Ready Player One

Ready Player One
by Ernest Cline

In 2044 humanity has bled the world dry of fossil fuels and the majority of people live out their lives in OASIS, a completely immersive virtual world created by James Halliday. Halliday, who grow up during the 1980s let that decade inspire him in everything he did. In his last will Halliday reveals that he, in true video game fashion, has hidden an Easter egg behind three gates within OASIS. Whoever finds it first will receive Halliday's entire fortune and gain total ownership of his company — essentially a modern-day version of the deeds to Willy Wonka's chocolate factory. In the book we follow the young Wade Watts, a gunter (Egg Hunter) in his quest to find the Easter egg and protect OASIS from those who intend to control it for their own nefarious purposes. The limitless virtual world of OASIS is an unabashed love letter to 1980s culture and is ripe with geeky references to movies, music and literature and video games. Anyone who has ever pretended to fight with a light saber or played Dungeons & Dragons until sunrise will feel right at home here. As someone growing up in that decade, Ready Player One was a shot of pure gleeful nostalgia for me, but it can be enjoyed as a great story in its own right, even without getting all the cultural references Ernest Cline throws at the reader. If you prefer movies and video games to the written word, this is the one book you should read this year. -- recommended by Rasmus T. - temporary summer worker at Bennett Martin Public Library

[If you enjoy this, you may also wish to try Redshirts by John Scalzi.]

[Also available in downloadable audio and downloadable E-book formats.]

[ Publisher's official Ready Player One web site ] | [ official Ernest Cline web site (very creatively designed!!) ]

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