Ready Player Two (Ready Player One #2)

by Ernest Cline

Samantha used to say that Shermer was Hughes’s “post-adolescent paracosm.” A private fantasy world that he created and populated with his imagination, adding to it throughout his life—his own suburban, Midwest equivalent of Tolkien’s Middle-earth.

It was like Yoda versus Palpatine, Gandalf versus Saruman, and Neo versus Agent Smith, all rolled into one epic clash of the titans.