Ready Player One
#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 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
- Pages
- 322
- First published
- August 16, 2011
- Language
- English
- Edition
- Ebook
Narrators (1)
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1 audiobook edition · 15 hr 40 min · en
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Shelved by 11 Litcadians
Reviews
Finished October 28, 2014
✔ Ready Player One by Ernest Cline (kindle own w/ iTunes audio) 4.5★ A synopsis in a net-shell, or at least one that some of my F2F friends have been able to understand. It's the 2040s and there is a computer machine that allows you to have the whole computer programmed virtual reality (the movie Wall-E but we're still on Earth, that's become a horrid environment and poor economically). The people use the "Oasis" virtual reality machine to escape their reality. Which sounds about what what we're doing right now. And the co-maker of the "Oasis" has died and left his money, company and the "Oasis" to the winner of a game he created within the "Oasis". So now everyone is playing a game within a game, but all the games, movies, etc, are from the 1980s (competition meets The Wizard 1989 movie). And then there is the big corporate company (IOI) that wants the "Oasis" and all of the billionaire's money (the Koch brothers). Now I mentioned the movie, The Wizard, because critics dubbed that movie as just one big Super Mario Brothers commercial. This book had a little feel of that. I think it's great that Ernest Cline went into such detail about all the video games (right down to the creator and company maker), movies and such all from the 1980s. But whenever Wade went on about the game or what he was doing in the game, I felt like I was back with my old friends that were addicted to video gaming. They'd go on and on and on about a video game. And a lot of times, the whole conversation would fly right by. So that's why I haven't given this a full 5 stars. I wouldn't have been able to get past all that if I hadn't also been listening to the audio by Will Wheaten. His accents were great. And they made the book's humorous parts even funnier. There is a lot of funny parts and Wade does mature and become less addicted to "gaming" and the "Oasis", which I really hoped he would. And this is a book that I'd see myself reading again, so I am keeping my kindle and iTunes purchases.
Started April 21, 2026 · Finished April 26, 2026
I thought this book had a very interesting concept and was an engaging read. I liked the way the characters all interacted with each other, namely the High Five, and enjoyed Wade’s narration style. This book is very geeky, which is not a bad thing, but it does tend to info-dump, which can be a lot at times. The way different games, movies, and media were implemented into the challenges was fascinating to me. It’s definitely a celebration of ‘80s pop culture, which I love, and found very amusing.
Started February 22, 2018 · Finished February 27, 2018
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