Ready Player One
By Ernest Cline
Audio narrated by Wil Wheaton
While I’m not the type of person who readily dives into this genre it was suggested to me by someone to read it. I’ll admit I wasn’t jumping on the bandwagon fast. I did purchase the story on audible.com and it remained on my shelves for months before I even considered it a second time. And then a third time.
Not having anything to read at the moment I elected to give it a shot. I won’t say there weren’t times I put it down because the story is steeped with info-dumping because it has a lot of geeky ‘hardware’ terminology and of course the 80’s info was a lot to take in as well. I think listening to Will Wheaton read to me was one of the reasons I fought past any boring parts that I reached. I enjoyed his narrating the story; felt it a great choice. If you don’t know who Wil Wheaton is, check him out.
Still, the characters and the storyline moved along and I found myself smiling, laughing, feeling pain and sadness while I listened to the story. Any book that can make you experience such emotions has to be listed among the higher ranking ones. I laughed aloud at some spots and people looked at me like I was crazy. And I didn’t care. This was good.
So basically the book is a lot of virtual reality, video game playing, nerdy talk. This wealthy man dies and leaves his fortune and business to the one person who can find three different keys each leading them thru riddles, clues, old-timey video games, and more.
The main character is also the narrator of the story; Wade Watts, a high schooler who’s best friends are virtual reality people he’s never met in person. Together they struggle through the challenge of searching for the keys, staying alive from the big companies that want all the money and all the control of the virtual world.
As I said, there was some info-dump experiences but I was able to get past them and I really did enjoy the book as a whole. The ending was priceless, well-done, and super creative. I love when endings are awesome. I would recommend this book. I am curious to see how they intend on turning this book into a movie. I can totally see how it would be expensive with all the virtual reality going on in the book. But I am inclined to think the movie might be a little cheesy because, well, the 80’s were cheesy. (IMHO)
My score 8.5/10
Drowning In Words ∫∫ Michala Tyann 