READY PLAYER ONE
Ready Player One, by Ernest Cline
Blurb:
It's the year 2044, and the real world is an ugly place.
Like most of humanity, Wade Watts escapes his grim surroundings by spending his waking hours jacked into the OASIS - a sprawling virtual utopia that lets you be anything you want to be, a place where you can live and play and fall in love on any of ten thousand planets.
And like most of humanity, Wade dreams of being the one to discover the ultimate lottery ticket that lies concealed within this virtual world. For somewhere inside this giant networked playground, OASIS creator James Halliday has hidden a series of fiendish puzzles that will yield massive fortune - and remarkable power - to whoever can unlock them.
For years, millions have struggled fruitlessly to attain this prize, knowing only that Halliday's riddles are based in the pop culture he loved - that of the late twentieth century. And for years, millions have found in this quest another means of escape, retreating into happy, obsessive study of Halliday's icons. Like many of his contemporaries, Wade is as comfortable debating the finer points of John Hughes's oeuvre, playing Pac-Man, or reciting Devo lyrics as he is scrounging power to run his OASIS rig.
And then Wade stumbles upon the first puzzle.
Suddenly the whole world is watching, and thousands of competitors join the hunt - among them certain powerful players who are willing to commit very real murder to beat Wade to this prize. Now the only way for Wade to survive and preserve everything he knows is to win. But to do so, he may have to leave behind his oh-so-perfect virtual existence and face up to life - and love - in the real world he's always been so desperate to escape.
John Scalzi quote:
"A nerdgasm ... imagine that Dungeons & Dragons and an '80s video arcade made hot, sweet love, and their child was raised in Azeroth."
Review:
This review is slightly misleading - Wade does learn about love in the real world, but it's sort of more accidental. He *does* have to go offline to do some heroics at one point but the implications that it cures Wade of escapism, or that he is fully escapist, are wrong. Wade actually taught himself how to read and learn basic school skills on free educational programs in the OASIS despite his life of poverty. He obtained a transfer to VR school and learns while no one bullies him (school is not a PvP [player versus player] zone). He interacts with friends online, while also having irl friends like Mrs Gilmore the cat lady. Wade is instead thrown into considering the real world when the Sixers, minions of the international corporations IOI, try to kill him. From there it's pretty much a race to stay alive in the real world while finding keys and passing gates in the OASIS ahead of IOI. IOI wants control of the OASIS to privatize it and charge everyone entry fees. Wade, like gamers everywhere, wants (in essence) free table space - from its conception, the OASIS has been free to enter for all. It has been one place to learn, grow your creativity and earn fame (or even money) in games for the citizens stuck in the wasteland of 2044. The only thing it cannot supply is face to face love, which is always going to be psychologically better than VR sex rigs. Wade does end up doing things right in the real world, which Halliday's avatar eventually tells him is more important than OASIS, but he keeps weight off and eats healthily because it lets him play better - it is not a focus of the book and his best friends are online. The only way the 'moral' comes through is that the gamers in the book need acceptance irl as well as online and need to pursue their love affairs irl. In other words, the blurb bashes 'escapism' much more than Cline does.
So the blurb for the book labelled 'A Novel' bashes escapism and avoids the issues of corporate greed, privatization, and net neutrality. (Apparently Cory Doctorow and Wil Wheaton have been the elected government inside the OASIS for decades.) The blurber is trying to expand the book's market, kind of like the completely uninformative and superbland election flyer that landed in my mail the other day.
Nor is Wade quite alone on his quest. His best friend Aech and his cyber-crush, the Rubenesque-iconned gamer/blogger Art3mis, are also competitors/fellows in the search for Halliday's egg, along with the high-scoring team of Samurai-iconned brothers Daito and Shoto. In the end it takes the combined might of the entire gamerverse to defeat IOI in the OASIS. Wade does, however, get to do the majority of cool ass-kicking moves on his own (occasionally in giant robot suits), in the tradition of 80s movie heroes.
I read this book in a few days and it is incredibly fun. Charlaine Harris gave a recommendation quote, and she's not even a gamer. (And, aside from some casual MTG, neither am I. I'm just a geek.) Some of the community spirit among the gamers is truly heart-warming. Even if you missed the 80s while you were reading, like me, if you're a geek you will enjoy this book.
Rating: 5 easter eggs out of 5