Ready Player One by Ernest Cline
Ernest Cline’s book Ready Player One is set in 2044, and the world is in a very sorry state. To escape the horrors of his reality and to find adventure and learning, a teenage boy, Wade Watts/Parzival logs into a computer system, the Oasis. The creator of the Oasis, James Halliday/Anorak, dies, and he leaves behind his entire fortune to the person who can solve a quest involving certain riddles. Will Wade find the fortune before anyone else? And will Wade find connection in the real world?
First of all, the storytelling in Ready Player One is spot on. This book is riveting, and I found myself thinking about this book when I was not reading it, wondering what would happen next.
The three components of a great story are all here: the protagonist’s task must be hard to do, it must be easy to understand, and a great deal must be involved in the ending.
I had to keep checking the publication date because so many things mentioned in the book happened, just as the book predicted. For example, people now regularly order food and groceries online from the convenience of their home and have them delivered to their doorstep.
This book also touched on some really important topics. In Ready Player One, Wade is fighting not just for the fortune but for control over the OASIS. Whoever controls the OASIS controls information and access to other people. He states that the rival corporation, the IOI, wants to charge users a monthly fee. This fee would therefore prohibit the poor from accessing the OASIS.
Access to Information
I don’t have all of the answers (or any of them really) but this book raises important questions. What would happen if Facebook decided to charge users a monthly fee? Would this price out the poor? What about Twitter? Instagram? YouTube? What about the permanent bans on Twitter? Where is the line between allowing people free speech and stopping speech that hurts people? Who decides who gets access and who should decide who gets access?
Adventures
The book also touches on how video games are adventures. I remember growing up and thinking that the woods around my house were adventurous. My friends and I were convinced that whoever happened to be walking through the woods was a serial killer. We were also always on the lookout for messages in a bottle. However, there aren’t any woods by my current house. Who wouldn’t want to be able to simply log in from the comfort of their home for a puzzle, a game of strategy, and some human connection without the mosquitos?
Reading Technique
To read this book, I utilized a technique called immersion reading (this is where you listen to the audiobook while following along in the copy of the text). When I was listening to the audiobook, I thought that it was the same narrator as Project Hail Mary, but I was wrong. It happens from time to time. However, this book (including the narrator) has the very same exact tone. The narrator speaks to you as though you are a friend, and he is very enthusiastic and unapologetically sharing his thoughts with the reader.
This is a must-read for anyone who enjoys 1980’s culture and video-game/fantasy enthusiasts.
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I read it when it came out and enjoyed it. Re-read it for a book club and found it hadn’t aged well. And the sequel is just Mary Sue name dropping.
I saw that Ready Player Two came out recently, but I noticed that it was getting a lot of really bad reviews. So sad because I really enjoyed the first book. Ready Player One was a good kick in the pants, because it is really, really easy to fall into the Netflix, Hulu, GoodReads, YouTube wormholes instead of shutting off all of the digital devices and going outside on an adventure. It was a good reminder for me.