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Ready, Player One by Ernest Cline
May. 29th, 2013 11:23 pmThe Blurb On The Back:
Imagine the WORLD AT STAKE.
An EPIC STRUGGLE between good and evil.
The GREATEST QUEST in history.
The FATE OF HUMANITY resting in your hands.
ARE YOU READY?
It’s the year 2044, and the real world has become an ugly place. We’re out of oil. We’ve wrecked the climate. Famine, poverty and disease are widespread.
Like most of humanity, Wade Watts escapes this depressing reality by spending his waking hours jacked into the OASIS, a sprawling virtual utopia where you can be anything you want to be, where you can live and play and fall in love on any of ten thousand planets. And like most of humanity, Wade is obsessed by the ultimate lottery ticket that lies concealed within this alternate reality: OASIS founder James Halliday, who dies with no heir, has promised that control of the OASIS – and his massive fortune – will go to the person who can solve the riddles he has left scattered throughout his creation.
For years, millions have struggled fruitlessly to attain this prize, knowing only that the riddles are based on Halliday’s obsession with 80s pop culture. And then Wade stumbles onto the key to the first puzzle. Suddenly, he finds himself pitted against thousands of competitors in a desperate race to claim the ultimate prize, a chase that soon takes on terrifying real world dimensions – and that will leave both Wade and his world profoundly changed.
( The Review (Cut For Spoilers): )
The Verdict:
Ernest Cline’s debut SF novel is a WILLY WONKA meets THE MATRIX riff on the classic fantasy quest novel. It’s a pacey read, the world building’s solid and I enjoyed the 80s nostalgia (albeit some of it is fairly obscure), but the characters felt underdeveloped and it relies on exposition which at times it felt like I was reading a computer game walkthrough rather than a proper story.
An EPIC STRUGGLE between good and evil.
The GREATEST QUEST in history.
The FATE OF HUMANITY resting in your hands.
ARE YOU READY?
It’s the year 2044, and the real world has become an ugly place. We’re out of oil. We’ve wrecked the climate. Famine, poverty and disease are widespread.
Like most of humanity, Wade Watts escapes this depressing reality by spending his waking hours jacked into the OASIS, a sprawling virtual utopia where you can be anything you want to be, where you can live and play and fall in love on any of ten thousand planets. And like most of humanity, Wade is obsessed by the ultimate lottery ticket that lies concealed within this alternate reality: OASIS founder James Halliday, who dies with no heir, has promised that control of the OASIS – and his massive fortune – will go to the person who can solve the riddles he has left scattered throughout his creation.
For years, millions have struggled fruitlessly to attain this prize, knowing only that the riddles are based on Halliday’s obsession with 80s pop culture. And then Wade stumbles onto the key to the first puzzle. Suddenly, he finds himself pitted against thousands of competitors in a desperate race to claim the ultimate prize, a chase that soon takes on terrifying real world dimensions – and that will leave both Wade and his world profoundly changed.
( The Review (Cut For Spoilers): )
The Verdict:
Ernest Cline’s debut SF novel is a WILLY WONKA meets THE MATRIX riff on the classic fantasy quest novel. It’s a pacey read, the world building’s solid and I enjoyed the 80s nostalgia (albeit some of it is fairly obscure), but the characters felt underdeveloped and it relies on exposition which at times it felt like I was reading a computer game walkthrough rather than a proper story.
