsession with the 80’s popular culture in order to solve the riddle to find the first key. Unfortunately it was not just Gunters, with the good intention of keeping Halliday’s legacy alive, in search of the Egg – IOI (Innovation Online Industries) was gathering masses of Halliday experts in order to be the first to discover the Egg. However, despite their extensive numbers, Wade discovers the location to the Copper Key placing him in the lead.

Ready Player One is a Lit-RPG and Sci-Fi novel based in a dystopian society. The book is Ernest Cline’s debut novel and has since been made into a film adaptation by Steven Spielberg. The novel is centered around protagonist Wade Watts (aka Parzival) and the adventures surrounding the discovery of the Egg. During his journey Parzival meets various other fellow Gunters in the OASIS such as Aech (his bestfriend), Art3mis, Daito, Shoto and, the infamous, Nolan Sorrento (antagonist and owner of IOI).

I wanted to finish reading the book before reviewing the movie since I am a stickler for comparing film adaptations of books. I can safely say that the novel and film are so different that I am both happy and sad: happy that the neither the novel or film were spoilt for me and sad that in some places the film was better and vice versa. Either way one good thing from this situation is that I get to enjoy two different versions of the same story so I will see this as a win-win.

There has been much criticism surrounding Ready Player One: its characters, the way its written, its premise and just about every other aspect has been torn apart by critics. I am not here to dispute them or suggest that their opinion is incorrect but I will say this: books, films, music and just about any other form of entertainment are engaging to its audience for the message that the viewer/reader/listener is able to discover in it and the way in which said individual is able to relate to it. Not everyone will enjoy a novel or film because they are not phased by the message the film/novel delivers or are unable to relate to the characters. This does not make the article in question poor necessarily but, rather, misunderstood.

I was, personally, able to relate to Ready Player One on various levels. As a fellow nerd the idea of being able to play just about any thinkable game in existence, watch any film or read any book imaginable is enough to blow my mind. And to do so as a fully customizable avatar with access to countless numbers of gadgets, artifacts, weapons and vehicles? To be honest you had me at virtual reality. Aside from the obvious coolness the VR possesses – the characters are highly relatable to me: particularly Halliday, Parzival and Art3mis. But I will go into more detail regarding the characters in future posts.

The content: while I might not have caught all of the references in the book ,there are multitudes, I was able to recognise quite a lot from the 80’s popular culture. The 80’s were a very important time for the author because these are the years that made up his teenage years – which explains the inspiration behind the film focusing on the 1980’s as a time of reference. Besides, lets be honest, the 80’s were indeed a cool era for film and gaming. While this might be a very relatable area for the author, I also feel that this is a highly relatable area for people that also grew up in the 80’s or for people that have a similar fascination for the 80’s. Also, how cool is it that a current teenager can read this novel and go discuss the time period and these references with their parents? Overall I feel that this novel can assist in bringing families together based on this fact alone and that is something unintentionally beautiful.

I will not go into an in-depth analysis of the novel or film in this review – that will be delved into in future posts. The purpose of this review is to soley assist those who have not yet read the novel to make a decision and to provide my summarised opinion of the novel.

Overall I thoroughly enjoyed the novel – I do agree with some critics that there was perhaps an overabundance of references, but I also feel that this was necessary considering Halliday was obsessed with the 80’s popular culture thus it makes sense for the protagonist to be too. I also agree that there were areas that could have been written better or some parts which could have been omitted but this is Ernest Cline’s debut novel and it is not uncommon for irrelevant information to be found in a novel. It all boils down to what you consider to be relevant or not.

If you enjoy gaming, Sci-Fi, romance, want to escape to a world consisting of a thousand other worlds or, simply, want to rekindle your lost years by revisiting the popular culture of the 80’s then this book is definitely for you. You will share the thrill and frustrations that Parzival and his fellow gunters experience on their search for the Egg and get pulled into the world of the OASIS. You will not want to leave until the hunt is over. For all the reasons that I have mentioned above and so many more I give this novel a well deserved five stars. This novel has inspired me in ways that I could not imagine and can only hope that you will share in the wonder of the OASIS universe. This is definitely a modern classic not to be ignored.