blast-o-rama.

So, I’ve been posting book reviews on GoodReads since I really got heavily back into reading late last year.  In the interest of having more awesome content on here, I’m going to start posting my reviews here too. So…here’s the first one. Enjoy, OK?

Set in the not-too-terribly-distant future of the year 2044, Ready Player One thrusts its readers into a world where the USA is basically a wreck, almost desolate.  This isn’t really due to anything more than the same issues we see today having reached the apex of their worst possible scenarios, but don’t worry about the people living there, they barely notice. You see, the people of the 2040s are all really into The OASIS.  The OASIS is like if Facebook and Second Life had a baby, one where everything you do in life – your job, your schooling, your friends, your family – comes together in one virtual world.

The OASIS was developed by a Bill Gates or Steve Jobs level genius, a man named James Halliday.  A recluse obsessed with 80′s pop culture, his greatest creation serves not just as the world millions live in, but a giant homage to the culture he loved – its films, its music, it’s characters and its games.  Similar to many classic video games, The OASIS has a very important easter egg – one that is revealed at the time of Halliday’s death. If you can find the easter egg and “win” at The OASIS, you earn Halliday’s forture, to the tune of several hundred billion dollars.

This inspires many people, including our hero, a teenager named Wade Watts (nome de internet, Parzival) to engage in the wild goose hunt that is the search for Halliday’s fortune.  But to understand the game is to understand the culture Halliday loved.  The book that ensues is a madcap action adventure which both serves as a high concept sci-fi adventure for today, and an homage to the culture of the 1980′s that writer Ernest Cline (best known for penning the script to Fanboys) grew up with.  Pee Wee, Back to the Future, Johnny 5, Wargames, Jet Jaguar, Devo, Family Ties..these are just a few of the literal hundreds of pop-culture artifacts references throughout the books 384 page run, and if you can keep up, it’s an absolute blast.

While the idea of building a story set in the future that is so engrained in the past sounds like a fantastic idea to get an audience acclimated to the new world they’re encountering, at times, the level of reference is just a bit too deep.  Cline tries to keep the language simple and affable to readers who may not know that much about what was king in the 80′s, but he can’t shake how engrained the culture is in his life.  At the end of the day, some, if not most of the material, will fly over readers heads.

Despite this issue, however, the book remains user friendly – even those not familiar with internet culture, MMOs or the 1980s will get caught up in the life of Parzival, his friends, his romantic interests and even some real life adventure against the evil corporation who wants to get the Halliday fortune at all costs.

Sure, Ready Player One might not be a book for everyone, but for those who get it, they’ll cherish it.   If you’ve spent hours on X-Entertainment, long for your Atari 2600 or just can’t seem to drop World of Warcraft, this is a love letter to you.  Turn the page, insert coin and get ready, this is the adventure you’ve been waiting for.  Recommended.