Book Review: Ready Player One by Ernest Cline

Sometimes there is a book or movie or what have you that I hear everyone talking about.  I might ignore them for various reasons, but eventually I just have to take a look to see what all the fuss is about.  Occasionally this is because my brother needs me to buy him an audiobook for school.  Now, in a roundabout way, that brings us to the book we'll be reviewing today.  We're taking a look at Ready Player One by Ernest Cline.

Ready Player One takes place in the 2040s.  America, and much of the the rest of the world, is reeling from economic recession and the world supply of oil starting to run low.  It's gotten so bad that many trailer parks stack trailers on top of each other into stacks like skyscrapers.  Still, there is some hope amidst the bad times.  There is OASIS, a massive multiplayer game that has basically replaced the internet.  Virtual reality is also very advanced, and you can basically be whoever or whatever you want in cyberspace, if you have enough experience points.  Enter Wade Watts, or Parzival, as he's known in OASIS.  James Halliday, the founder of OASIS, passed away a few years ago. However, he's left behind a virtual treasure hunt, and whoever solves it will gain control of OASIS.  Wade stumbles across the first clue, and overnight becomes a celebrity.  Wade will make new friend, and new enemies, as he joins the fight to determine the future of OASIS.

I've got to admit, this book pleasantly surprised me.  I didn't really have much love or appreciation for the pop culture of the 1980s.  I always viewed it as that thing that happened right before I was born.  I was born New Years Eve of 1992, for reference.  Well, I mean, I always liked Back to the Future and Bill and Ted, and I guess technically the original Star Wars counts, and so does Indiana Jones.  Still, after reading this book, I have a better understanding of why the 1980s are so highly thought of and remembered.  Halliday made all the clues based on his childhood, so they're all based on 1980s pop culture.  Since the prize is in the form of an Easter egg, those who search for it are called Gunters, a corruption of Egg Hunters. 

I felt that everything was very well explained even when I hadn't heard of the game/show/movie before.  I loved when Wade earns the bronze key by traversing a Dungeons and Dragons dungeon and battling a lich king to play a video game about jousting on ostriches.  Sounds totally bonkers, and yet it works.  I also liked that there's apparently a new type of video game where it's a movie, like WarGames or Monty Python and the Holy Grail, and you have to act out and say the lines of various characters.  That actually sound really fun.  I think I'd buy that if it was real.  I thought the part with the Capin' Crunch whistle was clever.  Especially given how it relates to real history.  Of course, I'd always get excited whenever there was a reference I was familiar with.  For example, Wade's friend Ache own the ship from Cowboy Bebop, and he owns a Firefly ship named the Kaylee.  In fact, the part of OASIS he won it from is called the Whedonverse.  I felt like Captain America in the first Avengers movie "I actually got that reference!"

At the same time, it made me want to learn more about the stuff I didn't know. I'm kind of interested in seeing Blade Runner since the Tyrell Building factors into the plot.  I should also get around to watching WarGames at some point.  Not sure I'd be into the various video games.  Just could never get over how primitive the graphic of retro games are.  Still, Cline does a good job of making them sound engaging.  The part where Wade talks about all of the stuff he's studied was relatable.  It kind of reminded me of myself, talking about all the things I'm passionate about. 

There has been speculation among fans that James Halliday might be on the autism spectrum.  He certainly does show certain signs.  He was known to be socially awkward and reclusive.  About the only people he really opened up to where his best friend, and business partner, Ogden Marrow and Ogden's wife Kira.  I should also note that Halliday had a not so secret crush on Kira during their college days in Dungeons and Dragons club.  We also know that Halliday had anxiety and clearly was very interested in a lot of very specific areas of pop culture.  All of this leads me to suspect that he had high function autism, such as Asperger's. 

I also wonder if perhaps Wade is autistic as well.  Granted, he does seem to have somewhat better social skills; though he does learn to be a bit less abrasive and less of a jerk as the book goes on.  However, that same speech where he gushes about all the things he's studied does very much seem like something an autistic person might say.  I'm on the autism spectrum, and it sounded legitimate to me.  I can't say for certain about Wade and Halliday, but it is fun to speculate. 

Now let's talk about Wade's friends and enemies.  I should mention there will be some spoilers, so turn back now if you'd rather avoid that.  If everyone who wants out is gone, then let's begin.

Well, let's start with Shoto and Daito.  They're a pair of Japanese boys who are really into old samurai movies.  They're not really brothers, but they treat each other as if they are.  They're initially frosty towards Wade, but eventually they warm up.  For example, they help Wade with a quest that is in Japanese, but he gives them the prize, the Beta Capsule from Ultraman, because he thinks it should belong to a Japanese person.  Yeah, you can win special teams that give you superpowers by completing quests.  This impresses them quite a bit, and Wade earns their trust.  This is particularly important after Daito is murdered by IOI, and Shoto gives the Beta Capsule to Wade, saying that it's what Daito would have wanted.

That brings us to the main villains: Innovative Online Industries, or IOI for short.  Their goal is to gain control of OASIS and start charging people for access and placing ads everywhere.  By contrast, Halliday allowed anyone to sign-up for a one-time payment of twenty-five cents.  They're led by Nolan Sorrento, who has thousands of employees researching and competing to find the Easter Egg.  Nolan will do anything, including attempting murder, to stop Wade and his friends.  Though IOI we see one of the main themes of the book: don't let corporations monopolize the internet.  In light of the debates about net neutrality, this is certainly a timely message. 

Moving back to allies, we have Wade's best friend Ache.  Ache's avatar is a gray-skinned male orc.  In reality, however, Ache is a black lesbian woman named Helen.  She and Wade never actually met in real life, because they attend school in OASIS.  The school requires that everyone use human avatar that match their actual gender, but Ache faked her records.  Her mother used to work as a telemarketer, and advised her to use a male avatar and voice modulator to be treated better.  Wade is perfectly fine upon learning Ache's true identity.  As far as he's concerned, she's still the same person he's gotten to know, and who she really is doesn't matter one bit.  Wade and Ache often rag on each other, but in a good-natured way. 

Finally we have Art3mis.  No, the 3 is not a typo.  She eventually becomes Wade's love interest, though their relationship certainly has its ups and downs.   Her real name is Samantha, and it's always a bit awkward when I encounter a girl character named Sam, but I managed.  I know some people say it's unrealistic that she'd be bother by her, fairly minor, birthmark, but I disagree.  I've known people who have been sensitive about lesser things.  I liked when she and Wade went on a date to The Rocky Horror Picture Show planet.  Yes, it was indeed named Transylvania. 

Wade himself goes through some character development throughout the book.  At the start he's a bit of a loner, but as the book goes on, he learns to care about other people.  He also learns the importance of exercising and healthy eating.  There is a point where he makes his OASIS rig not let him long on unless he gets in his workout.  As a result, he becomes quite ripped.  He also deliberately gets himself sent to debtors’ prison so that he can hack into the IOI database, and then he manages to escape.  Yeah, debtors’ prisons are back, and so is indentured servitude.  It's technically not slavery, so the government doesn't ban it, but it's still pretty shitty and sketchy.  Although it was kind of funny seeing Wade deal with stupid customer service callers.  I liked how the ending of the book reminded me of the ending of The Last Olympian; the last book of the original Percy Jackson series.

Also, random though, how do trailer stacks work?  Its implied that they don't have staircases or anything.  So how do the inhabitants get up and down?  Then again, after the trailer stack Wade, initially, live is is blown up, the authorities don't seem terribly concerned.  Maybe the government doesn't consider that terribly important? 

Anyway, I do think that the anti-escapism message of the does work for the most part.  As Halliday, or rather, his recording, says, reality is real.  Escapism can be good and even necessary.  I've said before about how the Percy Jackson books were one of the things that kept me going through high school.  I needed a way to get away from the daily grind, and imagine a world outside of my confines.  All the same, eventually you have to face your problems in the real world.  The book tries to impart this, and yet there no denying that OASIS certainly sound very cool and appealing.  The fight at the end where everyone was using giant robots was just awesome.  Personally, I'd I'd been there I probably would have used the original Megazord for mine.   

You can't discuss this book without touching on the controversy it has generate.  Just why is there so much hate for this book?  This is by no means a perfect book, and there are certainly legitimate criticisms that can be leveled at it.  That being said, I think there's another explanation.  Deconstruction is very much in the vogue among the big wigs of the speculative fiction community.  There's an increasing push to deconstruction, and in many case delegitimize, the past.  They may claim to be fighting racism and sexism, but really, when you get down to it, they're judging works of the past by modern standards of morality.  It reminds me of in Fahrenheit 451 where Captain Beatty explains to Guy Montag how the firemen where founded.  For those who don't know, one of the big pushes was people getting offended over everything, and demanding that everything even a little offensive be banned.

The point is, given how diametrically opposed to this mindset Ready Player One is, it's no wonder it has ruffled feathers of the woke brigade.  Ernest Cline wrote it as a love letter and celebration of his childhood.  It's also odd in that, as previously mentioned, the book does talk about the importance to being accepting of different people.  Albeit, it does so in a way that isn't preachy or pretentious, and does so in a way that is actually organic to the story. 

Now let's talk about the audiobook version.  It is narrated by Wil Wheaton.  Personally, I'm with Sheldon Cooper, the dude is insanely annoying and smug in real life.  However, all things considered, he's a pretty good narrator.  Amusingly, it is mentioned that Wil Wheaton is vice-president of OASIS.  Cory Doctorow is the president proper. 

Well, I think that covers everything of note.  As I said, I was genuinely surprised at how much I enjoyed