Tuesday, January 3, 2012

Ready?

Ready for a high stakes contest with a multi-billion dollar payoff? Nostalgic tour of the 80’s? View of a future spent more on-line than IRL (in the real-world)? Geek coming-of-age/love story? David vs. Goliath battle? Puzzles?



You’ll love Ready Player One.

In the book, the reclusive video game designer James Halliday rocks the world when he dies: he offers his company and multibillion dollar fortune to the first person who can solve the puzzles and obtain the three keys hidden inside the OASIS. While life on earth in 2045 is pretty harsh, the refuge is the OASIS—Halliday’s vast virtual reality. Wade Watts grew up in the OASIS, his avatar going to school, buying goods and services, playing games, and meeting other people, well, avatars. And a huge subculture is born as millions search for Halliday’s prize. But years pass, and no one solves the first puzzle.

Wade plans to win the contest; he focuses on Halliday’s lifelong obsession with the 1980’s, and he doesn’t cut any corners researching. Films. TV episodes. Lyrics. Comic books. Video games. He stores information in his grail diary as possible clues for his quest—and then, as his avatar Parzival, he discovers the first key.

Parzival rockets to the top of Halliday’s contest scoreboard in OASIS, and the competition to win becomes fierce, even while the clues to the next puzzles become more difficult. Wade has to decide if he can go it alone--or join with other geeks--all while racing against the evil conglomerate bent on winning and subverting the OASIS to its own ends.

You don’t have to be a gamer to enjoy this book (but pass the book along to someone who is!). And you’ll definitely want to revisit your favorite 80’s TV shows and movies. I’d start with Wargames and Back to the Future, followed by the Star Wars trilogy (original, not prequel). How ‘bout you?

2 comments:

Unknown said...

Reading this now & can NOT put it down. What drew me in was the premise of the online scavenger hunt with the 80's theme having partially grown up in the 1980's. But what is as fascinating to me as the book progresses is the idea of the virtual reality world that most of the planet lives in 24/7 in lieu of the "real world". How far off are we from this or some type of this? Interesting and somewhat scary notions to ponder! So far I give this book an A+ and I'm only half way through!

Unknown said...

Reading this now & can NOT put it down. What drew me in was the premise of the online scavenger hunt with the 80's theme having partially grown up in the 1980's. But what is as fascinating to me as the book progresses is the idea of the virtual reality world that most of the planet lives in 24/7 in lieu of the "real world". How far off are we from this or some type of this? Interesting and somewhat scary notions to ponder! So far I give this book an A+ and I'm only half way through!