• Google Goodreads Score: 4.2/5
• Positive Rating: 94%
• Author: Ernest Cline
• Pages: 374
• Genre: Sci-fi, Adventure

Ready Player One, is a Science Fiction and Adventure Novel, written by Ernest cline and published in 2011 by Crown Publishing Group. The novel was an instant hit within a few months from its release. It has sold an estimate 1.7 million hard copies of the novel and counting. ‘Ready Player One’ was the first published book by its author, Ernest Cline, followed by ‘The Importance of being Ernest’(2013), ‘Armada’(2015), and ‘Ready Player Two’(2020). The novel is a work of fiction and fantasy of Futuristic world and the emotional and professional aspects of its inhabitants.

The novel is based in an imaginary dystopian future, in the year 2045. The world is crippled after widespread destruction post-apocalyptic wars, resulting in social and economic deterioration of the masses. People are suffering with resource scarcity, pollution, economic inequalities and ecological alteration. A world that has almost no corporate employment, creating a toxic environment for human survival. Virtual World has become the only escape for people to forget about their distress and being occupied with.
Here, the revolution of virtual reality was created by a programming genius, named James Halliday. James Halliday was the man who created and expanded a whole Virtual Reality Universe called OASIS. People became obsessed with OASIS to such an extent that it became an alternate and even much more influential than the real world. The OASIS was an actual wonder, where people could Sign In as an individual customisable Avatar, and used to play, work, and even earn points, equivalent to real-world currencies, from which they could garner an employment.  

The novel has a great line-up of characters, including primary characters as Wade watts/Avatar: Parzival(protagonist), Samatha cook/Avatar: Art3mis(wade’s love interest), James Halliday/Avatar: Anorak(Creator and guidance), Daito and Shoto(Japanese brothers and wade’s best friends), Nolan Sorrento/Avatar: IOI-655321(Antagonist) and so on.

The whole novel revolves around a final level of the OASIS Universe game, where its creator, James Halliday has hidden some Easter Egg keys. Halliday planned to transfer all his legacy and wealth to one winner, who’ll connect the dots left in the game and find the keys scattered in the Vast OASIS Universe. Wade watts is a high school teen, who is orphan and lives in a rental trailer park, in Oklahoma city. He lives in poverty and has poor social skills of real world people, thus he dedicates most of his time in OASIS, wandering and socialising with his virtual Friends. Due to his and his friend’s poor financial conditions, Wade devotes his efforts in finding solutions for the Easter eggs of Halliday in OASIS. In his adventures, he meets Art3mis, who is an highly skilled OASIS player. Art3mis leads Wade through his further journeys of his quest for keys, and develops an emotional bond with him.

The other elements of twist involves a tech-giant corporation, named IOI (Innovative Online Industries). Its employs thousands of people, to control and manipulate the OASIS system, in an organised manner. The IOI corp. reserved a professional gaming team, called Sixers, headed by its CEO, Nolan Sorrento. Sorrento/Avatar: IOI-655321, is the main Antagonist in the novel, who further puts life threatening hurdles in the ways of Wade.

The whole Novel is a work of pure fantasy treat and calculated imaginations. It keeps the readers hooked since chapter one. All the characters and sidekicks are written so well, that they never feel wasted or irrelevant to the story. It is an interesting and soothing story of action, emotions, twists and turns. Specially for Science Fiction addicts. The novel is filled with 80’s-90’s Pop culture References. It was such a success that inspired Steven Spielberg movie with the exact name, released in 2018. The novel is a must read for novel lovers of all genres, at least for once.

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