In the dystopian near-future of Ernest Cline’s Ready Player One, a high-stakes online video game contest holds the key to lift 18-year-old Wade Watts out of poverty and isolation and make him a multi-billionaire, but first he must fend off unscrupulous competitors willing to resort to blackmail and murder to reach the top of the high scores. Ready Player One explores how fantasy and technology can foster meaningful human connections, allowing the friendless and awkward to find a place to belong, while also examining how those who delve too deeply into realms of fantasy run the risk of losing touch with the larger world.
Ready Player One depicts a world in a state of collapse; slum towns and refugee camps cluster around American cities as economic crisis forces millions from their homes, and indentured servitude awaits those who fall into debt. One of the few sources of solace in this world is OASIS, the online virtual reality that has replaced the Internet as a tool for entertainment, education, and commerce. When the creator of OASIS dies, he wills control of the network and his multi-billion dollar company to the person who can solve the hidden puzzles he left buried in his game world.
Each character approaches the contest with a different motive. For Wade and his best friend Aech, competing gives them the means to move up in the world and prove themselves as hardcore gamers. For Wade’s crush, the high-profile gaming blogger Art3mis, winning the competition would give her the resources necessary to remedy the poverty and injustice she sees around her. For their enemies, the employees of Innovative Online Industries, victory means taking control of OASIS, consolidating their media empire, and gaining a chokehold on the world’s flow of information. As Wade and his friends fight the corruption of Innovative Online Industries, they come to realize that saving the world in real life is much harder than in a video game.
I read Ready Player One cover-to-cover in one day, immersing myself in the book as fully as Wade and his friends immerse themselves in the game. I recommend Ready Player One to any geek who wants to log into an exhilarating story as rich and intelligent as anything by Neal Stephenson or William Gibson, two of the science fiction literary heroes given homage in the book. Pick up Ready Player One and enter a fired-up virtual reality exposing the best and worst of what the future has to offer.