Ready Player One

By: Ernest Cline

Narrated by: Wil Wheaton

#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • Now a major motion picture directed by Steven Spielberg.

“Enchanting . . . Willy Wonka meets The Matrix.”—USA Today • “As one adventure leads expertly to the next, time simply evaporates.”—Entertainment Weekly

A world at stake. A quest for the ultimate prize. Are you ready?

In the year 2045, reality is an ugly place. The only time Wade Watts really feels alive is when he’s jacked into the OASIS, a vast virtual world where most of humanity spends their days.

When the eccentric creator of the OASIS dies, he leaves behind a series of fiendish puzzles, based on his obsession with the pop culture of decades past. Whoever is first to solve them will inherit his vast fortune—and control of the OASIS itself.

Then Wade cracks the first clue. Suddenly he’s beset by rivals who’ll kill to take this prize. The race is on—and the only way to survive is to win.

NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY Entertainment Weekly • San Francisco Chronicle • Village Voice • Chicago Sun-Times • iO9 • The AV Club

“Delightful . . . the grown-up’s Harry Potter.”—HuffPost

“An addictive read . . . part intergalactic scavenger hunt, part romance, and all heart.”—CNN

“A most excellent ride . . . Cline stuffs his novel with a cornucopia of pop culture, as if to wink to the reader.”—Boston Globe

“Ridiculously fun and large-hearted . . . Cline is that rare writer who can translate his own dorky enthusiasms into prose that’s both hilarious and compassionate.”—NPR

“[A] fantastic page-turner . . . starts out like a simple bit of fun and winds up feeling like a rich and plausible picture of future friendships in a world not too distant from our own.”—iO9

©2011 Ernest Cline (P)2011 Random House Audio

Critic reviews

2017, Laura Hillenbrand Outstanding Literary Award, Winner

“The science-fiction writer John Scalzi has aptly referred to Ready Player One as a ‘nerdgasm’ [and] there can be no better one-word description of this ardent fantasy artifact about fantasy culture. . . . But Mr. Cline is able to incorporate his favorite toys and games into a perfectly accessible narrative.” (Janet Maslin, The New York Times)

“This non-gamer loved every page of Ready Player One.” (Charlaine Harris, #1 New York Times bestselling author of the Sookie Stackhouse series)

I’m sorry I waited so long to read this book.

Somehow, every time I read a review, I got the idea that only young adult males who love to play video games would enjoy this book. Well, I am here to tell you that couldn’t be further from the truth.

I think anyone who is within ten years +/- my age (50-ish) would get a HUGE kick out of this book. There are so many references to things that are in our cohort’s DNA that everyone can get the “in” jokes. References to Indiana Jones (okay, I just found out that one of my coworkers WASN’T EVEN BORN YET when the original movie came out—ghahhhhh!!), PacMan, Monty Python . . . there were tons of things nearly anyone who wasn’t living under a rock will get. I am sure there are things I missed, but that hardly mattered because there was also a kick-ass plot to keep me interested.

For his plot, Cline used a formula that is becoming familiar from the gaming world: Give the protagonist a quest, and set up obstacles. If your protagonist is likable, then the reader will want him to succeed. He is, and we do. I wanted Wade Watts to succeed so badly that I found this book every bit as addicting as the best video games: I could barely put it down. I told everyone around me how much I was enjoying it. I am telling you to read it now!

[I listened to this as an audiobook narrated by Wil Wheaton, who is just about the perfect choice, for so many reasons . . . not least of which is being a piece of 80’s trivia himself!!]

Virtual Reality Teen Fiction that did not Suck!

I generally dislike virtual reality SF.

I am not a teen, so teen fiction usually has to be transcendent to interest me.

I saw 10,000 ratings with an average of 4.7…and thought “how bad could it be for light summer reading?”

Ready Player One is virtual reality SF teen fiction, is not transcendent, but it majorly did not suck.

Now, I must admit, I am a geek. I owned and programmed the TRS-80, Amiga, Commodore 64, and had first-hand experience with much of the tech and geek-pop of this novel. My main annoyance with this book was the failure to give the Heathkit EC-1 it’s due (admittedly not the 80’s). Ok, Ok, I am an uber-geek. If you are an uber-geek and lived through the 80’s, you will likely appreciate this book, even if you don’t love it.

I did not love this book. It made a few geek-annoying mistakes, and was firmly in the first-kiss-goal-teen-fiction genre. The romantic tension is a first kiss, not, well, you know. This is only great fiction if you have spent WAY too much time playing video games. Yet, it is a pleasant little story with a Geekgasm of references that made it well worth the listen. I might even listen to this one again.

The narration by STNG’s Will Wheaton was spot on throughout.

an 80's pop coulture history lesson

For those of us who were born in (but technically did not grow up in the 80’s). We were exposed to a little of the nostalgia that this book highlights. consequently the book becomes an amusing little game of Spot the reference with occasional trips to YouTube to see the things you missed but you were sure were references

For the others among you who are interested in this book keep YouTube open because the references come in thick and fast

Great book

Lots better than the movie. Listened to it twice in a row. Will listen again

Fun Young Adult SF for Adults

As the hundreds of other reviews will tell you, this is a fun book. The plot is action packed, the references are entertaining (provided you were a geeky kid in the 1980s), and the style is very compelling. So, you should probably get it. I liked it a lot, though my reactions were more complex than I expected.

When listening to the novel (which I read when it came out last year as well), it was clear that this was very much Young Adult science fiction, though it was clearly written for adults in their 30s and 40s who could enjoy all the references. The YA aspects come through in a number of ways: a lack of adults in the plot; main characters that are immediately likable but not very deep; a lack of much emotional content beyond very simply "boy wants to date a girl" material; a whiz-bang plot where the world as it is related to the plot is fleshed out, but the rest of the world makes little sense. None of these are horrible criticisms, and I am a fan of YA science fiction. The same points would also apply to say, the first book or two of the Hunger Games.

However, this book ultimately feels thin, after you get over the joy of the 1980s geek references, which are laid on so thickly that it can be a little overwhelming and even pandering. The book makes a few attempts to address real issues (regret over lost love, environmentalism, the value of reality over simulation, etc.) but these come across as half-hearted and unconvincing, as does much of the central love story. There was, for me at least, also something sad in the unacknowledged fact in the book that, strangely, there is no culture after, say, 1986 in the world of the book. No new ideas, no new music, no new games - nothing new for 40 years. The best music is Rush, the best video game is Joust, the best movie is War Games, all of which is great for nostalgia, but seems to echo the way Baby Boomers held up the 1960s as the pinnacle of culture during my childhood in the 1980s. It made the experience of listening melancholy in ways that the author, who seems to have little sense of irony, never intended.

None of this suggests that you should not download this. In fact, given that it has been out for awhile, you probably have already done so. It is fun and well read, and there is nothing wrong with great young adult novels, even if they are written for people who are no longer young adults.

Rad story

Right away I was put off by anti Christian basis , but I kept listening and am happy that I did! Not really a techie (maybe a nerd ) , but this recording was very hard for me to put down. The narration was perfect !! A great book !

perfection

Its perfect! this is my second time listening and it's as good as the first. An eerie look into a plausible future. this fantasy adventure keeps the adrenaline pumping the entire time.

I recommended it everyone I know.

Really just an enjoyable book from start to finish. I think that the full impact of the book would be lost on anyone that didn't experience the 80's, but even so it stands out as one of the best books I've read all year.

Gunter Glieben Glauten Globen

This is a very enjoyable audiobook and is a lot of fun. This is the closest thing to time travel that I am ever going to experience. No, this novel does not include the SF concept of time travel. But for someone like me, who lived through the decade of the 1980s, this book brought back so many memories that at times I felt as if I was transported back in time. The novel begins with a first person account of a teenager in the dystopian near future living in the slums and trying to discover a way out. Internet on-line gaming has enjoyed a quantum leap in technology that is not too far from our current experience, and as a result is quite believable. The main character, and most of the inhabitants of the depressed world economy, spend all their waking hours living in this virtual-reality world of the game. He is nurtured, educated and entertained by this virtual reality simulation. The game can be read as a cautionary tale. Real life is so bad that escape into the simulation seems more desirable to most people that they invest all their efforts on this imaginary world while the world around them continues to decline. The protagonist makes sure that we understand that the any view of religion is pure bunk, giving us the now obligatory brief affirmation of materialistic atheism so common in Science Fiction. After this, blessedly brief, diatribe against spirituality and anti-environmentalism is over Ernest Cline gets right to the story. And a great story it is. His virtual reality world will be familiar to anyone who has watched the Holodeck on Star Trek, and in print fiction is is reminiscent of Neal Stephenson’s SNOW CRASH in the way it incorporates a virtual reality simulation into the story. Cline’s VR seems so plausible that one is forced to agree that such a minor leap in technology would almost certainly result in just such an on-line gaming environment as the one in READY PLAYER ONE. He has employed an almost mythical computer gaming programmer that has an obsession with all things of the 1980s. As a result the gamers, who are engaged in a treasure hunt that will make the winner the world’s richest and most powerful man, have to immerse themselves in the 1980s songs, movies and games that the game designer was also obsessed with. In a classic example of transference, the pursuit of wealth and fame has made his obsession their obsession. The carrot on a stick of so much money has altered these treasure hunters into raving Manga fans who listen to the music of 1980s hair bands like Def Leppard and watch old sitcoms in endless hours of marathon watching. It really makes you think about what attracts us to the forms of entertainment we choose to devote our time to. Layered on top of all this nostalgia is a great story; one that is fun and entertaining. With as much research Ernest Cline had to do to write this account so full of 1980s trivia, it is surprising that he did not include the Rock of Ages opening line that I have used to title this review. I kept expecting the line to appear so much that the song was like a soundtrack running in my head all through the novel. Listen to this book and you will understand the connection.

Will Wheaton (aka. Wesley Crusher for you non Trek fans) is the narrator for this book. His performance makes this even more enjoyable than it would have been in print. He is very good at relating all the various character voices, especially the protagonist. This is a great audiobook, in large part because of Wheaton’s voice. I will listen to this again.

Awesome story

If you love the 80's and MMOs this book will rock your socks. Plus the narrator does a great job.