Ready Player One by Ernest Cline
Even if I wasn’t (apparently) an uber-geek, I would have still loved this novel. Cline’s love for eighties pop culture was the shining light for me in this read, but it’s also funny and very fast-paced.
It’s the year 2044, and the majority of the world’s population spends their time in a video game that mimics real life (think The Sims, but with magic and fighting and spaceships). The world inside the video game console may be awesome (although it is governed by monetary exchange, so you have to work to advance your avatar to higher gaming levels), the world outside is not. This is a version of the post-apocalyptic novel, though, unlike the typical world-has-been-destroyed-by-human-folly book, people can escape it. Cline has dreamed up a world that doesn’t seem implausible; I can easily picture people retreating into a simulated real-life game if given the option (and, really, who wouldn’t want to live in a universe that contained Middle Earth, characters from John Hughes films, and working TARDISes?).
Wade (avatar Parzival) has dreams of solving the quest set by the creator of this alternate universe, who has died and left his fortune to whomever can find three keys that he has hidden in the video game. As an obsessive fan of the 1980s, the game’s creator has made sure that everything pertaining to the quest stems from pop culture of the period, which all potential contestants study in minute detail.
I read this book in a few days and fully loved it. Highly recommended for fans of the eighties, geek culture, video gamers, and those who enjoy a good quest story.
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