#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • Now a major motion picture directed by Steven Spielberg. “Enchanting . . . Willy Wonka meets The Matrix.”—USA Today • “As one adventure leads expertly to the next, time simply evaporates.”—Entertainment Weekly A world at stake. A quest for the ultimate prize. Are you ready? In the year 2045, reality is an ugly place. The only time Wade Watts really feels alive is … the year 2045, reality is an ugly place. The only time Wade Watts really feels alive is when he’s jacked into the OASIS, a vast virtual world where most of humanity spends their days.
When the eccentric creator of the OASIS dies, he leaves behind a series of fiendish puzzles, based on his obsession with the pop culture of decades past. Whoever is first to solve them will inherit his vast fortune—and control of the OASIS itself.
Then Wade cracks the first clue. Suddenly he’s beset by rivals who’ll kill to take this prize. The race is on—and the only way to survive is to win.
NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY Entertainment Weekly • San Francisco Chronicle • Village Voice • Chicago Sun-Times • iO9 • The AV Club
“Delightful . . . the grown-up’s Harry Potter.”—HuffPost
“An addictive read . . . part intergalactic scavenger hunt, part romance, and all heart.”—CNN
“A most excellent ride . . . Cline stuffs his novel with a cornucopia of pop culture, as if to wink to the reader.”—Boston Globe
“Ridiculously fun and large-hearted . . . Cline is that rare writer who can translate his own dorky enthusiasms into prose that’s both hilarious and compassionate.”—NPR
“[A] fantastic page-turner . . . starts out like a simple bit of fun and winds up feeling like a rich and plausible picture of future friendships in a world not too distant from our own.”—iO9
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I was told about this book I was very interested to give it a try. It didn’t take me very long to get hooked. After a certain point, the pace of the story quickens and doesn’t let up until the end. I found myself compelled to keep up with the story, I really never wanted the book to end. I’ll definitely be checking out the writer’s next book, Armada.
Way outside my usual genre but this book was recommended to me by my son & I thoroughly enjoyed it. I’m not a gamer but I found the story easily accessible. I was fully invested in the hunt or the egg and loved all the 80s references.
A fun read with some interesting insights.
It is a very good book that is hard to put down.
If you’re a kid of the 70s or 80s, this will tickle all the gamer feelz in you immediately. If you’re not, it will still pull you into its world until you’re rooting for Parzival and the High Five on their quest for the three keys!
It was a fascinating idea brought to life in an adventure with lots of action.
This book was so much fun & had incredible world building. I’m not a huge video game person and still very much appreciated the world and the game — the creativity goes much deeper than only appealing the people who enjoy video games from the 80s.
I think I might be hooked on audiobooks for in my car and when I’m walking. Anyway, let me just say that I LOVED this book! I can’t explain how much I enjoyed it. It was narrated by Wil Wheaton, a fact that I loved, especially in the chapter where they talk about Wil Wheaton being vice president of the online virtual reality world, Oasis.
So, the main character is Wade, or as his avatar goes by in the Oasis, Parzival. The year is 2044, and the world has been given the ultimate Easter Egg hunt by THE technology computer giant, James Halliday. When he died, he left all of his money and control of the Oasis to whoever found the egg at the end of the quest. Wade has been looking for it for five years, since Halliday’s death. The people who search for the egg, are called gunters, which is short for egg hunters. Wade doesn’t have a great life in the real world. His parents are dead, and he lives in a trailer, stacked very high up on other trailers. But he doesn’t live alone, no, there is his aunt, and her boyfriend, and like 16 or more other people living in just one trailer home. And there are stacks and stacks of these trailer homes. This is how the world has come to be in the time after fossil fuels have kind of been depleted. The Oasis is a great place, because it is free to anyone. You just have to have the goggles to get in. Now to get from world to world, or to have special things for your avatar, that does take money. But that’s okay. You can earn money through quests. Which is what Wade has to do, since his checks go to his aunt, who wastes them on drugs and things. The gunters have one big enemy, the Sixers, who are part of a large corporation. If they win, everyone knows that they will make it so that the Oasis is no longer free, and that there is no privacy, like there is now.
Well, one day Wade/Parzival figures out the first clue, and goes to find the first key. He finds it, and is able to achieve what he needs to take it. But on his way out, he runs into another gunter, a girl named Art3mis. A girl that he’s had a crush on from watching her Oasis channel and reading her blog. She admits that she’s been coming for a while, and when she finds out he beat it in one night, she’s a bit irritated with him. He gives her one tip. He takes off to reach the first gate. He sees that soon she’s also got the key, as they show up on a Scoreboard that everyone has been watching since the first announcement of the contest. Of course soon his best friend in the Oasis, H as the audio book said it, but I didn’t read so I guess it is actually “Aech” in the book, also gets the key. Then there are two Japanese boys, brothers, kind of, who get the key. Finally, the sixers swarm in and fill up the next so many spots on the Leaderboard. The book is all about these top five gunters search for the three keys, and gates, to find the egg and win. Along the way they will have to deal with the sixers, who are murderous as well as cheaters. There will be loss of friends, some romance, and as I kind of mentioned, deaths, along the way.
I loved all the 80s references. While I was never a big video game player. I did play PacMan and other games mentioned, I mean I grew up in the 80s, it’s what you did! And all the movies and tv shows. Family Ties, Ladyhawke, Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, Monty Python’s Holy Grail, School House Rock, and I could probably go on and on. The only thing I feel was left out, was the Smurfs and Scooby Doo Saturday morning cartoons. As I said before, I just cannot express how much I loved this book. I know it is supposed to be made into a movie. And I hope if they do, that they are able to leave as much of the nostalgia stuff in as possible. And too bad Wil Wheaton is too old, I totally pictured Wade as him since he was narrating. You basically know how it is going to end based on something said at the beginning, but it is still so exciting and nail biting as you listen and wonder how in the world it will actually turn out that way. There is a sequel, and I have the ARC of it, but I kinda want to listen to the sequel, especially if Wil Wheaton reads it as well.
I can not explain how glad I was to be recommended this book by my friends. This book in my opinion is one of, if not the best book I have read in a long time. The story is placed in the year 2045 and is full of poverty due to the world’s energy crisis. It is about an 18 year old boy named Wade Watts that lives in a place called the stacks. Wade and his friends H, Art3mis, Daito, and Shoto spend most of their time in the virtual world called the OASIS. The OASIS is a virtual reality game created by James Halliday, a world renowned video game creator. The OASIS serves as an escape from the real world for people all around the world. Due to the games popularity Halliday acquired a huge amount of money. Although Halliday was a very successful creator, he had no remaining family or friends. When he died, he had no one to give his money to so he created an Easter egg in the OASIS and set it up to where the first person to find the egg would get all of his wealth. This egg is very well hidden and takes a person with extreme knowledge of the 1980’s to solve it. Wade became the first person to find the first step to unlocking the egg. Wade or his friends must find the Easter egg first before IOI, a corrupt company trying to take control of the OASIS, so they race against the clock and many real world enemies to try and find the egg first and collect the multiple billion dollars in prize money that comes along with the ownership of the OASIS. I gave this book 5 start because of the amazing plot and subplots that Mr. Cline created. I always found myself on the edge of my seat because of the nonstop action and surreal world that was created for this book. I personally loved this book and would recommend this to anyone even if they had no knowledge about 1980’s pop culture.
I loved Ready Player One. It was very creative and fun especially with all the references to 80s and 90s pop culture. I laughed out loud several times reliving my childhood in this crazy tale of virtual world easter egg hunting. Where else are you going to find references to Miss Pacman, 80s pop music, TV shows, and movies in one book? It was really brilliant.
The audiobook was narrated by Wil Wheaton who was absolutely perfect for this book. This was the second book I had listened narrated by him (the first being LOCK IN by John Scalzi) and I’m sure I will look for other books narrated by Mr. Wheaton in the future. He has the perfect voice for audiobooks. I just love him.
I really enjoyed listening to this audiobook. I’ve already watched the movie at this point, so I found it fun to kind of follow along with the plot of this story for the most part. This was a very nostalgic experience for me, and I’ve already been a gamer since my experiences with the Atari, so I was able to get most of the tech and video game references.
The audiobook is narrated by Wil Wheaton, and the experience of listening to this track could have only been improved a bit if the talents of George Takei had been included to read for the parts that involved Daito and Shoto. However, I found listening to this audiobook a wonderful experience, and finished it up in only 3 days. 🙂
If you choose to take on this journey across the vast Oasis, IT’S DANGEROUS TO GO ALONE! TAKE THIS (sword)…and get ready for the hefty bit of geekdom set before you. If you are a fan of video gaming in any aspect, and you enjoy dystopian reads, you will probably enjoy reading this book. It involves a grand quest, danger (drat those sixers), epic adventure, tragedy and a bit of romance.
A vocal minority of literary snobs dismiss this one as overrated, but for an 80’s raised pop culture fanatic and contemporary gamer, it’s as if this was written just for me. Cline carpet-bombs his work with Generation X-targeted references both classic and obscure. But this one isn’t just for the 40-somethings that want to look back on what they see as the glory days of entertainment and media, as Wade Watts’ near-future world revolves around a virtual reality realm called the OASIS, portending an all-too-likely future for America. Read the book, then see the movie.
4.5 stars to be exact, but I still loved this book so let’s round up. I know people say not to but I still judge a book by its cover and it’s description. In this book I was unsure because it mostly revolved around video games, and I’m not that much of a gamer. However I was pleasantly surprised by how wonderful this book was. It contained a lot of suspense much similar to the book Nerve by Jeanne Ryan. Even if you didn’t like that book I would still highly recommend reading this one. I felt it contains everything history, dystopian, fiction, romance, suspense, and of course an epic final battle. (We all know every book has to have).
My favorite sci-fi book!
My faith in humanity and the universe is at least temporarily restored when a book lives up to the hyperbole. READY PLAYER ONE, in my opinion, fully achieves that. A clever idea beautifully executed, filled with lush, loving detail that drives the story along instead of bogging it down.
Yet in one way I rather hate this book: I was working on a similar story and was forced to toss it in the trash can by the brilliance of this novel. So it’s kind of a love-hate relationship. Still, I loved every moment of READY PLAYER ONE and was sad when it was done.
Great sci-fi dystopian piece with griity realaitic detail and likable characters. Set in a future that could be, where advanced technology in the form of virtual school, and deep poverty co-exist. Bleak but at the same time, uplifting. I hope the movie does it justice!
This book reminded me a lot of Ender’s Game but it also has a character all of its own because of all the 80’s references and trivia. For any one born between 1968 and 1975 this book is one of the most entertaining reads in a long time. No wonder the book was picked up for a movie version even before it was published.
I’ve been on a sci-fi kick lately, and when I heard this was being made into a movie, I figured I’d give it a try. It did not disappoint. I had no idea what I was expecting, but I didn’t know it would have so many ’80’s references. I’m old so it was fun to read. Oh and there was plenty of action. I can’t wait to see the movie.
best book i’ve read in a long time. loved it.
So Amazing! I think people would love this book even if they weren’t children of the 80s. They might not get ALL the inside jokes but the story itself would stand alone.
If you’re a sci-fi fan, gamer and a child of the 80s, you are going to just LOVE this book! I read it twice just to get all of the 80’s nostalgia I may have missed during the first read.