Tuesday, June 7, 2016

Ernest Cline: Ready Player One

Ernest Cline takes readers to 2044 and introduces readers to the OASIS where people live their lives in a virtual world and the greatest treasure hunt is about to begin:

Wade Wilson is a gunther, which means he devotes all of his spare time in The OASIS (most people do trying to escape the poverty) and trying to find James Halliday Easter Egg, which would unlock the mass fortune that he has accumulated. Five years have done by since Halliday passed away and the first clue was give and it appeared that no one was closer to finding the first key. Until one day an teenage boy's name appears at the top of the scoreboard as having found the copper key. The race is on as Wade and other gunthers struggles to find the next keys to the Easter Egg, but there are those that will make the game deadly not only in the virtual world but in real life as well.

I did not expect to like this book as much as I did. I found I devoured it and was reading it every chance  I could. I think what I liked the most about this book is that it is a reality that I could see for our future. Not only this generation in a great recession but people live basically their entire lives online as an escape from it. There are already so many online games and worlds that people are a part of that, at times, consume their life and who they are. Online you can be whoever you want, look how ever you want and be a completely different person. The going to school in the online universe was also a cool aspect as it would allow those who do not live close to a school or have the inability to go to school to still learn and interact in that type of an environment.

Wade is an interesting character and he is ever devoted to his goal of finding the keys to Halliday's Easter Egg, so that he can change his own . He has this funny habit of siting all the 80s information that he states or talks about in the book, which I got used to the farther into the book and found it quite interesting.  Although Wade is a teenager in the novel and some of his life choices and decisions reflect this, I think it was his obsession with the 80s culture that made him seem older than he actually was. However, other than Wade being the narrator of this book, I never really felt much connection to him and I cannot pin point why (maybe it was due tot he fact he was the narrator which took some of the suspense away?).

This book is pure geek (which is awesome) at its best especially if you have a things for 80s pop culture or are a gamer with a love of older video games. The information that Cline has amassed in order to create not only the clue that Wade has to decode but the language that Wade uses as he tends to reference everything is outstanding. This created a unique voice and path for Wade to take throughout the book and you can tell that Cline had to do a lot of planning and researching to get it right as he probably knew there would be people out there that would let me know if he got is wrong. I think this was the one place where Cline lost me at times, as I was trying to figure out the clues as well, there was no way I had the knowledge to figure them out (other than the first clue which I found pretty obvious).

Ready Player One is one of my favourite reads so far this year. I loved the concept of this book and how true it could be in our future. I look forward to seeking out other books by Cline.

Enjoy!!!
If You Like This,
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http://j9books.blogspot.ca/2011/11/jonathan-maberry-patient-zero.html  http://j9books.blogspot.ca/2013/05/jason-m-hough-darwin-elevator.html  http://j9books.blogspot.ca/2015/06/matthew-reilly-great-china-zoo.html

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