REVIEW: Ready Player One by Ernest Cline

REVIEW: Ready Player One by Ernest Cline

Rife with music, robots, video games, conspiracies and treasure hunting, Ready Player One is an entertaining read that rides a contagious wave of 80’s nostalgia! In the grand tradition of life-consuming novels, Ready Player One by Ernest Cline wrecked my world in the best way possible for a few precious hours over a couple of afternoons and late nights.

Imagine a young kid, lonely and poor, who becomes caught up in the search for a fantastic treasure, catapulting him to fame, and he suddenly finds himself at odds with ruthless foes who are bent on securing the treasure for themselves! That story is fun, even before you add the crazy virtual reality or 80's pop-culture. Then toss in a touch of boy-meets-girl, competing best friends, espionage, murder and then...BOOM! Awesome! 

Ready Player One recalls some of the best feelings of the early Harry Potter novels and certainly a fair amount of Ender's Game, but the big sell here is the 80's nostalgia, plan and simple. The book is loaded, almost to the point of capsizing, with references to popular music, film, TV and games from the 1980's. But it's a dance that Cline steps well and it's hard not to get caught up in the fun.

The setting for the book is largely the OASIS, a massive virtual world that serves as a game, social network, amusement park, school, commercial venue, etc. The OASIS clearly has it's basis in modern virtual simulations like Second Life or maybe even Minecraft. The use of real money to purchase items, real estate, and services in a digital realm (ala Second Life) are taken to a much higher level of immersion and technological ability in the fictitious OASIS. 

Ernest Cline showing his Delorean to George R. R. Martin.

The OASIS really is the backbone of the story, allowing the introduction of elements of every genre of gaming and movies to become part of the landscape. Characters are able to use vehicles and weapons familiar to readers from things like the Time Machine from Back to the Future or KITT from Knight Rider, and even obscure novelties like Leopardon (a giant-robot flown by Spider-Man in the Japanese TV series). References to 80's music and video games also abound.

Confession: I actually created a "Ready Player One" playlist, which I had on rotation as I read and would add songs as they came up in the narrative. I highly recommend this audio augmentation. Didn't really add to the story, but it was super fun.

In the near future, Wade, our young hero, lives in the overcrowded slums called "the stacks" where mobile homes are placed one on top of the other creating trailer park sky-scrapers. His home-life is terrible and his only respite from misery is his time at school in the OASIS. When the creator of the OASIS, James Halliday, dies he sends a virtual will to every OASIS user detailing a game/treasure hunt to find an Easter egg hidden within the simulation, the Willy-Wonka-esque prize of his immense fortune, becoming an omnipotent super-user and ultimately controlling ownership of the OASIS. 

The creator's love for the 1980's permeates his contest and the "gunters" (as the virtual egg hunters are known) pour over Halliday’s notes and clues while immersing themselves in 80's trivia and pop-culture. The gunters are working to find the treasure before the evil corporation IOI who want to take ownership of the OASIS and completely commercialize it. To that end IOI has employed an army of users (called "sixers" because of their numerical usernames) to search for Halliday’s Egg and virtually equipped them with the latest technology, attempting to skew the odds in their favor. The only hope for an open and fair OASIS is the rag-tag band made up of Wade and his new, virtual friends.

The adventure is fun, the action rolls along at a fast clip and the characters work well together. If you are a child of the 80's, then you can't get through a page or two without a favorite movie or video game being mentioned...like little nuggets of fun sprinkled throughout the book. This novel scrolls down the check-list of things I enjoy in a book and hits *almost* every one of them. 

Overall, I loved it and didn't want it to end. I got that sweet, familiar dread as I watched the number of unread pages continue to shrink. When it was over I had that post-novel life-gap…you know, that feeling where you don't quite know what to do or read because nothing feels as fun as what you just read...almost like the book just broke-up with you and now you need a rebound. It was that. A lot.  

--SPOILER WARNING!-- 

If you've not read the book then please don't read anymore unless you want some severe spoilers. I'm not kidding. I will ruin the ending for you.

Seriously, I will. 

There are subplots all over and some early set-ups that never pay-off, which was a bit frustrating. All the characters exist in the OASIS in form of a self-chosen avatar, which may or may not reflect their real-world persona. This is established early on, with an obvious declaration of "don't trust what you see" in the OASIS. However, it's never delivered on in a satisfying way. Certain characters are revealed to be very different from who they appear to be, but not in a way that drives the plot or alters the outcome of the relationships. It turns into more of a "Oh, so THAT's what you really look like! Well, okay, let's keep going."

Ok, well that wasn't a *huge* spoiler, but this next one is. Don't read it unless you are already done with the book.

Stop yourself. 

Eventually there are some financial deals made by the virtual avatars, basically an endorsement deal for a character's avatar, which then sets Wade financially with abundant resources. It felt like his previous struggles were then written off. All of his need to find the treasure was then diminished. His drive lost a lot of its urgency when he no longer had to worry about money (real or virtual). As a reader, this felt like a mistake to me, and as I reflected on it, I thought that surely this character was being set-up to have IOI somehow be behind the deal. They would come in and take it all away and toss him even lower than before. But no. 

Later in the novel Wade is able to breach IOI security and work there undetected for months. He is able to gain access to their database and network, without any later repercussions. Wade is over-confident and his subterfuge would have been the perfect time to lay additional obstacles in place for him to overcome later. Another excellent chance for character development that was left untouched.

Alright, this one is a true spoiler. I give away the ending. Stop reading right now. I mean it. You will hate yourself in the morning. 

Shame on you.

You really don't want to read this one.

The climax of the novel does not deliver on one key element: the big showdown. Now, to be clear, we do get a big battle, a huge one in fact. And it is impressive. However, the square-off between the two main characters to decide the fate of the virtual universe happens too early and the bad guy is rather easily defeated. The novel sets up a dichotomy between Wade and his nemesis, Nolan Sorrento, the chief hunter employed by IOI, but when they meet Sorrento is not a major obstacle, nor is he very clever. There could have been much more, make him pull out information to expose Wade, maybe some kind of Trojan horse embedded in the code that Wade stole earlier in the game.  

 ...sigh... The prize is won after a very deus ex machina bump for Wade and then a slow stroll down memory lane with the game creator. In that way it didn't feel like the treasure hunt was "won" rather it was just "finished." Sorry, to spoil so harshly. But for the epic build and lead up to the climactic finale, it was a tad underwhelming.

--END SPOILERS--

Even with a few misses, the book is stellar. I was entertained, moved, and had a blast reading a great adventure story. It's funny but I pictured Will Wheaton as the main character in my head the whole time...turns out he narrated the audio book. If you are a nerd or a geek or you just like the 80's then you are in for a treat. If you aren't any of those things, you will still enjoy this tale. And maybe when you are done, go dig around online and find some of the really great music and movies mentioned.