It's the year 2044, and the real world has become an ugly place. We're out of oil. We've wrecked the climate. Famine, poverty, and disease are widespread.
Like most of humanity, Wade Watts escapes this depressing reality by spending his waking hours jacked into the OASIS, a sprawling virtual utopia where you can be anything you want to be, where you can live and play and fall in love on any of ten thousand planets. And like most of humanity, Wade is obsessed by the ultimate lottery ticket that lies concealed within this alternate reality: OASIS founder James Halliday, who dies with no heir, has promised that control of the OASIS - and his massive fortune - will go to the person who can solve the riddles he has left scattered throughout his creation.
For years, millions have struggled fruitlessly to attain this prize, knowing only that the riddles are based in the culture of the late twentieth century. And then Wade stumbles onto the key to the first puzzle.
Suddenly, he finds himself pitted against thousands of competitors in a desperate race to claim the ultimate prize, a chase that soon takes on terrifying real-world dimensions - and that will leave both Wade and his world profoundly changed.
*** [EVERYONE MY AGE remembers where they were and what they were doing when they first heard about the contest] ***(Random House, 18 August 2011, first published 16 August 2011, ebook, 384 pages, borrowed from my library, Popsugar 2018 Reading Challenge, a cyberpunk book)
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This is my first time reading the author. I loved Ready Player One. This is the best book I've read in ages. Seriously. I cannot get over how good this book is. I love the concept and expected I'd like it but the book surpassed all my expectations. I discovered that I am a total nerd. It's the most inventive book I've read in a long time. The first section of the book, when Wade is searching for the first key is a lot of fun. Things start to get gradually darker as the search ups the ante and a sinister corporation go to extreme measures to eliminate the competition. Things get pretty intense for a while. I loved the ending of Ready Player One. I thought I knew how things were going to turn out but Cline takes things in a direction I wasn't completely expecting. Ready Player One is amazing. I can't wait to see the movie and read Cline's novel, Armada.
