Ready Player One by Ernest Cline
In the 2044 of Ernest Cline's Ready Player One, the real world is a financial and environmental mess so most people spend the majority of their time in the virtual world, OASIS. Upon his death, OASIS's creator James Halliday left a last testament that whoever solved the puzzles he'd hidden in OASIS and found the Easter egg would win his power within that world and massive fortune. Although a large number of people have researched Halliday's past and media loves extensively in their search, for years no one has gotten past even the first puzzle.
Wade Watts is a teen who, like many contemporary people, lives in poverty. His schooling allows him some access to OASIS, even though he can't level up far, and as an escape from his life he's obsessively studied up on the mainly '80s movies, video games, books, roleplaying games, pop culture, etc. Halliday loved. Then he stumbles upon the location Halliday's first puzzle leads to and is suddenly a target for competitors, including a corporation more than willing to commit actual murder in the real world to get the prize.
There's nothing truly original here; all of this has been done before. (It's published as a mainstream book, not a genre one, and the rave reviews it's getting don't seem to be aware of how this has been done before.) It's takes a while for the plot to really get started, and the reader has to face a ton of exposition in the meantime. There are times when this reader really wanted to take Cline aside to say, "You didn't have to stuff all of your research into the book." He throws so much trivia and so many names around that at times it feels like he's trying too hard. Although the book starts with a firm foundation in the real world, the majority of it takes place in the virtual world, which takes some of the menace out of things for me since the travails and death of an avatar don't equal the same in the real world. This is especially a problem in the final battle.
I wanted to see what would happen next but didn't really feel much about any of the goings on.
I know this is a dystopian novel, but the culture of OASIS depresses me too and I don't think Cline meant it to. With millions trying to win Halliday's prize through learning the lore he loved, the culture is obsessed with old media and doesn't judge any of it, with crap put on the same level as the good stuff, and OASIS is basically everything mixed with everything else, with no originality, with a thick sauce of nostalgia drowning it all. From ages 7-17 I lived through the '80s, and I thought the worship of everything '80s goes very overboard. As a media geek, science fiction fan, and fanfiction reader/writer online, I can say that what's presented here isn't the inevitable result of playing with media properties: I've seen a lot of originality from fan writers/artists/vidders and many of them transcending the original material at times.
Although summaries suggest that this book is partly about the importance of not neglecting reality in favor of a virtual existence, that plot thread only rarely shows up and doesn't get much headway.
Ready Player One is an okay read.
Wade Watts is a teen who, like many contemporary people, lives in poverty. His schooling allows him some access to OASIS, even though he can't level up far, and as an escape from his life he's obsessively studied up on the mainly '80s movies, video games, books, roleplaying games, pop culture, etc. Halliday loved. Then he stumbles upon the location Halliday's first puzzle leads to and is suddenly a target for competitors, including a corporation more than willing to commit actual murder in the real world to get the prize.
There's nothing truly original here; all of this has been done before. (It's published as a mainstream book, not a genre one, and the rave reviews it's getting don't seem to be aware of how this has been done before.) It's takes a while for the plot to really get started, and the reader has to face a ton of exposition in the meantime. There are times when this reader really wanted to take Cline aside to say, "You didn't have to stuff all of your research into the book." He throws so much trivia and so many names around that at times it feels like he's trying too hard. Although the book starts with a firm foundation in the real world, the majority of it takes place in the virtual world, which takes some of the menace out of things for me since the travails and death of an avatar don't equal the same in the real world. This is especially a problem in the final battle.
I wanted to see what would happen next but didn't really feel much about any of the goings on.
I know this is a dystopian novel, but the culture of OASIS depresses me too and I don't think Cline meant it to. With millions trying to win Halliday's prize through learning the lore he loved, the culture is obsessed with old media and doesn't judge any of it, with crap put on the same level as the good stuff, and OASIS is basically everything mixed with everything else, with no originality, with a thick sauce of nostalgia drowning it all. From ages 7-17 I lived through the '80s, and I thought the worship of everything '80s goes very overboard. As a media geek, science fiction fan, and fanfiction reader/writer online, I can say that what's presented here isn't the inevitable result of playing with media properties: I've seen a lot of originality from fan writers/artists/vidders and many of them transcending the original material at times.
Although summaries suggest that this book is partly about the importance of not neglecting reality in favor of a virtual existence, that plot thread only rarely shows up and doesn't get much headway.
Ready Player One is an okay read.