Review: Ready Player One, Ernest Cline

In the year 2044, reality is an ugly place. The only time teenage Wade Watts really feels alive is when he's jacked into the virtual utopia known as the OASIS. Wade's devoted his life to studying the puzzles hidden within this world's digital confines—puzzles that are based on their creator's obsession with the pop culture of decades past and that promise massive power and fortune to whoever can unlock them.
But when Wade stumbles upon the first clue, he finds himself beset by players willing to kill to take this ultimate prize. The race is on, and if Wade's going to survive, he'll have to win—and confront the real world he's always been so desperate to escape.

Ernest Cline has worked as a short-order cook, fish gutter, plasma donor, elitist video store clerk, and tech support drone. His primary occupation, however, has always been geeking out, and he eventually threw aside those other promising career paths to express his love of pop culture fulltime as a spoken word artist and screenwriter. His 2009 film Fanboys, much to his surprise, became a cult phenomenon. These days Ernie lives in Austin, Texas with his wife, their daughter, and a large collection of classic video games.

I heard a lot about this book and when it showed up on the Estella Project list of books I decided to give it a go. Ready Player One is a science fiction book. People around longer know that I do not read much science fiction but the mention about all the references to old games, music and films got me intrigued.
A lot of people in my surrounding are gamers and the words used at my diner table. This made it easy for me to connect with Wade. I liked the way his mind worked. Not really a hard antisocial person but more one that really loves the technology and things behind. That enjoys to puzzle and search for things. His insecurities are discussed too and the way he deals with them.
The references to films, games and music and other artifacts of my youth made me want to revisit all of them. I managed to keep it with some of the songs as it would have taken me ages to read this book otherwise. It does add to the atmosphere though and I can imagine it is great fun when you are not familiar with the references to look them up.

Ready Player One
Author: Ernest Cline
Publisher: Arrow Books
Pages: 374
Format: Paperback
ISBN-10: 0099560437
ISBN-13: 9780099560432
Arrow Books: Paperback

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