Source: https://dearauthor.com/book-reviews/overall-b-reviews/b-reviews/review-ready-player-one-by-ernest-cline/
Timestamp: 2019-04-21 04:24:58+00:00

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Your 2003 2011 novel, Ready Player One, was aptly described by USA Today as “Willy Wonka meets The Matrix.” Much like Roald Dahl’s classic children’s book, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Ready Player One begins with an impoverished boy obsessed with a worldwide contest.
Wade Watts loves the OASIS, a virtual reality universe in which players can teleport or travel by spaceship to different VR planets, each with a different, fun world on its surface.
Now OASIS creator James Halliday has crafted a hunt for an “Easter egg” (or rather, something akin to a video game Easter egg) involving three keys (copper, jade, and crystal) to three gates. Finding each key and entering each gate requires an encyclopedic knowledge of the 1980s pop culture Halliday loved.
I say loved, because Halliday, a multi-billionaire, is dead, and has left his vast fortune and his shares in Gregarious Simulation Systems, the company that owns the OASIS, to the person who obtains all three keys, enters the three gates, and ultimately beats his or her competitors to the Easter egg.
While some contestants try to game the game by forming “clans” that ally together to seek the clues and split the winnings, others are individual egg hunters, or “gunters.” A corporation named IOI is also after the prize.
Wade Watts is a gunter, as well as an eighteen-year-old kid living in a trailer stack (trailers are stacked atop one another). The trailer where Wade and fourteen others sleep is owned by his abusive aunt, but Wade spends most of his time in his hideaway, where he logs on to the OASIS and uses it to go to school, as well as to research the egg hunt.
Earth is a bleak place and Wade is far from the only person to use the OASIS to escape it—indeed, most of the population is addicted to the OASIS. But unlike his peers, Wade is mostly stuck on one planet within the OASIS—Ludus, the world on which his school is located. Travel within the OASIS costs money, and Wade has only the limited funds he obtains from repairing old computers. So even within the OASIS, the odds are against Wade’s success.
And yet, as Wade’s first person, past tense narration tells us very early on, Wade is the first person to, five years after the egg hunt and the first clue were announced, obtain the copper key, and along with it, the second of the several clues which will ultimately lead one lucky person to Halliday’s Easter egg and the winnings.
As the story begins, Wade, aka Parzival (that is the name of his avatar), has just one friend, whom he knows only by the avatar Aech. Aech and Wade are both dedicated gunters and they play eighties videogames together and polish their other gunting skills on each other, though neither knows the other’s real name.
Wade crushes on Art3mis, the avatar of a blogger he really likes. When Wade, as Parzival, works out the clue to the location of the copper key, he discovers that Art3mis has already beaten him there; she just hasn’t worked out how to pass the challenge and obtain the key.
Wade gets to that step ahead of her, but she’s right behind—as are Aech and two Japanese players known to Wade only by their avatars, Daito and Shoto. Breathing down the five contestants’ necks is Innovative Online Industries, a corporation so ruthless it will stop at nothing to obtain the key.
IOI gives the clues to the thousand plus employees in their humorously named (there is a lot of humor in this book) Oology division. When, despite the unfair advantage this gives them, Wade still beats them to the copper key, they offer him a position. He refuses in no uncertain terms; IOI responds with an attempt on his life.
After surviving IOI’s attempt to kill him, Wade acts quickly to warn his fellow competitors and then lies low right in IOI’s backyard. He then begins an online romance with Art3mis, whom he has never met in person. When he falls behind in the game and IOI nears the lead, Wade makes a desperate gamble, and what began as a quest for escape from poverty and abuse becomes a bid for love, and a story of friendship.
Ready Player One is steeped in 1980s popular culture of the geeky variety. Homages to both popular and obscure video games, Dungeons and Dragons manuals, anime, mangas, science fiction and fantasy movies and television shows are all here, as well as, for good measure, some classic rock.
There’s also some hand waving of potential obstacles; for example, I did not understand why IOI didn’t use the five gunters’ sponsorship deals to obtain all their real life identities.
During the contest, Wade helps his gunter competitors and I wondered whether that would prove to be a mistake or a good move. I won’t spoil which way it went, as that would take some of the suspense out of the novel—and it is a suspenseful, page-turning read.
Wade’s friendship with his fellow geeks (Aech especially) and his budding romance with Art3mis were particularly compelling. The mystery around Aech went in a direction I did not expect and I thought it made a great point about how online personas can be misleading.
While I was less than thrilled with Art3mis’s reason for refusing to reveal her identity to Wade, I liked her a lot. She was a quick thinker and had her own goals, rather than merely being a Manic Pixie Dream Girl. I got why Wade fell so hard for her.
The book also has what I think of as a strong gee whiz factor. The wonders of the OASIS are creatively imagined and I can see why this novel slated to become a Steven Spielberg movie—many scenes beg to be brought to life on a big screen.
At the same time, there were a couple of slow chapters in the middle of the book, one of which described almost nothing but the state of the art OASIS system Wade had purchased. Not being that into tech, I zoned out during that chapter.
Ready Player One is also highly entertaining. I was reminded of every recent SFF novel I had a blast reading, from The Martian to Ilona Andrews’ books, not because there are any other similarities there, because simply so much of this novel was sheer fun.
And for all its flaws, Ready Player One also had an underlying cautionary message—that the real world should matter to us at least as much as our devices, no matter how enjoyable they are. B.
I was so happy to see this review up. I LOVED this book. Loved it as in finished the book and immediately bought copies to fling at people I knew who loved 80s culture. I wondered if someone who wasn’t so 80s geeky would enjoy it as there are a lot of gaming references. For someone who was into it, the book seems to speak directly to you. (I’ve played Joust against my brother until I couldn’t move my fingers).
I also was surprised at how inclusive it was. And how some issues of online identity are tackled as well such as how male avatars are taken more seriously in the tech world. Since it’s such a high-concept, rolling adventure, those issues are not usually called out in reviews, but I’m glad the book didn’t ignore them.
Thanks for your review, Janine. I’ve heard numerous mentions of this book but really had little understanding of its content.
I enjoyed this book and it held up pretty well on a reread. I found the chapter on his system details kind of interesting the first time, but I’m pretty sure I skipped it the second time.
Probably, in part, this is due to my age. Mid 80s to mid 90s is my pop culture touchstone. (Halliday was probably a bit older than me, since his seemed to run late 70s through the 80s.) I wasn’t actually that familiar with a number of things referenced, (Never heard of Schoolhouse Rock until the 90s, never played a lot of the video games, barely remember some of movies) but I knew enough about them to know what they were.
Not sure if I’m looking forward to a movie of this though. I’m not sure watching anyone else’s interpretation of things I’ve had a clear mental image of for decades isn’t going to be too disappointing for me.
@Jeannie: I’m not at all into videogames although I was a preteen and teen in the eighties. My brother was hugely into Pac Man, but I’d never heard of Joust. I still enjoyed this book a lot even so. I read it with my engineer husband and he enjoyed it at least as much as I did. So while it doesn’t hurt to be a geek, I think it’s a book with wider appeal than that.
I agree with all you say in your second paragraph but was hesitant to say much about it in the review because I didn’t want to spoil a certain surprise for readers. But yeah, that was great, and it made an important point.
@Kareni: You’re welcome! I went in kind of confused by the blurb myself.
@Lostshadows: Yeah. I forgot to mention that in the review–the pop culture that came up in the book did range further than the eighties.
I haven’t decided if I’ll go see the movie since I’m sure it will be pretty different from the book. I’m kind of eager to see the trailer stack and other parts of Wade’s real world visualized, but I wonder if the OASIS will look at all like I pictured it. I have doubts as to whether Spielberg will be able to secure the rights to all the videogames, music, television shows, movies, songs, and RPGs mentioned in the book (although the people behind some of them might be eager for product placement), and with the ones he does, I expect their look will be updated for the movie. But I’m still curious about what it would look like to see some of the challenges Wade and his fellow gunters had to pass in action, so I might go.
I can’t wait for the movie. But I’m also terrified of the movie. I loved this book so much and although it’s being directed by Spielberg himself, I’m scared the movie will let me down as so many tend to do. If the movie fails, at leats we have the book.
@Rebecca: Spielberg is pretty hit or miss for me, so I don’t see his presence behind the camera as a guarantee of any kind. He does like to bring a sense of wonder to the table, though, so I can see why he’s drawn to this book.
This was a 2003 novel? I had no idea. I didn’t read it ’til 2015. I was surprised how much I enjoyed it since I’m not a gamer (the only games I’ve ever played were on my Gameboy) but I really didn’t have much trouble picking up on the references. It was great to read something that was just plain fun. But, as much as I liked the book, I’m a little ambivalent about the movie. I’m taking a wait and see approach there.
@Jeannie: Yes! I didn’t pick up on any stereotyping in any of the portrayals, either.
Although (SPOILERISH) I kind of wish Art3mis didn’t have the issues she did, because it undercut the body positivity a bit.
@Susan: Yes, 2003. It holds up well.
@Susan: @Janine: Janine, where did you get the info that the book came out in 2003? Because everything I’ve seen (pub release date, wikipedia entry, early reviews) dates the book as coming out in 2011.
I don’t think you need to be a gaming person to get this book, although I can see why gamers relate to it. The vast majority of references are to other types of popular culture, especially movies and TV shows. The plot itself invokes Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and The Matrix, as you say, but it’s also pretty clearly modeled on The Last Starfighter (Cline cites it as a favorite movie). And War Games, and Second Life the game, and so many other things.
I have this book (I think) and have been meaning to read it for years but not long as I agree with Sunita, the original pub date shows 2011.
@Sunita & @Keishon: Wow, I really blew it on that publication date. You guys (and Susan) are all correct! I think I must have had this confused with another book. Apologies all around.
ETA: I updated the post to reflect the actual publication date.
Has anyone here read Cline’s follow-up novel, Armada? It looks interesting.
@Janine: I picked it up when it was on sale this spring, but haven’t gotten around to it yet. The reviews/buzz haven’t been as enthusiastic for it so I’m not getting my hopes too high.
I just wanted to say that the reason IOI didn’t use the sponsorship deals to gain access to their personal identities is because Wade, and I assume the others, weren’t stupid enough to provide their identities. All business was conducted through their OASIS avatars. That’s all.
I know they did all their sponsorship ads, channels, and appearances as their avatars, but I thought there was a scene in which Wade had to sign his name to a sponsorship contract.

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