Ready Player One!

The first novel by Ernest Cline it is described as dystopian sci-fi. I’m not sure it fits that description but more about this later. An interesting bit of trivia is that the audiobook version is narrated by Will Wheaton who actually makes a cameo in the book.
I did not have expectations from this book. I have seen the movie “Battleship” and I heard they were making one based on “Tic Tac Toe” so my faith in entertainment(and humanity) is already low. I believed this to be an attempt at a book in that spirit. I was surprised as I saw some friends which I knew read a lot of sci-fi give good grades to the book on Goodreads so I eventually grabbed a copy for my kindle and decided to try it.
I was pleasantly surprised. The book is very well researched, either that or the author is incredibly passionate about 80’s pop culture. Way too passionate, like creepy stalking waiting all night outside your apartment levels of passionate.
The world is gripped by an energy crisis made worse by global warming and people fighting for the resources left. A virtual simulation is the world’s best form of entertainment and serves as an escape from their daily lives.
The author repeats that you can get mugged or raped or killed easily by going outside. This doesn’t exactly matches with the main character who seems shy and socially inept. In this type of society I don’t know if he would survive long enough.
Virtual reality has advanced enough and a game has emerged, a mix between World of Warcraft, Even Online and The Entropia Universe. It is mostly like the Entropia Universe with virtual real estate for sale in the game. The Entropia Universe even has the most expensive sale in any game:
“June 15, 2010 – Parent company MindArk AB released its 2009 annual report, showing a cash flow of -18.6 Million SEK (-$2.4M), and stating that the real-world bank is on hold, due to a lack of funds. MindArk also stated they had a signed letter of intent to sell their original virtual planet, Planet Calypso, for a price of $6,000,000 USD, to an unnamed company,[23] later announced to be SEE Virtual Worlds, already a partner. SEE intended to release at least two planets in the Entropia Universe: (Planet Michael, a virtual world celebrating the life of Michael Jackson, and a second planet featuring monsters from Universal.)[24] However, in June 2011, MindArk released a statement announcing the end of their partnership with SEE altogether.”
So that’s a virtual planet sold for 6 million dollars.Also Michael Jackson planet? Really? Details on the game are really an interesting read in and of itself.

The Universe inside the video game and the pop culture references to 80’s culture are what make this book special.
Other than that, some chapters felt more like information dumps and the I found the behavior of some characters to be less than realistic. Especially Art3mis turns into a bitch from a certain point. Parzival also is way too nice for the world he grew up in. I mean I’m not that nice and I never had to worry about being shanked going to school.

Pros:
- A real page turner
- Pop culture references and puzzles are awesome
- Interesting game ideas
Cons:
- Characters are not entirely believable. Motivations are lacking sometimes.
- Writing style could be better. Some passages are kind of bland
- Less information dumps
Grade: 7.3 out of 10