Ready Player One (Ready Player One, #1) in What's the Name of That Book???

Dec 18, 2012 Lisa Vegan rated it it was amazing

Shelves: zz-5star, 1-also-at-librarything, speculative-fiction, groups-buddies, z2016, goodreads-author, young-adult, novel, reviewed, orphaned-and-quasi-orphaned-kids

I’m very grateful to my favorite Goodreads group because their informal buddy read got me to finally get this book off my to read shelf and read it. I can’t believe that I waited as long as I did! Brilliant book, and great fun!

I consider this to be a young adult book, though I know some consider it to be adult fiction. Interestingly, my library has some of its copies shelved as ya and some of its copies shelved as adult fiction. In my mind the nature of the relationships and the obligatory ya en I’m very grateful to my favorite Goodreads group because their informal buddy read got me to finally get this book off my to read shelf and read it. I can’t believe that I waited as long as I did! Brilliant book, and great fun!

I consider this to be a young adult book, though I know some consider it to be adult fiction. Interestingly, my library has some of its copies shelved as ya and some of its copies shelved as adult fiction. In my mind the nature of the relationships and the obligatory ya ending scene made it feel like ya. However, I think that adults who were ages 7-22 during the 1980s will have particular interest in this story, along with those of us adults who like ya, so it’s a book for 11 or 12 and all the way up, in my opinion. I was already well into adulthood in the 1980s and never was a video game person, but that didn’t keep me from thoroughly enjoying the story and getting many of the 80s references. I do love the movie War Games and really enjoyed its appearance in the story.

Hooked from the start! The author made this book as addictive for his readers as OASIS is for his characters.

I think that the world building was wonderfully done, and I appreciate how a lot of pitfalls are avoided by placing so much of the action in what was the actual past.

I cared deeply for the main characters, particularly the main character. Everything felt so real that during the action I was worried for the characters, not just their avatars.

The story is highly entertaining but it wasn’t good for my blood pressure; there is a lot of suspense.

Throughout, I kept making guesses, and although I was almost always wrong, it was fun to “play along” with the story. I really enjoyed some of the twists, particularly one big one I never saw coming.

½ star off for a few things that didn’t ring entirely true for me: (view spoiler)

Highly recommended to those who like character driven speculative fiction, people who were young in the 80s and all ya and adult readers who enjoy speculative fiction, and anyone who appreciates unique coming of age stories. ...more

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Oct 04, 2012 Nadine in NY Jones rated it liked it

Shelves: lotsa-buzz, fantasy-and-sci-fi, dystopian-and-post-apocalyptic, cyberpunk, coming-of-age

By page 2 I was irritated: according to the dust jacket, this is set in 2044. James Halliday dies at age 67. That means he was born in 1977. Then I read: "a famous eccentric, Halliday had harbored a lifelong obsession with the 1980s, the decade during which he'd been a teenager ..." That math doesn't add up. I guess it is not 2044. Maybe he died in 2034, at 67, then he would have been born in 1967 (like me!) and a teenager in the 80s. ... Reading on, I learn he was 8 in 1980, therefore born in 1 By page 2 I was irritated: according to the dust jacket, this is set in 2044. James Halliday dies at age 67. That means he was born in 1977. Then I read: "a famous eccentric, Halliday had harbored a lifelong obsession with the 1980s, the decade during which he'd been a teenager ..." That math doesn't add up. I guess it is not 2044. Maybe he died in 2034, at 67, then he would have been born in 1967 (like me!) and a teenager in the 80s. ... Reading on, I learn he was 8 in 1980, therefore born in 1972, therefore this book opens in 2039. For a book that is so full of details, I'm wondering why they didn't spell that one out.

Overall, this book felt like a slog. Too. Many. Details. The idea is fun: a puzzle solved in the future involves knowing minutiae about the past (and for some readers, this really IS the past, but for many of us it is just our youth). And the first few mentions WERE fun. I guess. Actually, the first mentions irritated me, because he was supposedly listing off favorite authors & directors from the 80s (and really, why bother listing them? what was the point??) but they weren't all big in the 80s. If you're going to go into the details like that, please get the details right (makes me wonder if other details were wrong too). Not to even mention, the details about favorite authors, directors, etc .... never play a role in the plot. Why were they included?? Plus, it was too ... too smug, I guess. Too wink-wink, heh-heh, do you know the esoteric crap that *I* know? - and I suppose my problem is, no, I do NOT know all the esoteric crap! I'm just not enough of a geek?

So, the idea is fun, and the characters were likeable enough, and I enjoy stories about solving puzzles. But this one just got bogged down in the details. I didn't really need to read about each video game Wade played (I say this as a non-gamer - perhaps all the gamers out there LOVED reading about each video game he played - that is the point, after all!)

Also, this book suffers from the Good/Evil separation: the good guys were 100% good, the bad guys were 100% bad. BORING. There were no surprise twists, (view spoiler). Plus, I think it was a mistake on the part of Mr Cline to OPEN the book by telling us that Wade is the one who wins the contest. That REALLY took away any suspense - whenever he was in a tight spot, I would think: "well, I know this works out, since he's the winner in the end!" It was really only the last 20% of this book that I found exciting, when he has to pull off the Hail Mary pass to win the game.

ETA (4/8/18): I saw the movie last night and I really enjoyed it, a lot more than I enjoyed the book! The movie (as movies do) eliminated a lot of the extraneous details that irritated me so much in the book, and it changed the story enough that I often didn't know what was going to happen next, which made it fun for me. Two thumbs up for the movie! ...more

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Jan 27, 2021 Kate rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: audiobooks, age-adult, sci-fi, 2021

In a future where most people spend all their time online in a videogame called The Oasis, Wade is not especially remarkable. Like many others, he's obsessed with finding the Easter Egg left by the Oasis creator James Halliday, a prize which includes a fortune and ownership of the Oasis. When he finds the first key, he's catapulted to the front of a race between the other "Gunters" (Egg Hunters) and "Sixers" (a corporation bent on taking over the Oasis). As he continues to level up, he meets Art ...more

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Feb 29, 2016 Josianne Fitzgerald rated it it was amazing

Shelves: print, cac, sciencefiction, young-adult, dystopia

My 16-year-old son recommended this to me. I LOVED it. That boy of mine sure knows how to pick them. His other recommendation this year was The Martian, which I also thoroughly enjoyed.

This book is set in a somewhat apocalyptic future but here the apocalypses is the emergence of virtual reality. Once people get to play in OASIS, the global virtual reality universe, they don't want to do anything else.

The creator of OASIS, a reclusive game designer genius, has coded an Easter egg into OASIS. Wh ...more

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Oct 09, 2016 Isabel rated it really liked it

Shelves: scifi, futurism

Really more of a 3.5 for me. I enjoyed it very much and thought it was well constructed and well enough written, but found the ubiquity of the 80s pop culture references to be overbearing. And since that's part of the whole premise of the book... What are you gonna do. Worth reading for the celebration of geekdom alone, though. ...more

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Oct 11, 2012 Malina rated it liked it

Shelves: sci-fi

Author seems to have a pretty negative view of where humans are taking our world right now and also chooses to emphasize atheism at the beginning. Book will be best enjoyed by those who lived as teenagers or young adults in the eighties because it is full of references that are not fully explained. It is eighties pop culture nostalgia with a story. The story is pretty good and has some interesting things to discuss like virtual life vs real life, evil corporations, what would happen in the world ...more

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