Book Review: Ready Player One by Ernest Cline

When the illusion is preferable to reality, you'll do anything to protect the dream.

Ready Player One follows Wade Watts, a poor kid eking his way through life in what's left of the real world, as he joins others in the quest of all time: The Hunt for James Halliday's Easter Egg and a prize beyond his virtual dreams in the OASIS. Along the way, he makes online connections, avoids digital pitfalls, and gets his name on THE scoreboard to achieve what no one in the history of cyberspace has done before.

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It's not fair to base book reviews on the subsequent movie, so I won't do a comparison between the two. I saw the movie first. As a teen of the 1980s, I loved the movie with all the music and media references to the most socially awkward decade of my life. I enjoyed the book for different reasons, most specifically was seeing the OASIS through the eyes of a gamer.

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What I liked:

The book goes into great detail about the gaming and programming aspects of Wade's world. I believe those with roots in code would enjoy the book a little more than I did because they would understand the language utilized by those with a deeper understanding of computer language than myself. I also liked to see how the various elements of the author's easter egg hunt were different from the film adaptation.

I also had to giggle to myself when I realized Wade's full name, Wade Owen Watts, spelled WOW when he entered his initials on the scoreboards of the games he won in the challenges.

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What I didn't like:

​Not much. The two things that come to mind are based on personal preferences. The first is the profanity. I tend to gloss over it, but I'd still rather not see it used (especially the heavier terms). The second happened later in the book when Wade was holed up in an apartment and engaged in robot-facilitated personal stimulation. I didn't think it added to his character arc or the plot. Fortunately, it was brief and described in passing. However, I'd be hesitant to allow children under 18 from reading the book.

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Overall:

​I have Ready Player One by Ernest Cline a solid 4 stars for imagination and utilizing current technology to envision where it can take us as a civilization (for better and worse).

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Other Titles by Ernest Cline

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Also Available on Amazon!