Player one

Great references, it's a great book, loaded with a lot of 80's and 90's references to pop culture, music, tv, movies, everything that really make an enjoyable read, i saw myself smiling at certtain references that i could understand.

The plot seems very juvenile, intender for teenagers, but if you like videogames and grew up on the 80's and 90's you gotta like a lot of this book.

This was a re-read. I have been meaning to read again but figured it wasn't that long ago that I read it... but nope 2013... time flies.

I loved this book, in fact, I found it much more enjoyable the second time around. Instead of diving deep into the plot, I got to listen and enjoy the 80s nostalgia. This time around, it was so much more fun. Can't wait for the film.

This was a fast read for me, very engaging. Riveting. Of course the 80's trivia was fun and nostalgic for me. I absolutely adored the ending, in more than one way.

One reason I have so much love for this novel is the good messages the four main characters help to illustrate. It is ironic that the these young people, who spend so much time plugged into OASIS because they feel like social misfits, would eventually forge such a strong bond--and they get to know each other before having the chance to be prejudiced by appearances or circumstance. (An avatar can be a good thing.) It is a virtual reality game that finally forces Aech, Parzival, Shoto, and Art3mis to become friends, outside of OASIS.

Some timely issues poke up, as well--greedy corporations, environmental devastation, an ever-growing chasm between ultra-rich and very poor, and even net neutrality.

This is good stuff! I'd recommend it to anyone.

The ultimate geek-out.

After a few so-so books in a row, decided to take some friends recommendations as give "RP1" a try.

While taking place in the future, with technologies we can only imagine today, RP1 is a throwback to the 1980s, this book is chalk full of references to the best and worst of the decade of my childhood: music, movies, TV shows, authors, fashion, and of course, video games. At the same time, it's a warning to us about taking care of our planet, about the power of corporations, and living in the real world - not just online.

Protip: If this book isn't geeky enough for you as it is, the audiobook on Audible is narrated by Wil Wheaton.

A book I couldn't wait to get back into every day. Second Life meets "Hey, Remember the 80s?" with completely entertaining results. To be honest, though, I have a hard time thinking anyone but Generation Xers wouldn't eventually grow weary of the continual references to a very specific and culturally isolated decade.

Also--a little bit of a deus ex machina addiction, but I personally enjoyed the book so much, I'll give it a pass.

A great nostalgic romp through the past, the present and, perhaps a not too distant future. It points out what's wrong with our global culture today in a way that brings back the hope we had growing up in the 70's and 80's. It reinvigorates a faith in the goodness of humanity in spite of our current mistakes and failings. And it points out the absolute value of charity towards one another. And it shows how we know all this; we learned it all growing up but forgot it being part of the rat race or being run over by it.

It's full of Easter eggs from pop culture and the best ones are those he brings up without pointing them out, leaving the reader to notice them.

For anyone who is nostalgic about the late 70's and 80's and the tabletop role-playing game that spawned many others and computer games and movies to follow, you'll see just how deeply Dungeons and Dragons has shaped our culture.

It's a fun story with a ton of '80s nostalgia. It plays on the theme of technology escapism. It gets sappy in places, but overall a fun read.

Despite the fact that I've never played a game myself I enjoyed this book immensely.



Audio book version, read by Wil Wheaton. Well read.

Comme d'autres oeuvres, ce roman est un monument à une époque : une espèce de condensé de nostalgie montrant à ceux qui se revendiquent aujourd'hui geek ce que voulait dire ce terme à l'époque des pionniers. Du coup, chaque oeuvre /produit ayant eu dans les années 80 le moindre intérêt pour l'auteur se voit citée, implicitement ou explicitement, de façon à fournir aux jeunes de notre époque un cadre d'appréciation de la culture pop des années 80. Les références ne sont évidemment pas les miennes (pas un mot de Cobra, ce qui me désole toujours)... Mais dans l'ensemble le schéma correspond bien à la mauvaise culture de ma jeunesse.
Il y a évidemment une histoire autour de ces références. Orientée jeune adulte puisque c'est actuellement le marché porteur (bien plus que la bit/chick/lit ou le mommy porn). Du coup, le héros de 17 ans est un champion des scripts kiddies capable de s'introduire dans un système ultra sécurisé . Mais c'est honnêtement bien moins intéressant pour moi que ce catalogue d'une certaine forme d'élitisme culturel.
Ce qui me donne évidemment un avis des plus mitigés sur ce roman... Que je ne détaillerai finalement pas plus.

An homage to geek culture, this is a fun story of digital natives rising up against corporate control, echoing the battle over Internet freedom and the perpetuation of its organic anarchy. It's not a particularly deep narrative but it is absolutely an enjoyable one.

Great science fiction if you grew up with 80s computers and culture.
I can't imagine you like this if you didn't.

A true geek's novel.

A games developer dies and wills his entire fortune to the player who can find three keys and clear the three matching gates. All of this within the virtual reality MMORPG The Oasis.

It is a classic quest story with a huge amount of 80's geek trivia in matters as diverse as movies, music, anime and of course video games.

The book is read by Wil Wheaton, adding another layer of geek cred.

This has been on my "currently reading" list since December 2012. I've given up and restarted it on and off since then. It was such a struggle to get through. I think the problem is that it irritates the same parts of my brain as The Big Bang Theory - it's supposed to appeal to nerds like me, but it's such a shitshow that I find myself getting annoyed. In place of any character development or story, we're treated to a never-ending string of "like that thing in $nerd_reference". Right up until the last chapter. "It was a hedge maze. With the same layout as the one in Labyrinth". This is cheap, lazy writing at its worst. Dan Brown, all is forgiven.

Literally one of the best books I've read in years! This book is filled with nostalgia of an age I didn't actually experience, but have always looked back on fondly. I would like nothing more than for
this book to be made into a movie, but I don't think that will ever happen as it has so many references and appearances by things that actually exist.

There was one point in this novel where I was grinding my teeth. It was spelled out for the characters how to find the Jade Key to go further in their treasure hunt, and somehow I got it in an instant and those ubergeeks who knew everything about the creator of the treasure hunt and his way of thinking keep on missing it for weeks. Old run-down house and collecting trophies! How hard can it be?!

Which means most likely that I am a bit too geeky in some way. At least I can't quote WarGames from memory, but at least the Monty Python challenge later would have been able for me.

Ready Player One is about a treasure hunt in a virtual reality (OASIS) which by the point when the novel takes place has taken over all other MMORPGs and works as most peoples' workplace, school, entertainment, and what-have-you. There is a reason for this of course: the real world is rife with hunger and desperation, slavery has been reintroduced by way of indentures for debtors, gasoline has run out so quickly that whole streets are filled with useless cars, and trailer parks have grown into stacks of trailers all over each other. There is a good reason why the people in this world prefer the virtual reality to their own. And then the founder of OASIS dies and leaves a game as an inheritance: a treasure hunt inside OASIS, whoever manages it will gain control over the company; in end effect whoever wins will be the richest person in the world.
This leads to a subculture called the gunters who hunt for this treasure, and for a revival of 1980s pop culture (because the hints for this treasure hunt are made up of obscure pop culture references). And then nothing happens for a few years, until the main character (a kid from the stacks with a pithy 3rd level avatar called Parzival), manages to get on the high score board as its first entry.

The book reads like a well-written 1980s adventure movie, and it is easy to imagine all the different characters and places described in it by virtue of them being references to 1980s American culture. Sometimes these references are laid on a bit thick, but in most places they read just fine. The issue with the plot is that the reverence it gives to 1980s movies also extends to itself: there were barely any surprises in there, all the plot turns and twists were visible from far ahead, and it was sometimes a bit too clear when something would happen, even if I didn't know what exactly it would be. In the end the moral of the story is that not everything can be online, and that there must be a real world for people as well, which is just such a 1980s cartoon moral. Of course its fitting.

The novel might not be the classic that it has been heralded as (I gather most of the reviewers are from the same generation that is celebrated in it), but its a nice, fast science-fiction adventure.