I’m not a gamer, but I still dug the concept of Ernest Cline’s first novel, Ready Player One. Essentially, the world is over polluted, over crowded, and life is unaffordable. Many people are barely able to eat a sufficient amount of food. However, the way most people escape the problems of the real world is by entering the virtual reality of the Oasis created by James Halliday and Ogden Morrow.
James Halliday designed an epic hunt to end all hunts in his video will released to all players in the Oasis upon his death. Halliday bequeathed his billion dollar fortune to whomever could find the easter egg he hid within the Oasis. Of course in order to get to the easter egg Halliday left a series of riddles and challenges tied to ’80s pop culture and gaming, of which he was an avid fan, that people who took on the quest had to solve. After deciphering the riddle and completing a challenge successfully, players obtain a key which possesses another riddle to be solved. Halliday left a total of three keys to be found within the vast virtual universe known as the Oasis.
The novel’s protagonist, who goes by the screen name Parzival, spends his free time hunting for the easter egg left by James Halliday. Parzival and other gunters, individuals searching for the easter egg, spent five whole years before they were able to locate the first key. Once Parzival finds and obtains the first key everyone, even non-gunters, has a renewed interest in locating Halliday’s easter egg in the hope of attaining his vast fortune.
Besides the everyday people suffering the effects of unemployment, underemployment, malnutrition, and an overall low quality of life, there is also the sinister corporation known as Innovative Online Industries (IOI) who’s actively working to exploit loopholes left in Halliday’s will to cheat their way to the easter egg. IOI’s tactics aren’t only unfair, their morally corrupt. IOI created dossiers on players they deemed as threats, members of the “high five” on the score board (the top five scorers). IOI successfully murdered one of the “high five” members, forcing Parzival and the remaining three players to work together to beat the corporation. The other four players being: Aech (pronounced “H”, Parzival’s best friend and rival gunter), Artemis (Parzival’s love interest), and Shoto (a Japanese gunter whose best friend, Daito, was murdered by IOI).
Don’t worry, I’m not going to give away the ending. I’m going to shift gears and discuss the author’s style. The great thing about Cline’s writing style is that even though I’m not a gamer Cline explains the lingo briefly and weaves it into the story seamlessly. Additionally, as a reader I make lots of predictions about what’s going to happen next in the book. Not to toot my own horn, but I’m usually hit the nail on the head. Cline’s tale humbled my prediction skills. I thought events were going to go down one way, and then was either pleasantly or unpleasantly surprised the majority of the time. I still had a few correct predictions, but not on the scale I’m typically used to. In closing, Cline’s novel was dynamic enough that I just might read his other novel Armada. I hope it measures up to my expectations!