!!!Spoiler Warning!!! If you haven’t read this book yet, I give away some key spoilers!
Ready Player One
by Ernest Cline
Going outside is highly overrated.
This is a pretty epic book.
There’s just so much phenomenal world building that it’s difficult to see where to begin exactly.
Basically, this is a world in which everyone is plugged into virtual reality pretty much all the time. Inside the online world, there’s a puzzle left there by the creator, and the winner gets billions of dollars and the rights to the company.
Good deal.
Except the puzzle is so fiendishly difficult that six years later nobody has made any progress at all. Until, our hero, Wade, manages to work out the first clue.
Like winning the lottery, finding Halliday’s Easter egg became a popular fantasy among adults and children alike.
I think my main reasons for not enjoying the book as much as I could have were the simplicity of some of the clues. I don’t want to spoil the book for anyone here but, I mean, the first and last ones in particular were so simple I was just screaming at the book for someone to discover them. I find it impossible to believe that nobody in the world could have worked them out during the previous years.
You could log in and instantly escape the drudgery of your day-to-day life.
Then there’s the intensive amount of infodumping that makes up the majority of the book. I’ve got to admit, when the story was moving along, I loved it! But, most of the time it was just page after page of tedious explanation and clarifying everything in minute detail. I didn’t mind some bits, because, let’s face it, no reader is going to know the sheer amount of 80’s trivia needed for this novel, but it does get a little excessive.
Also, there really wasn’t much music trivia mentioned, was there? Plenty of movie and game stuff, but when Wade said his weakness was the music era, I expected that to have a bigger role than it did.
I didn’t think anyone would anticipate this move, because it was so clearly insane.
The characters were great. Got to admit, the surprise at the end really caught me out. Like I said, when the story was moving along it was epic. I liked that there was some growth between the characters, and didn’t so much mind the fact that Og sort of swooped in like a knight of olde. Parzival was a fantastic hero, and I really enjoyed following his story. He has all the foibles of a typical teenager, but with so much more on his plate at the same time. Great stuff!
In the OASIS, you could become whomever and whatever you wanted to be, without ever revealing your true identity, because your anonymity was guaranteed.
All in all, this wasn’t as good as Armada, but still had a really satisfying ending. I think it’s one of those books that everyone should read, because it is epic. It’s just super annoying in places.
CONGRATULATIONS!
YOU HAVE REACHED THE END!
READY PLAYER 1
Villain Rating
Obviously, Nolan Sorrento is the bad guy here. He’s the face of this huge corporation that want to win Halliday’s Egg so they can start charging everyone a user fee for the OASIS. They have thousands of people, weapons and vehicles at their disposal, and are known for putting forcefields around areas of interest to keep other players away. They basically make slaves out of their workforce, and are all around baddies.
Sorrento also doesn’t bat an eyelid at, not only threatening Wade’s life, but following through on those threats. He has Wade’s home blown up, and has one of the other players, Daito, killed. He’s ruthless in his pursuit, and willing to go to any lengths. But, he does talk consistently about his superiors, so perhaps he’s only as bad as they make him, right? I thought he made for an excellent villain. 7/10
Happy Reading,
Claire
Love the Villain 