Summary
#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER * Now a major motion picture directed by Steven Spielberg.
"Enchanting . . . Willy Wonka meets The Matrix ."-- USA Today * "As one adventure leads expertly to the next, time simply evaporates."-- Entertainment Weekly
A world at stake. A quest for the ultimate prize. Are you ready?
In the year 2045, reality is an ugly place. The only time Wade Watts really feels alive is when he's jacked into the OASIS, a vast virtual world where most of humanity spends their days.
When the eccentric creator of the OASIS dies, he leaves behind a series of fiendish puzzles, based on his obsession with the pop culture of decades past. Whoever is first to solve them will inherit his vast fortune--and control of the OASIS itself.
Then Wade cracks the first clue. Suddenly he's beset by rivals who'll kill to take this prize. The race is on--and the only way to survive is to win.
NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY Entertainment Weekly * San Francisco Chronicle * Village Voice * Chicago Sun-Times * iO9 * The AV Club
"Delightful . . . the grown-up's Harry Potter." -- HuffPost
"An addictive read . . . part intergalactic scavenger hunt, part romance, and all heart." --CNN
"A most excellent ride . . . Cline stuffs his novel with a cornucopia of pop culture, as if to wink to the reader." -- Boston Globe
"Ridiculously fun and large-hearted . . . Cline is that rare writer who can translate his own dorky enthusiasms into prose that's both hilarious and compassionate." --NPR
"[A] fantastic page-turner . . . starts out like a simple bit of fun and winds up feeling like a rich and plausible picture of future friendships in a world not too distant from our own." -- iO9
Author Notes
Ernest Cline is an American screenwriter and novelist. He was born in 1972 and grew up in rural Ohio.
In 1998, Cline wrote a screenplay entitled, Fanboys, about the craze surrounding the prequels to the Star Wars movies. Over a decade later, the movie was finally released in 2009. However, creative differences and his dissatisfaction with the final edit, led Cline to quit screenwriting and write a novel. That novel, based on an idea he had been considering for years, became the New York Times Bestseller, Ready Player One. His second novel, Armada released in 2015 also became a New York Times Bestseller.
He made the Hollywood Reporter's 'Most Powerful Authors' 2016 list, entering at number 12.
(Bowker Author Biography)
School Library Journal Review
Imagine if Willie Wonka had been a video-game designer. Now imagine a world in which most people spend their time as avatars in a virtual reality. The founder of this virtual reality leaves his fortune to the first to win a contest, comprised of puzzles and tasks based on 1980s popular culture. Three teens compete to win against an evil conglomerate. (Aug.) (c) Copyright 2011. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Publisher's Weekly Review
This adrenaline shot of uncut geekdom, a quest through a virtual world, is loaded with enough 1980s nostalgia to please even the most devoted John Hughes fans. In a bleak but easily imagined 2044, Wade Watts, an impoverished high school student who calls a vertically stacked trailer park home, lives primarily online, alongside billions of others, via a massive online game, OASIS, where players race to unravel the puzzles OASIS creator James Halliday built into the game before his death, with the winner taking control of the virtual world's parent company, as well as staggering wealth. When Wade stumbles on a clue, he's plunged into high-stakes conflict with a corporation dedicated to unraveling Halliday's riddles, which draw from Dungeons and Dragons, old Atari video games, the cinematic computer hacker ode War Games, and that wellspring of geek humor, Monty Python and the Holy Grail. (Of course.) The science fiction, video game, technology, and geeky musical references pile up quickly, sometimes a bit much so, but sweet, self-deprecating Wade, whose universe is an odd mix of the real past and the virtual present, is the perfect lovable/unlikely hero. (Aug.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
Kirkus Review
Video-game players embrace the quest of a lifetime in a virtual world; screenwriter Cline's first novel is old wine in new bottles.The real world, in 2045, is the usual dystopian horror story. So who can blame Wade, our narrator, if he spends most of his time in a virtual world? The 18-year-old, orphaned at 11, has no friends in his vertical trailer park in Oklahoma City, while the OASIS has captivating bells and whistles, and it's free. Its creator, the legendary billionaire James Halliday, left a curious will. He had devised an elaborate online game, a hunt for a hidden Easter egg. The finder would inherit his estate. Old-fashioned riddles lead to three keys and three gates. Wade, or rather his avatar Parzival, is the first gunter (egg-hunter) to win the Copper Key, first of three. Halliday was obsessed with the pop culture of the 1980s, primarily the arcade games, so the novel is as much retro as futurist. Parzival's great strength is that he has absorbed all Halliday's obsessions; he knows by heart three essential movies, crossing the line from geek to freak. His most formidable competitors are the Sixers, contract gunters working for the evil conglomerate IOI, whose goal is to acquire the OASIS. Cline's narrative is straightforward but loaded with exposition. It takes a while to reach a scene that crackles with excitement: the meeting between Parzival (now world famous as the lead contender) and Sorrento, the head of IOI. The latter tries to recruit Parzival; when he fails, he issues and executes a death threat. Wade's trailer is demolished, his relatives killed; luckily Wade was not at home. Too bad this is the dramatic high point. Parzival threads his way between more '80s games and movies to gain the other keys; it's clever but not exciting. Even a romance with another avatar and the ultimate "epic throwdown" fail to stir the blood.Too much puzzle-solving, not enough suspense.]] Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Booklist Review
*Starred Review* Young Wade Watts takes refuge in the OASIS, th. globally networked virtual realit. that nearly all of humanity relies on. It's 2044, the year before the Singularity futurist Ray Kurzweil predicts will inextricably unite humans and computers. Life on earth is bleak and sinister, thanks to failure to avert global warming and the oil crisis. An orphan, Wade lives in the Stacks, a vast slum comprising trailers piled in precarious towers, but keeps to his hideout, where he attends school online, plays video games, and sends his avatar, Parzival, to visit with Aech, his only friend. Fanboys (2009) screenwriter Cline brings his geeky ardor for 1980s pop culture to his first novel, an exuberantly realized, exciting, and sweet-natured cyberquest. Wade/Parzival, Aech, a droll blogger calling herself Art3mis, and two Japanese brothers embark on a grandly esoteric and potentially life-changing virtual Easter egg hunt and end up doing battle with a soulless corporation. Mind-twisting settings, nail-biting action, amusing banter, and unabashed sentiment make for a smart and charming Arthurian tale that will score high with gamers, fantasy and sf fans, and everyone else who loves stories of bumbling romance and unexpected valor. With a movie version in the works, Cline's imaginative, rollicking, coming-of-age geek saga has a smash-hit vibe.--Seaman, Donn. Copyright 2010 Booklist
Library Journal Review
Likable teenager Wade Watts lives in a depressing, hopeless world in the year 2044. He escapes his dismal reality by logging into the Oasis, a virtual world created by the now deceased James Halliday. Before dying, Halliday initiated a virtual contest whose solution is hidden in late 20th-century pop culture, with the winner inheriting Halliday's immense fortune. Wil Wheaton, Wesley Crusher on TV's Star Trek: The Next Generation, does an excellent job reading this sf coming-of-age novel, capturing Wade's tension and determination. Recommended for sf and 20th-century pop culture aficionados. ["This debut is a great geek beach book, an unapologetic romp with brains and style," read the review of the New York Times best-selling Crown hc, LJ Xpress Reviews, 7/7/11; the Broadway pb will publish in June 2012.-Ed.]-Ilka Gordon, Siegal Coll. of Judaic Studies Lib., Cleveland (c) Copyright 2012. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.