Daniel Gonzalez // Blog Writer
Ready Player One
by Ernest Cline
One of the things I love about fiction is that it always projects things I’d love to do. I would be ecstatic if I got a letter to go to Hogwarts, or was told that I was the son of a Greek god. Granted, I wouldn’t like to compete in the Hunger Games, but being handy with a bow sounds like a pretty cool skill.
My point being, Ready Player One turned out to be one of my favorite books for this reason. It’s set in a sci-fi dystopia. The year is 2044: the world has mostly depleted its fossil fuels, and climate change has irreversibly damaged the world. What little is left is being fought over by the world’s most powerful nations. Crime is at an all time high, and chaos reigns. But this isn’t the important part.
Shocked and scared about the state of the world, most of humanity has plugged into the OASIS: a vast, almost never ending virtual reality MMORPG (massive multiplayer online roleplaying game—a mouthful, I know). It’s not just a game, though. OASIS has become so popular that its currency has taken over most of the world’s economies, and people often spend more time in that world than the real one.
Fast forward a few years after the game’s launch, and the game’s creator, James Halliday, has died. His will and testament? Anyone who can solve his series of riddles and challenges hidden within the game will win his entire fortune, and all rights to the OASIS. As the world scrambles to search every nook and cranny in the game, enter our protagonist, Wade Watts. An orphan living with his aunt, he is the first to discover the answer to the first riddle in years, sending him on a fantastical journey both through the OASIS and in real life.
Being an avid MMO player, I really love this book. It’s a game I wish I could be playing, and a puzzle I wish I could be solving. It would be so much fun to grab a friend and search an entire world for obscure clues based on references to the 80s (Halliday loved the 80s). While I can’t experience such an exciting adventure in real life, the book is an addictive page-turner that drags the reader on an amazing ride. You don’t even have to be a gamer or a lover of all things 80s to enjoy this book. Ernest Cline builds an amazing fantasy/scifi world that anyone could enjoy and experience, and while some of the jokes about old Pacman might fly over a younger person’s head, it definitely gives a nostalgic view of the 80s. I wasn’t even alive in that decade and now I miss it!
So if you’re looking for an enjoyable read then look no further. I think I’ve read this book about three times now and it still hooks me every time. Perhaps the only thing wrong with it is its lack of a sequel.