I hesitated to read this book by Ernest Cline when it first came out. I saw everyone giving it rave reviews, but the title and concept made me think this was a book for gamers. I’m not a gamer, so I didn’t think this book was right for me.
A friend I trust told me I was wrong. The book certainly has a lot of gaming elements in it, but it’s not necessary to be a gamer to enjoy the book. So I added it to my to read list.
A couple weeks ago I saw they had announced Spielberg is going to direct the film version of Ready Player One, so I hastily moved it to the top of my very very long to read list.
I’m so glad I did. It’s the kind of book that made me want to read it in one sitting. It’s a little too long for that and I had some things I needed to get done, so I didn’t actually get the luxury of reading this book in one go, but I wish I had. I was totally absorbed by it until I finished.
The book is basically about this kid (Wade, whose avatar name is Parzival) playing one giant videogame in the year 2044. This super genius, named James Halliday, invented a series of videogames that were extremely popular and made him super rich. Then he and his company built the Ontologically Anthropocentric Sensory Immersive Simmulation (OASIS), which is basically a giant interactive videogame. It’s divided into different sectors, which contain different worlds. Being entirely digital, the worlds aren’t limited in what they can be, so there’s really something for everyone.
There are worlds based on the universes of Star Trek, Firefly, The Lord of the Rings, everything you can think of. There are nightclub worlds where it is always night. In other worlds, it’s always day. There are worlds for business and entertainment and school. Not everyone uses the OASIS as a videogame, but almost everyone uses it for work, business, shopping, entertainment, etc. Just about every book, movie, videogame, and TV series is available in the OASIS, and if it’s been out a while, it’s free.
When Halliday dies, he doesn’t have any family or friends to leave his fortune to, so he broadcasts an announcement to everyone in the OASIS that he has hidden an Easter Egg in the OASIS. You have to find three keys to open three gates and there are clues along the way to try to point you in the right direction. The one who completes the quest and finds the Easter Egg first will inherit Halliday’s fortune and ownership of the OASIS.
The problem is the clues are really vague, and as perviously mentioned, the OASIS is HUGE! It’s like trying to find a needle in a million haystacks. Halliday gives the first clue in this video that gets sent to everyone and of course everyone tries to find the Easter Egg, but as the years pass and no one solves even the first clue, most people give up and move on with their lives.
The people who continue hunting are known as “gunters” (short for egg hunter), and they’re basically geeks. They study everything they can about Halliday and his life. They study (and play) the video games he owned from childhood onward. Every book, movie and TV series he ever owned or watched gets studied, analyzed, and memorized by millions of gunters. They become geeks.
Maybe they were already geeks (many of them probably were), but they now all have something in common – not just the hunt for the egg, but their knowledge and love of all things geek. They’ve all watched the same movies, read the same books, and played the same videogames. They have their favorites among them (Halliday was not known for his discerning tastes), and it’s really just like modern geek culture, but with a goal.
The villains are the Sixers. They’re employees of Innovative Online Industries (IOI) who earned the name “Sixers” because all of their avatar names start with “IOI-6” and then five numbers. If a Sixer finds the Easter Egg, IOI gets control of the OASIS and they want to charge for it.
Currently, anyone can log onto the OASIS for free. They pay $0.25 to get started and that’s it. After that, all they need is haptic gear (a visor and gloves to manipulate their avatar. The wealthier people have a full haptic suit) and access to the Internet. Access to the Internet is pretty much everywhere and most people can get access to at least older haptic gear models. You have to pay for some things in the OASIS: clothes for your avatar, accessories, weapons, ammo, and transportation, but you can also get along pretty well without paying for much of anything. School is completely free and entire databases of information are free.
IOI wants to change all that by charging a monthly fee for everyone with an OASIS account. Needless to say, no one is happy about that prospect, so they can’t let the Sixers win the Easter Egg hunt.
The entire book is a race to the Easter Egg against the Sixers and it was really tense! I loved it!
I agree it’s not necessary to be a gamer to enjoy this book, but it does kind of help. I’m glad I’ve spent a little time playing games like Dungeons & Dragons so I could understand things like “Chaotic Neutral” and “+1 Firesword”, but even that stuff is pretty self-explanatory in the context of the story. I’ve also spent some time semi-watching my brothers play video games, which I think may have helped me understand some of how the OASIS worked.
It’s not really a book for gamers. It’s a book for geeks and I definitely fit into that category. Not only are videogames involved, but several references to some of the best movies and TV shows of all time are included, and that drew me in, too. It’s not a book about videogames. It’s a celebration of geeks and geek culture and it is perfect!
What did you guys read this week? Anything that kept you from getting work done?
I’m so glad you liked this book! I read it about a year ago and could not put it down. It really has a great pacing. Keeping you interested in the hunt but also having really rich details.