At once wildly original and stuffed with irresistible nostalgia, READY PLAYER ONE is a spectacularly genre-busting, ambitious, and charming debut—part quest novel, part love story, and part virtual space opera set in a universe where spell-slinging mages battle giant Japanese robots, entire planets are inspired by Blade Runner, and flying DeLoreans achieve light speed.
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.
A world at stake.
A quest for the ultimate prize.
Are you ready?
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Editorial Reviews
Amazon.com Review
Amazon Best Books of the Month, August 2011: Ready Player One takes place in the not-so-distant future--the world has turned into a very bleak place, but luckily there is OASIS, a virtual reality world that is a vast online utopia. People can plug into OASIS to play, go to school, earn money, and even meet other people (or at least they can meet their avatars), and for protagonist Wade Watts it certainly beats passing the time in his grim, poverty-stricken real life. Along with millions of other world-wide citizens, Wade dreams of finding three keys left behind by James Halliday, the now-deceased creator of OASIS and the richest man to have ever lived. The keys are rumored to be hidden inside OASIS, and whoever finds them will inherit Halliday’s fortune. But Halliday has not made it easy. And there are real dangers in this virtual world. Stuffed to the gills with action, puzzles, nerdy romance, and 80s nostalgia, this high energy cyber-quest will make geeks everywhere feel like they were separated at birth from author Ernest Cline.--Chris Schluep
Guest Reviewer: Daniel H. Wilson on Ready Player One by Earnest Cline |
I dare you not to fall in love with Ready Player One. And I mean head over heels in love--the way you fall for someone who is smart, feisty, and who can effortlessly finish your favorite movie lines, music lyrics, or literature quotes before they come out of your mouth.
Ready Player One expertly mines a copious vein of 1980s pop culture, catapulting the reader on a light-speed adventure in an advanced but backward-looking future.
The story is set in a near-term future in which the new, new form of the Internet is a realistic virtual multi-verse called the OASIS. Most human interaction takes place via goggles and gloves in millions of unique worlds, including the boring (and free) “public education” world from which our teenage protagonist must escape.
Our unlikely hero is an overweight trailer park kid who goes by Wade Watts in real life, and “Parzival” to his best friends and mortal enemies--all of whom he interacts with virtually. Just like the Arthurian knight that is his namesake, young Wade is on a quest for an incredible treasure guarded by mythical creatures. Specifically, the creator of the OASIS and richest man on the planet, James Halliday, stipulated in his will that his fortune be given to the first person who can find an “Easter egg” hidden somewhere in the OASIS. The catch? Every devilishly complex clue on this treasure hunt is rooted in an intimate knowledge of 1980s pop culture.
This leaves the people of the future hilariously obsessed with every aspect of the 1980s. The setup is particularly brilliant, because Ernie Cline seems to have a laser-beam knowledge of (and warm, fuzzy love for) every pop song, arcade game, and giant robot produced in the last thirty years. Seriously, this is a guy who owns and regularly drives a 1982 DeLorean that has been mocked up to look exactly like the time-traveling car in Back to the Future, complete with a glowing flux capacitor.
But Ready Player One isn’t just a fanboy’s wet dream. Real villains are lurking, threatening our hero with death in their ruthless hunt for the treasure. Worse, these corporate baddies are posers with no love for the game – they have movie dialogue piped in via radio earpieces, use bots to cheat at arcade games like JOUST, and don’t hesitate to terrorize or murder people in the real world to achieve their aims inside the OASIS.
As the book climaxes, a mega-battle unfolds with sobering life-or-death stakes, yet soldiered entirely by exciting and downright fun pop-culture icons. The bad guys are piloting a ferocious Mechagodzilla. Our good guy has to leave his X-Wing fighter aboard his private flotilla so that he can pilot an authentic Ultraman recreation. And how do you not grin when someone dons a pair of virtual Chuck Taylor All Stars that bestow the power of flight?
Cline is fearless and he lets his imagination soar, yet this pop scenery could easily come off as so much fluff. Instead, Cline keeps the stakes high throughout, and the epic treasure hunt structure (complete with an evolving high-score list) keeps the action intense. The plot unfolds with constant acceleration, never slowing down or sagging in the middle, to create a thrilling ride with a fulfilling ending.
Best of all, the book captures the aura of the manifold worlds it depicts. If Ready Player One were a living room, it would be wood-panelled. If it were shoes, it would be high-tops. And if it were a song, well, it would have to be Eye of the Tiger.
I really, really loved it.
-- Daniel H. Wilson
Questions for Ernest Cline, Author of Ready Player One
Q) So it seems you’re a bit of a pop-culture buff. In your debut novel Ready Player One you incorporate literally hundreds of pop culture references, many of them in ways that are integral to the book’s plot. What’s the first thing you remember geeking out over?
A) Sesame Street and the Muppets. I thought Jim Henson ruled the universe. I even thought it was pretty cool that I shared my first name with a muppet. Until the first day of kindergarten, when I quickly learned that "Ernie" was not a cool name to have. That was about the time I segued into my next childhood obsession, Star Wars.
Q) Like the book’s hero, you possess a horrifyingly deep knowledge of a terrifyingly broad swathe of culture, ranging from John Hughes movies to super-obscure Japanese animation to 8-bit videogames to science-fiction and fantasy literature to role-playing games like Dungeons & Dragons. What the heck is wrong with you?! How do you have so much time on your hands?
A) Well, I’m raising a toddler now, so I don’t have as much time to geek out as I used to. I think I amassed a lot of that knowledge during my youth. Like most geeks, I was a sponge for all kinds of movies, TV shows, cartoons, and video games. Then as an adult, I worked at a long series of low paying tech support jobs that allowed me to surf the Internet all day, and I spent a lot of my cubicle time looking up obscure pop culture minutiae from my childhood while I waited for people to reboot their PCs. Of course, I spent most of my off hours geeking out, too. Luckily, all those hours can now be classified as "research" for my novel.
Q) You’re stranded on an island and you can only take one movie with you. What is it?
A) Easy! The Lord of the Rings Extended Edition. (Can I take all of the DVD Extras and Making of Documentaries, too?)
Q) You’re given free tickets and back stage passes to one concert (artist can be living or dead)- who is it and why?
A) Are we talking about time travel back to a specific concert in the past here? Because it would be pretty cool to stand on the roof of Apple Records and watch the Beatles jam up there. But my favorite rock band that’s still together is RUSH, and I just bought tickets to see them this June!
Q) Favorite book of all time.
A) That’s an impossible question! I could maybe give you three favorites: Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson, Galapagos by Kurt Vonnegut, and The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams.
Q) Best failed TV show pilot available on Youtube?
A) The unaired Batgirl pilot starring Yvonne Craig.
Q) Favorite episode of Cowboy Bebop?
A) “Ganymede Elegy.” Or maybe “Boogie Woogie Feng Shui.”
Q) What’s the first arcade game you ever played? What’s your favorite?
A) I was deflowered by Space Invaders. My all time favorite coin-op game was probably Black Tiger.
Q) Your idea of the perfect day...
A) Play Black Tiger. Then go see Big Trouble in Little China at the Alamo Drafthouse with Kurt Russell and John Carpenter doing a live Q&A afterwards. When I get home that night, I accidentally invent a cheap abundant clean energy source that saves human civilization. I celebrate by staying up late to watch old Ultraman episodes with my daughter (who loves Ultraman even more than I do).
Q) True or False. We hear you own a DeLorean and that you plan on tricking it out to be a time-travelling, Ghostbusting, Knight-Rider car.
A) False. I actually plan on tricking it out to be a time-traveling Ghostbusting Knight Riding Jet Car. It’s going to have both a Flux Capacitor and an Oscillation Overthruster in it, so that my Delorean can travel through time AND solid matter. My personalized plates are ECTO88, just like a DeLorean that appears in my book.
(I’m so glad that you asked this question, because now I can justify buying the car as a "promotional tool" for my book. Everyone reading this is a witness! My DeLorean is helping me promote my book! The fact that I’ve wanted one since I was ten years old is totally irrelevant!)
Q) Speaking of DeLoreans: biggest plot hole in the Back to The Future Films?
A) The Back to The Future Trilogy is perfect and contains no plot holes! Except for the plot hole inherent in nearly all time travel films: The planet Earth is moving through space at an immense speed at all times. So if you travel back in time, you are traveling to a time when the Earth was in a different location, and you and your time machine would appear somewhere out in deep space. For a time machine to be useful, it also needs to be able to teleport you to wherever the Earth was/is at your destination time.
Q) But there are two DeLoreans in 1885--why doesn’t Doc dig out the one he buried in a cave for Marty to find in 1955 and use the gasoline from it to get the other DeLorean up to 88mph?
A) Doc would have drained the gas tank before he stored a car for 80 years, so there wouldn’t have been any gas. And tampering with the DeLorean in the cave at all could conceivably create a universe-ending paradox, because it has to be in the cave for Marty to get back to 1885 in the first place. Totally not a plot hole!
Review
“The science-fiction writer John Scalzi has aptly referred to READY PLAYER ONE as a “nerdgasm” [and] there can be no better one-word description of this ardent fantasy artifact about fantasy culture…But Mr. Cline is able to incorporate his favorite toys and games into a perfectly accessible narrative.”—Janet Maslin, The New York Times
“Triggers memories and emotions embedded in the psyche of a generation...[Cline crafts] a fresh and imaginative world from our old toy box, and finds significance in there among the collectibles. A-”—Entertainment Weekly
“A most excellent ride…the conceit is a smart one, and we happily root for [the heroes] on their quest…fully satisfying.”—Boston Globe
“Enchanting…Willy Wonka meets the Matrix. This novel undoubtedly qualifies Cline as the hottest geek on the planet right now. [But] you don't have to be a geek to get it.”—USA Today
“Ridiculously fun and large-hearted, and you don't have to remember the Reagan administration to love it…[Cline] takes a far-out premise and engages the reader instantly…You'll wish you could make it go on and on.”—NPR.org
“A fun, funny and fabulously entertaining first novel…This novel's large dose of 1980s trivia is a delight…[but] even readers who need Google to identify Commodore 64 or Inky, Blinky, Pinky and Clyde, will enjoy this memorabilian feast.”—Cleveland Plain Dealer
“The grown-up's 'Harry Potter’…the mystery and fantasy in this novel weaves itself in the most delightful way, and the details that make up Mr. Cline's world are simply astounding. READY PLAYER ONE has it all.”—Huffington Post
“Incredibly entertaining…Drawing on everything from "Back to the Future" to Roald Dahl to Neal Stephenson's groundbreaking "Snow Crash," Cline has made READY PLAYER ONE a geek fantasia, '80s culture memoir and commentary on the future of online behavior all at once.”—Austin American-Statesman
"READY PLAYER ONE is the ultimate lottery ticket."—New York Daily News
"This non-gamer loved every page of READY PLAYER ONE."—Charlaine Harris, #1 New York Times bestselling author of the Sookie Stackhouse series
“A treasure for anyone already nostalgic for the late 20th century. . . But it’s also a great read for anyone who likes a good book.”—Wired.com
“Gorgeously geeky, superbly entertaining, this really is a spectacularly successful debut.”—Daily Mail (UK)
“A gunshot of fun with a wicked sense of timing and a cast of characters that you're pumping your fist in the air with whenever they succeed. I haven't been this much on the edge of my seat for an ending in years.”—Chicago Reader
“A rollicking, surprise-laden, potboiling, thrilling adventure story…. I loved every sentence of this book”—Mark Frauenfelder, BoingBoing
"A 'frakking' good read [featuring] incredible creative detail…I grinned at the sheer audacity of Cline's imagination.”—Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
“[A] fantastic page-turner….READY PLAYER ONE may be science fiction, but it's also written for people who have never picked up an SF novel in their lives…"—Annalee Newitz, io9.com
"Fascinating and imaginative…It's non-stop action when gamers must navigate clever puzzles and outwit determined enemies in a virtual world in order to save a real one. Readers are in for a wild ride."—Terry Brooks, #1 New York Times bestselling author of the Shannara series
“I was blown away by this book…A book of ideas, a potboiler, a game-within-a-novel, a serious science-fiction epic, a comic pop culture mash-up–call this novel what you will, but READY PLAYER ONE will defy every label you try to put on it. Here, finally, is this generation’s Neuromancer.”—Will Lavender, New York Times bestselling author of Dominance
“I really, really loved READY PLAYER ONE…Cline expertly mines a copious vein of 1980s pop culture, catapulting the reader on a light-speed adventure in an advanced but backward-looking future.”— Daniel H. Wilson, New York Times bestselling author of Robopocalypse
“A nerdgasm…imagine Dungeons and Dragons and an 80s video arcade made hot, sweet love, and their child was raised in Azeroth.”—John Scalzi, New York Times bestselling author of Old Man’s War
“Completely fricking awesome...This book pleased every geeky bone in my geeky body. I felt like it was written just for me.”—Patrick Rothfuss, #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Wise Man’s Fear
“An exuberantly realized, exciting, and sweet-natured cyber-quest. Cline’s imaginative and rollicking coming-of-age geek saga has a smash-hit vibe.”—Booklist, starred review
"This adrenaline shot of uncut geekdom, a quest through a virtual world, is loaded with enough 1980s nostalgia to please even the most devoted John Hughes fans… sweet, self-deprecating Wade, whose universe is an odd mix of the real past and the virtual present, is the perfect lovable/unlikely hero.”—Publishers Weekly, Pick of the Week
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
107 of 126 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
This is going to be on my best of the year list,
By
This review is from: Ready Player One (Hardcover)
Customer review from the Amazon Vine™ Program (What's this?)
Brief summary and review, no spoilers.The year is 2044 and the world is an unpleasant and grim place. Famine and poverty are rampant, and to escape the bleakness of real life most people choose to instead enter the world of OASIS. Let me explain OASIS - this is a virtual world that is very elaborate and realistic,and it contains multiple planets and landscapes. It was created in main part by a man named James Halliday, the ultimate lonely computer geek, who was obsessed with the 1980's. Halliday died some time before the start of this story but had stated in his will that his vast fortune would go to the person who could find three magical keys hidden in OASIS, pass the portals associated with them, and then find the ultimate prize - the hidden egg. Over the years many people have searched for these magic keys and gates but none have prevailed. Those who search call themselves gunters. Also at play is a villainess corporation called IOI led by a man named Sorrento - who's agents searching for the egg are called Sixers. The main protagonist of this story is an 18 year old named Wade Watts. Wade lives in abject poverty with his uncaring and cruel aunt. Because Wade's life is so grim, like so many others he spends almost all of his time in OASIS. It's where he goes to school and it's in OASIS where he meets his friends - avatars named Aech and Art3mis. Because everyone he meets via OASIS is an avatar, it's hard for anyone to distinguish friend from foe. Because of his real world lack of money and help, Wade has few powers and weapons for his avatar (which he named Parzival, a takeoff of Percival the Knight which was already taken.) Even with this disadvantage, because of his intelligence and his obsession with anything Halliday or 80's related he is able to figure out how to find the first key - the copper one, and figures out how to pass that first gate. The race is on, with other gunters and the Sixers in hot pursuit. The future of OASIS is at risk because Sorrento intends to start charging money for the use of OASIS, which would keep so many offline and unable to access it. And this competition poses real life dangers for the players as well. This is really a quest novel in the grand tradition of great fantasy literature. We have obstacles to overcome and evil-doers to defeat, and "magic," albeit computer generated, along the way.. There is plenty of action in this book and you will be turning the pages eagerly to read what happens next. One of the (many) things that makes this book so wonderful are all the 80's references, especially to the video games and music and movies that so many of us fondly remember. Note - don't worry if you weren't or aren't a big video game player or don't remember a lot about the 80's - if you are it might only add to your enjoyment of this novel but anyone can follow along. The story is both innovative and old-fashioned and it should appeal to anyone who loves to lose themselves inside a good novel. At heart, this is a book for anyone who has ever felt like an outsider or a geek, and for those of us who love to read. I haven't fallen in love with a book like this in a long time and I hope it gets the recognition and readership that it deserves. As an added plus, and without giving away any spoilers, there is an interesting twist of sorts at the end, that poses an ethical dilemma for anyone wielding power over OASIS. Highly recommended. Just a magical book with a cast of characters that you will really care about. Even though this takes place in the year 2044, the sense of nostalgia and the world created will take you back in time to the way you felt when you were 18. I promise.
28 of 35 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Ever had a book you didn't want to end?,
By
This review is from: Ready Player One (Hardcover)
Well I couldn't stop reading this one if I were a gunter heading for the third gate. I didn't want it to end but I couldn't stop reading it either.Do you remember a time when microwaves or CD's didn't exist? Floppy disks were floppy? When walkmans were cool? How about when Pac-man and Joust were the (edited) and you had to go to your local 7-11 or game room to play them?? Remember when you had to put your quarters up on the screen to get the next game and everybody stood around watching? This book brought back memories of that time. I've read the bad reviews. "No character development" "Same old plot" "Good guys vs Bad guys." For me, this brought back some vivid memories of sitting at a table with my D&D group. To have the visual of entering, virtually, a Gygax dungeon, holy (edited)! *bowing* "We're not worthy." It's almost too much for words on a personal level. I think that would be at the top of my g33k bucket list! Zork, my first true love of video games, when you had to create the scenery. (I can see the house and tree in my head vividly) I never beat it back then (I was 12 when my father and step mother introduced me to it and I was always getting kicked outside) but I own all versions of the game to this day. Cyndi Lauper,( "what time, I mean old Cyndi or now Cyn.." "Anytime Cyndi" Time After Time. I'm totally playing that at my wedding! I had all this running through my head as I lay in bed trying to fall asleep after two LATE nights and lack of sleep. While being drowsy at work, all I wanted to do was pick up this book or call off sick so I could immerse myself in this tribute to a childhood (now not forgotten). I HOPE I did this book some justice. I felt it was the least I could do. BTW I found your book by a plug on Patrick Rothfuss' blog (herein refered to as Art3mis cuz he's witty like that:) This is the first review I've ever written and am proud to do so! Thank you so much Mr. Cline! I feel forever in your debt This one's for all the nerds, g33ks and phreaks out there! You know (who) you are ;;)
7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Ready Player One is a fantastic '80's geek epic,
By
Amazon Verified Purchase(What's this?)
This review is from: Ready Player One (Audio CD)
Ready Player One, Ernest Cline's 2011 debut novel, is set in the grim future of 2044, where economic collapse and energy shortages make life unbearable. Or, at least, part of it is. In this dystopian future, most people spend their days connected to the OASIS, an online virtual world where people can forget their troubles and be whoever they want to be while exploring thousands of exotic planets. Several years before the story begins, James Halliday, the eccentric creator of the OASIS who was obsessed with the 1980's of his youth, dies, leaving behind a message that the first person to solve his cryptic riddles and find a hidden easter egg he's left in the OASIS would win his huge personal fortune and control of Halliday's company, Gregarious Simulation Systems.Our hero, Wade Watts - or, as he's known in the OASIS, Parzival (Percival was taken) - is an 18 year old who has only known misery in the real world, but has spent five years hunting Halliday's easter egg and mastering every bit of obscure '80's trivia he can find to try to solve Halliday's obscure clues. Parzival's friends Aech (mentor and best buddy), Art3mis (rival and love interest), Daito and Shoto (a pair from Japan working as a team) are also gunters (as the egg hunters are known), and become his friendly competition. The unfriendly competition comes from Innovative Online Industries, led by the ruthless Nolan Sorrento. IOI and their hordes of corporate lackeys known as Sixers are also looking for the egg, so that they can rule the OASIS and "monetize" it properly. Monthly fees, advertising everywhere, an end to the guaranteed anonymity of the OASIS - it would be an end to life as Wade's generation knows it, and IOI will stop at nothing to reach the egg first and make it a reality. The novel is filled to the brim with '80's references from film, television, video games, books, Dungeons & Dragons, and more, and anyone who grew up in that era will appreciate many of them. Cline does a great job of explaining them so that even if you don't have the trivia mastery Parzival does, you can keep up, and he makes it entertaining. I was born in 1978 (or, to put in Ready Player One terms, my first video game system was an Intellivision, but I spent way more time playing on the NES), while the fictional Halliday and the real Cline and Wheaton were all born in 1972, so there are a few references to the really early '80's I wasn't initially familiar with, but it didn't slow me down. As fun as the fantastic voyages into the OASIS are, Cline does a great job of keeping the action in the real world important and exciting. Parzival finding the hidden keys, leveling up, and getting epic gear are very well done and entertaining, but the heart of the book is Wade's story and his personal growth and the struggle to juggle his quest for the egg and the need to survive and make personal connections in the real world. Those were the parts that really made me think (as I sit here typing the review to post in the internet - yes, I'm aware of the irony). Actor, writer, and geek Wil Wheaton narrates the book, and he does a fantastic job. His characterization of Wade/Parzival and his friends and rivals really makes the story come alive. You can tell that Wheaton loves the material as much as Cline and Parzival, and experienced it himself as he perfectly renders all the movie quotes and classic video game sound effects of the era. Truly, I cannot think of another audiobook narrator who could nail the Pac-Man death bwoop like Wil does. This is one of those rare combinations of book and audio narrator that really adds another level of enjoyment to the experience. Ready Player One is one of the best books I've read this year, and it has definitely put Cline on my radar as an author to watch. The film rights have been sold and Cline (who is also a scriptwriter) is working on the script. I'd love to see Ready Player One on the big screen. In the meantime, I heartily recommend you read Ready Player One, and if you are an audio book fan, definitely listen to it and enjoy Wheaton's fantastic performance. The only thing that would have improved the book for me would be if Parzival was a descendent of Erdrick.
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