From the Bookshelf of Apocalypse Whenever…

Ready Player One (Ready Player One, #1)

Ernest Cline

Start date: June 20, 2013

Finish date: July 1, 2013

Discussion: AW BOOK CLUB (spoilers)

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AW BOOK CLUB (spoilers)

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What Members Thought

Sep 18, 2017 Amy rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: 2017-books-read

This book takes '80s fandom to an extreme degree, but you surely don't have to be an expert on '80s music, video games, movies, rpgs, and tv shows to enjoy the storyline.

The book is set in a futuristic USA that has become overcrowded and dangerous. Most people spend their lives in a virtual reality called OASIS rather than in the real world. The co-creator of OASIS was reclusive and obsessed with pop and geek culture of the 1980s. Without an heir to his fortune, he decides to create the ultimat This book takes '80s fandom to an extreme degree, but you surely don't have to be an expert on '80s music, video games, movies, rpgs, and tv shows to enjoy the storyline.

The book is set in a futuristic USA that has become overcrowded and dangerous. Most people spend their lives in a virtual reality called OASIS rather than in the real world. The co-creator of OASIS was reclusive and obsessed with pop and geek culture of the 1980s. Without an heir to his fortune, he decides to create the ultimate game within OASIS to find a worthy heir. Once he dies and the contest is announced, a large portion of the entire world makes it their primary goal to become an expert on everything '80s. They obsessively memorize movies and songs and try to master every vintage video game they can. Literally anything could be important. The book follows our hero and his new best friends who are leaders in this contest as they get to know each other, battle a corporate entity trying to cheat their way to to top, and have lots of fun along the way. The book contains many new worlds to explore, a mysterious adventure, thrilling and tense moments, danger, down-to-earth characters, and a love story.

Based on the movie trailer, I'm afraid that the movie version isn't going to live up to my imagination, but we'll see. I was, however, elated to find out that my favorite villain, Ben Mendelsohn, is playing the villain here. The casting, at least, will be good.

I grew up in the '80s, but other than the music and a couple of movies, the majority of the 200ish pieces of pop and geek culture mentioned here were beyond my personal realm of experience. I found myself getting sidetracked catching up on some of the movies I missed (including Heathers and Adventures in Babysitting) and making a Spotify playlist with all the songs mentioned in the book (except for one featured in the movie War Games). I went into this book wondering if it had been overhyped, but it truly is an enjoyable read and a page-turner in spots. A 4.31-star rating on GoodReads isn't shabby, and it's well-deserved. ...more

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Nov 09, 2014 Silver Thistle rated it it was amazing

Shelves: virtual-reality, games

Back in the day I was a bit of a girl gamer. A 'tiny' bit. Ok, quite a lot actually but it was the 80's and I was a teen and geeks were cool back then and Summer lasted 10 months of the year...ok, some of that was probably made up but the rest is true.

As soon as I saw that Ready Player one was about game geeks with strong links to the 1980's I was hooked and from start to finish I couldn't put it down. It's fantastic. I don't know if it's because the 80's are my era and games are in my blood and Back in the day I was a bit of a girl gamer. A 'tiny' bit. Ok, quite a lot actually but it was the 80's and I was a teen and geeks were cool back then and Summer lasted 10 months of the year...ok, some of that was probably made up but the rest is true.

As soon as I saw that Ready Player one was about game geeks with strong links to the 1980's I was hooked and from start to finish I couldn't put it down. It's fantastic. I don't know if it's because the 80's are my era and games are in my blood and but I suspect it would be just as epic a read for anyone who doesn't share my history. It's just fantastic. The story telling is spot on and there are so many twists and turns that it's hard to put down.

The 80's references are everywhere, since the whole idea of the contest in the book focuses on the 80's but the author has either done his homework very well or was in fact a geek boi himself. I'm guessing it's the latter and he probably still is. I'm still a big game geek at heart too. I'm a high lvl warrior on a popular MMORPG which I've played for over 10 years now and not ashamed to admit it...well, not here anyway :D

Although it's set in the future the story took me right back. The music references were like a trip down memory lane and the author has kindly compiled a mix tape for listening to alongside the book. Epic soundtrack! http://www.ernestcline.com/blog/2011/...

Apart from all of that, I really, really liked the hero Parzival and cared about what happened to him. Total geek but that's the point of the book - they're all geeks. Even the non-geeks are geeks. Everyone plugs into the virtual reality known as the Oasis, it's the norm for just about everyone on the planet. Even Parzival's elderly neighbour plugs in for hours and hours on end so she can sit in the pews of her virtual church and sing hymns and listen to sermons. Business meetings take place in the Oasis where attendee's don't even leave their own office/home if they don't want to, they just sign in to the Oasis, put on their virtual reality goggles and gloves and their avatars do their business dealings in the comfort of virtual rooms/workplaces, with collegues who live on the other side of the planet. Kids don't go to school much, they just plug into the VR schools in the Oasis. Everything is done via the Oasis, even the very poor homeless people have access to free VR goggles and gloves so that they can hook up via free wireless and immerse themselves in a reality that's favourable to their own. There's nothing that can't be done on the Oasis and nowhere that can't be visited.

I barely know where to start with this one. It's really hard to say much about it without ruining the plot. And the good bits that aren't about the plot are just too many to single out one or two to write about. It's all good. It's just...really, really good and I'd recommend it. It brought back to mind lots of things from my youth that I thought I'd forgotten and for that I'm grateful. Plus, I got a fantastic story to immerse myself in so all-in-all it was money well spent.

Ah, the 80's. It's like I never left :D

Back then we lived in a house by the beach and there was a permanent Carny just 10 minutes walk from us on the beachfront. Arcade games aplenty! Nothing could beat the thrill of seeing your own three initials on the scoreboard and achievements like that took a LOT of practice (and a lot of cash.) We spent a LOT of time huddled round those machines. Boys really seemed to sit up and take notice of you when you kicked their butt and replaced their initials with your own...

Happy days.

Oh, and one of my favourite games at the time, that I played in the privacy of my own room on my ZX Spectrum was....'My name is Uncle Groucho, you win a fat cigar'. Seriously. Catchy game name, huh?! Don't laugh, the game's designer Mel Croucher went on to be better known for his later works Deus Ex Machina so he got a bit better with the game titles - and the gameplay.

Geek out! ...more

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Jul 20, 2014 Rift Vegan rated it really liked it

Shelves: 2014

Ha! Fun read, I am right in this book's demographic: born 1973, grew up playing Atari and all my favorite movies are from that era (yes: LadyHawke and Legend, Aech totally called me a bona fide pussy!!). Yeah, the writing is flat and the story is a bit predictable, and I can't imagine this book being interesting to anyone who isn't Gen X. And yet, here I am, thinking about what my avatar is going to look like in the OASIS (can we have non-human avatars? I want to be a mouse!) and the tardis I'm ...more

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Jan 31, 2014 Tom rated it it was amazing

Really liked it.

The story is that in the near future, a billionaire child of the 80s dies and leaves his entire fortune, as well as the control keys to an immersive on-line game/universe called the "Oasis"; to the first person who can complete his final game challenge. Of course, there's an evil Comcast-like corporation that wants to win too, so an epic race ensues.

There are some believability issues here in that some "darn meddling kids" figure out clues (to 80s trivia) before an entire army o ...more

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