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Ready Player One Paperback – 18 Aug. 2011

4.6 4.6 out of 5 stars 146,660 ratings

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.

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At once wildly original and stuffed with irresistible nostalgia, Ready Player One is a spectacularly genre-busting, ambitious, and charming debut―part quest novel, part love story, and part virtual space opera set in a universe where spell-slinging mages battle giant Japanese robots, entire planets are inspired byBlade Runner, and flying DeLoreans achieve light speed -- Justin Trudeau ― Independent

The science-fiction writer John Scalzi has aptly referred to
Ready Player One as a 'nerdgasm' [and] there can be no better one-word description of this ardent fantasy artifact about fantasy culture…But Mr. Cline is able to incorporate his favourite toys and games into a perfectly accessible narrative -- Janet Maslin ― New York Times

A most excellent ride . . . the conceit is a smart one, and we happily root for [the heroes] on their quest . . . fully satisfying ―
Boston Globe

Gorgeously geeky, superbly entertaining, this really is a spectacularly successful debut ―
Daily Mail

If you grew up with an Atari or maybe had a Commodore 64 back in the day, you are going to really enjoy this one. Cline really captures the feeling of those good old days in Ready Player One ―
WIRED

About the Author

Ernest Cline is a no. 1 New York Times bestselling novelist, screenwriter, and full-time geek. He is the author of the novels Ready Player One and Armada and co-screenwriter of the film adaptation of Ready Player One, directed by Steven Spielberg. His books have been published in over fifty countries and have spent more than one hundred weeks on the New York Times bestsellers list. He lives in Austin, Texas, with his family, a time-travelling DeLorean, and a large collection of classic video games.

Product details

  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ Century (18 Aug. 2011)
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • Paperback ‏ : ‎ 384 pages
  • ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 1846059372
  • ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1846059377
  • Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 15.3 x 2.8 x 23.4 cm
  • Customer reviews:
    4.6 4.6 out of 5 stars 146,660 ratings

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Ernest Cline
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ERNEST CLINE is an internationally best-selling novelist, screenwriter, father, and full-time geek. He is the author of the novels Ready Player One and Armada and co-screenwriter of the film adaptation of Ready Player One, directed by Steven Spielberg. His books have been published in over fifty countries and have spent more than 100 weeks on The New York Times Best Sellers list. He lives in Austin, Texas, with his family, a time-traveling DeLorean, and a large collection of classic video games.

Customer reviews

4.6 out of 5 stars
146,660 global ratings

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Customers say

Customers find the story engaging and enjoyable. They praise the writing style as well-written and easy to read. Readers appreciate the imaginative and well-imagined sci-fi world. The references to 1980s pop culture are nostalgic for them.

AI-generated from the text of customer reviews

1,632 customers mention ‘Story quality’1,574 positive58 negative

Customers enjoy the engaging story. They find the premise interesting and the book enjoyable. The basic plot is solid, with new takes on usual events. It's an essential read for fans of retro video games.

"...The research in this novel is mindblowingly meticulous, rich and detailed on every level from the years certain games were released to the names of..." Read more

"...No irritating love triangles, but a well done romance. Humour. Lots of action. Ridiculously fun. So would I recommend it? Absolutely" Read more

"...enjoy reading more about this world, I also think that it had a satisfying ending that doesn't need any further explanation...." Read more

"...The action and suspense build up throughout the book and I found myself really willing the characters on to get to the next clue before the bad guys..." Read more

514 customers mention ‘Enjoyment’481 positive33 negative

Customers enjoy the book. They find it engaging, exciting, and hooked. The journey is described as enjoyable, rewarding, and exciting. Readers appreciate the smart, funny, witty, and intelligent characters.

"...of a single thing I didn't love about this book, it's both a thrill to write about and a massive sigh of relief...." Read more

"...No irritating love triangles, but a well done romance. Humour. Lots of action. Ridiculously fun. So would I recommend it? Absolutely" Read more

"...Wade is smart and funny, but outside the Oasis he is mistreated, ignored and isolated. I can understand why he wants to escape from reality...." Read more

"...Smart, funny, nerdy and exciting...." Read more

482 customers mention ‘Readability’400 positive82 negative

Customers find the book easy to read and engaging. They appreciate the writing style and flow of the prose, as well as the rich details and characters. The language serves the story without distracting the reader. Readers enjoy the first-person narration and visuals. Overall, it's a light yet entertaining read with good acting and sight gags.

"...In addition to this rich detail, our characters are great, and uniformly easy to care about, and our baddies, faceless grunts working behind a smarm..." Read more

"...Solid writing. Well-constructed. Science fiction. Great world building. Geeky sub-culture. Well developed and realistic characters...." Read more

"...Nevertheless, Cline's exciting and exaggerated writing style had me hooked from the first page...." Read more

"...All in all an excellent, fun yarn. The book is well written, great entertainment with a blistering pace...." Read more

363 customers mention ‘Sci-fi’346 positive17 negative

Customers enjoy the well-imagined and imaginative world of the book. They find it geeky with references to video games, but also appreciate the original futuristic story brimming with retro charm. The book touches on sci-fi, fantasy, cyberpunk, and anime.

"...the get go, this book is filled to the brim with nods and references to 80’s pop culture and old school video games, which are the driving force..." Read more

"...I'd recommend Ready Player One to all lovers of sci-fi, fantasy and geek culture...." Read more

"...It is pretty geeky and has a load of references to video games from years gone by and 80’s film and music...." Read more

"...Ernest Cline has such a way with bringing retro and futuristic and melting them together, the OASIS sounds incredible if a little scary, to be able..." Read more

280 customers mention ‘Nostalgia’274 positive6 negative

Customers enjoy the nostalgic references in the book. They find the cultural references to 1980s pop culture enjoyable. The book is full of adventure and constant throwbacks to their childhood at almost every turn. It makes them chuckle in nostalgia and is quite the walk down memory lane.

"...Ready Player One is grounded within actual history, it's one long nostalgia trip, particularly for people of my generation...." Read more

"Ready Player One is an entertaining and nostalgic romp through 1980s pop culture...." Read more

"...Player One embraces all of these things and really it is quite the walk down memory lane, it is of course not all about the eighties there are nods..." Read more

"...I loved how developed the OASIS was and the constant references to 1980s pop culture...." Read more

280 customers mention ‘References’247 positive33 negative

Customers enjoy the references in the book. They find the cultural, pop culture, and retro 80s references nostalgic. The research is meticulous and detailed. Readers also mention that the book is based on a book.

"...The research in this novel is mindblowingly meticulous, rich and detailed on every level from the years certain games were released to the names of..." Read more

"...Although not always the strongest, the world building was very well executed and not so drastic that it became unbelievable, which many apocalyptic/..." Read more

"...Wade is smart and funny, but outside the Oasis he is mistreated, ignored and isolated. I can understand why he wants to escape from reality...." Read more

"...It is pretty geeky and has a load of references to video games from years gone by and 80’s film and music...." Read more

208 customers mention ‘Pacing’147 positive61 negative

Customers find the book's pacing engaging. They describe it as fast-paced, drawing them into the story and moving at a steady pace. The story is interesting and fun, with a multi-layered plot that keeps them hooked until the end.

"...faceless grunts working behind a smarm bucket called Sorrento easy to hate, which means that you root for outcomes and you get excited by..." Read more

"...The pace of this story was excellent. It has the ability of keeping you gripped to its pages by remaining exciting and thrilling, never slowing down...." Read more

"This was a tiny bit slow to start but picked up rapidly...." Read more

"...The book is well written, great entertainment with a blistering pace...." Read more

301 customers mention ‘Narrative quality’147 positive154 negative

Customers have mixed opinions about the narrative quality. Some find the characters believable and the world detailed, with an unabashedly sentimental tone. Others struggled with the plot contrivances and found it unbelievable at times. The book is described as ambitious at times, but some felt the story took a darker turn.

"...certain games were released to the names of their programmers, no detail is too minor. It makes for an authentic, dazzling experience...." Read more

"...But what I didn't expect was that the story would take a darker turn...." Read more

"...No irritating love triangles, but a well done romance. Humour. Lots of action. Ridiculously fun. So would I recommend it? Absolutely" Read more

"...The bad guys are cheap and cheesy and a stark contrast with the heroes who are street punks living in a virtual world...." Read more

I never leave reviews.
5 out of 5 stars
I never leave reviews.
Despite the fact that i am an avid reader i never leave reviews... I'm not great with words.But these books need reviewing!! They're awesome!I saw Ready Player One film a year or two ago and really enjoyed it, i have even re-watched it a few times since...Then a couple of weeks ago a friend recommended i read the book. Now my friend knows i am a fantasy reader, i have been since my early 20's so i was reluctant as this is not my sort of book, despite me liking the film so much.But being in lockdown and very bored i thought, why not... It was only a fiver for the paper back so thought i would give it a go as he wouldn't stop going on about how good it was, and he wasn't wrong.I started it one evening, read for a couple of hours, went to bed and the following evening it was finished, i could NOT put it down! The general plot is the same as the film but it was different enough to really get lost in the story, it was 11.30 at night and i was a couple of chapters away from the end when i realised, i HAVE to order the second one! (This is when i realised i made a mistake ordering the paperback, i like things to match so now i am going to have to re-order it in the hardback format as that was the only format the second one was available in... Not to worry, the paperback will go to a good home!)So i finished the last few chapters and started the second one when it arrived the next day, took me a similar time to read the second book, again i thoroughly enjoyed it. The second one is a little more 'out there' but for someone who mainly reads about magic, made up places, orcs, elderlings and demon wars, this wasn't an issue.I highly recommend these books and this is coming from someone who doesn't really enjoy the 80's (I'm a 90's kid, born very late 80's and as you will have picked up from the other reviews, 80's film/game/music culture is heavily referenced in these books).I am about to start Cline's other book, Armada, again recommended by the same friend... He just finished it and said despite the slow start is another great read... So we shall see!
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Top reviews from United Kingdom

  • Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 15 October 2012
    I haven't read a book that I really liked for a while now, all of my recent reviews have been 1-3 stars, and I started to feel down about not being able to find a book I truly enjoyed.

    Therefore I could literally kneel down and kiss the feet of Ernest Cline, because I adored Ready, Player One , I loved every single page of it, and I powered through it over a matter of hours, I can't think of a single thing I didn't love about this book, it's both a thrill to write about and a massive sigh of relief.

    Ready, Player One takes place in the none too distant future the earth is over populated, resources are depleting, there's a Global Energy Crisis. In the midst of this James Halliday; eccentric billionaire computer inventor of the universally used OASIS virtual reality computer universe, dies leaving his fortune to the person who can solve the Easter Egg puzzle he has encoded within the vast system.

    Years pass, and the unsolved Easter Egg becomes an urban legend, but many computer geeks still hunt it. They are up against "The Sixers" employees of the dreaded IOI corporation hunting professionally for the egg in order to take control of Hallidays fortune and the OASIS system, and turn into a corporate entity.

    The genius of Ready, Player One is that while set in a future world within a kind of MMORPG that does not yet exist, the billionaire Halliday was a child of the 80s and the key to the Easter Egg is knowing enough about 80s gaming, films and pop culture to be able to crack his codes.

    So rather than a bunch of meaningless references to things that don't exist in the minds of the reader, Ready Player One is grounded within actual history, it's one long nostalgia trip, particularly for people of my generation.

    Our heroes Parzival, Aech and Art3mis live in the 2040's but need to know as much as they can about subjects like the Atari and all its games, the Commodore 64, the films of John Hughes, the music of the period, the developing reflection of computing within popular culture, and they do, because they study it as if it were a religion.

    The research in this novel is mindblowingly meticulous, rich and detailed on every level from the years certain games were released to the names of their programmers, no detail is too minor. It makes for an authentic, dazzling experience. It is the nerds dream novel, and there will be many a nerdgasm had over it and much envy from those who share these obsessions who will wish they had written it. It is a Herculean effort in terms of factual clarity.

    As a minor scale nerd, I too gave little jumps of joy when certain obscure references were made and I understood them. For example when "Setec Astronomy" is used as a password and not explained I knew that it came from the 1992 Robert Redford film Sneakers about a group of off the grid hackers and was an anagram found via Scrabble tiles for "Too Many Secrets" I loved that film, I saw it more than once.

    In addition to this rich detail, our characters are great, and uniformly easy to care about, and our baddies, faceless grunts working behind a smarm bucket called Sorrento easy to hate, which means that you root for outcomes and you get excited by developments as well as getting off on all the retro goodness.

    I cannot speak highly enough of this novel, I thought it was awesome. If you too were a child of the 80s and you played arcade games and you had an Atari or an Acorn or a Spectrum and you watched these films and you listened to these bands, or watched these shows I think you will love it too. Naturally there's a slightly skewed bias to American culture, but it really doesn't have a negative effect on the book as a whole. Yes, the outcome is always obvious, it's a hero's journey tale after all, but don't let the inevitable destination spoil the thrill of the journey!
    3 people found this helpful
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  • Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 8 March 2017
    This is a spoiler free review, which I’m going to find a little tricky considering I just want to gush about how delightful this book was.

    In the grim future of the year 2044, the world has become obsessed with living inside the virtual world of the OASIS, an online reality created by the late billionaire James Halliday. Upon the news of his passing, it is revealed that when the OASIS was created, an Easter egg was hidden inside the online universe by Halliday himself, and his entire $250 billion fortune, would go to the player who can find it. The contest however, is not that simple – requiring players to sift through every little detail of the creator’s life and his fixation on 80’s pop culture and videogames, to unravel a series of riddles and clues, leading towards finding the egg. That, and being against big corporations working together who will stop at nothing (and I mean nothing) to acquire it.

    Are you ready, Player One?

    Every so often, a book comes along that feels like it was written especially for you. This is what Ready Player One felt like to me. It combined everything I could want from a book and ticked all the boxes. It was a breath of fresh air in science fiction and was unlike anything I’ve ever read before and that being said, it’s worth a read. (No seriously, go and pick it up now) Especially if you’re a giant nerd at heart.

    The first thing I have to mention is, Cline knows his stuff. From the get go, this book is filled to the brim with nods and references to 80’s pop culture and old school video games, which are the driving force behind its epic plot. Like myself, you don’t have to have grown up in the 80’s to understand any of them as Cline never hesitates to go into details of their relevance to the quest, however we could have done with a little less detail as it gets a bit excessive and repetitive at points when it isn't necessary.

    The concept of the OASIS fascinated me, and at times I was so engrossed I felt as if I was plugged in with a visor and haptic gloves myself (I wish). Although not always the strongest, the world building was very well executed and not so drastic that it became unbelievable, which many apocalyptic/dystopian novels suffer from. This future is not one that I would want to live in, there’s been an energy crisis, resources have been severely depleted and civilization is in decline, and honestly it’s a little frightening how it’s not impossible that this could happen in our future.

    The cast of characters are what bought this book to life. Unlike those characters you see from time to time who seem too perfect in every way to exist in the real world, Ready Player One is made up of characters who are not perfect, who aren’t anything special but they’re ordinary and relatable. Wade Watts, alias Parzival our protagonist, is a normal kid, slightly overweight and isn’t doing so great at school, but he’s an exceptional and cunning gamer, and doesn’t shy away from risky but brilliant plans which could end in disaster. The rest of the side characters are just as fabulous and have you laughing throughout, but Wade/Parzival still remains my favourite, because.. well, how could he not be?

    The pace of this story was excellent. It has the ability of keeping you gripped to its pages by remaining exciting and thrilling, never slowing down. At times I even found myself trying to decode the riddles and puzzles which were way too clever for me to ever work out, because Cline seriously is a genius in coming up with these.

    As I said, Ready Player One for me ticked all the boxes: An unique and epic plot. Solid writing. Well-constructed. Science fiction. Great world building. Geeky sub-culture. Well developed and realistic characters. No irritating love triangles, but a well done romance. Humour. Lots of action. Ridiculously fun.

    So would I recommend it? Absolutely
    6 people found this helpful
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Top reviews from other countries

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  • Amazon Customer
    5.0 out of 5 stars Sublime
    Reviewed in Spain on 13 October 2024
    De los mejores libros que he leído. La manera de escribir de Ernest Cline te atrapa de forma que no quieres soltar el libro.
    Supera por mucho la película de Steven Spielberg, y se diferencia mucho en trama.
    Altamente recomendado para los Geeks, fanáticos de videojuegos
    Customer image
    Amazon Customer
    5.0 out of 5 stars
    Sublime

    Reviewed in Spain on 13 October 2024
    De los mejores libros que he leído. La manera de escribir de Ernest Cline te atrapa de forma que no quieres soltar el libro.
    Supera por mucho la película de Steven Spielberg, y se diferencia mucho en trama.
    Altamente recomendado para los Geeks, fanáticos de videojuegos
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  • liv
    4.0 out of 5 stars Gift
    Reviewed in Sweden on 16 January 2023
    Gifted my older brother this book as he loves the movie, he was mighty pleased!
  • John Walker
    5.0 out of 5 stars Epic treasure quest in a virtual world marinated in 1980s nostalgia
    Reviewed in the United States on 5 December 2019
    By the mid-21st century, the Internet has become largely subsumed as the transport layer for the OASIS (Ontologically Anthropocentric Sensory Immersive Simulation), a massively multiuser online virtual reality environment originally developed as a multiplayer game, but which rapidly evolved into a platform for commerce, education, social interaction, and entertainment used by billions of people around the world. The OASIS supports immersive virtual reality, limited only by the user's budget for hardware used to access the network. With top-of-the-line visors and sound systems, body motion sensors, and haptic feedback, coupled to a powerful interface console, a highly faithful experience was possible. The OASIS was the creation of James Halliday, a legendary super-nerd who made his first fortune designing videogames for home computers in the 1980s, and then re-launched his company in 2012 as Gregarious Simulation Systems (GSS), with the OASIS as its sole product. The OASIS was entirely open source: users could change things within the multitude of worlds within the system (within the limits set by those who created them), or create their own new worlds. Using a distributed computing architecture which pushed much of the processing power to the edge of the network, on users' own consoles, the system was able to grow without bound without requiring commensurate growth in GSS data centres. And it was free, or almost so. To access the OASIS, you paid only a one-time lifetime sign-up fee of twenty-five cents, just like the quarter you used to drop into the slot of an arcade videogame. Users paid nothing to use the OASIS itself: their only costs were the hardware they used to connect (which varied widely in cost and quality of the experience) and the bandwidth to connect to the network. But since most of the processing was done locally, the latter cost was modest. GSS made its money selling or renting virtual real estate (“surreal estate”) within the simulation. If you wanted to open, say, a shopping mall or build your own Fortress of Solitude on an asteroid, you had to pay GSS for the territory. GSS also sold virtual goods: clothes, magical artefacts, weapons, vehicles of all kinds, and buildings. Most were modestly priced, but since they cost nothing to manufacture, were pure profit to the company.

    As the OASIS permeated society, GSS prospered. Halliday remained the majority shareholder in the company, having bought back the share once owned by his co-founder and partner Ogden (“Og”) Morrow, after what was rumoured to be a dispute between the two the details of which had never been revealed. By 2040, Halliday's fortune, almost all in GSS stock, had grown to more than two hundred and forty billion dollars. And then, after fifteen years of self-imposed isolation which some said was due to insanity, Halliday died of cancer. He was a bachelor, with no living relatives, no heirs, and, it was said, no friends. His death was announced on the OASIS in a five minute video titled Anaorak's Invitation (“Anorak” was the name of Halliday's all-powerful avatar within the OASIS). In the film, Halliday announces that his will places his entire fortune in escrow until somebody completes the quest he has programmed within the OASIS:

    “Three hidden keys open three secret gates,
    Wherein the errant will be tested for worthy traits,
    And those with the skill to survive these straits,
    Will reach The End where the prize awaits.”

    The prize is Halliday's entire fortune and, with it, super-user control of the principal medium of human interaction, business, and even politics. Before fading out, Halliday shows three keys: copper, jade, and crystal, which must be obtained to open the three gates. Only after passing through the gates and passing the tests within them, will the intrepid paladin obtain the Easter egg hidden within the OASIS and gain control of it. Halliday provided a link to Anorak's Almanac, more than a thousand pages of journal entries made during his life, many of which reflect his obsession with 1980s popular culture, science fiction and fantasy, videogames, movies, music, and comic books. The clues to finding the keys and the Egg were widely believed to be within this rambling, disjointed document.

    Given the stakes, and the contest's being open to anybody in the OASIS, what immediately came to be called the Hunt became a social phenomenon, all-consuming to some. Egg hunters, or “gunters”, immersed themselves in Halliday's journal and every pop culture reference within it, however obscure. All of this material was freely available on the OASIS, and gunters memorised every detail of anything which had caught Halliday's attention. As time passed, and nobody succeeded in finding even the copper key (Halliday's memorial site displayed a scoreboard of those who achieved goals in the Hunt, so far blank), many lost interest in the Hunt, but a dedicated hard core persisted, often to the exclusion of all other diversions. Some gunters banded together into “clans”, some very large, agreeing to exchange information and, if one found the Egg, to share the proceeds with all members. More sinister were the activities of Innovative Online Industries—IOI—a global Internet and communications company which controlled much of the backbone that underlay the OASIS. It had assembled a large team of paid employees, backed by the research and database facilities of IOI, with their sole mission to find the Egg and turn control of the OASIS over to IOI. These players, all with identical avatars and names consisting of their six-digit IOI employee numbers, all of which began with the digit “6”, were called “sixers” or, more often in the gunter argot, “Sux0rz”.

    Gunters detested IOI and the sixers, because it was no secret that if they found the Egg, IOI's intention was to close the architecture of the OASIS, begin to charge fees for access, plaster everything with advertising, destroy anonymity, snoop indiscriminately, and use their monopoly power to put their thumb on the scale of all forms of communication including political discourse. (Fortunately, that couldn't happen to us with today's enlightened, progressive Silicon Valley overlords.) But IOI's financial resources were such that whenever a rare and powerful magical artefact (many of which had been created by Halliday in the original OASIS, usually requiring the completion of a quest to obtain, but freely transferrable thereafter) came up for auction, IOI was usually able to outbid even the largest gunter clans and add it to their arsenal.

    Wade Watts, a lone gunter whose avatar is named Parzival, became obsessed with the Hunt on the day of Halliday's death, and, years later, devotes almost every minute of his life not spent sleeping or in school (like many, he attends school in the OASIS, and is now in the last year of high school) on the Hunt, reading and re-reading Anorak's Almanac, reading, listening to, playing, and viewing everything mentioned therein, to the extent he can recite the dialogue of the movies from memory. He makes copious notes in his “grail diary”, named after the one kept by Indiana Jones. His friends, none of whom he has ever met in person, are all gunters who congregate on-line in virtual reality chat rooms such as that run by his best friend, Aech.

    Then, one day, bored to tears and daydreaming in Latin class, Parzival has a flash of insight. Putting together a message buried in the Almanac that he and many other gunters had discovered but failed to understand, with a bit of Latin and his encyclopedic knowledge of role playing games, he decodes the clue and, after a demanding test, finds himself in possession of the Copper Key. His name, alone, now appears at the top of the scoreboard, with 10,000 points. The path to the First Gate was now open.

    Discovery of the Copper Key was a sensation: suddenly Parzival, a humble level 10 gunter, is a worldwide celebrity (although his real identity remains unknown, as he refuses all media offers which would reveal or compromise it). Knowing that the key can be found re-energises other gunters, not to speak of IOI, and Parzival's footprints in the OASIS are scrupulously examined for clues to his achievement. (Finding a key and opening a gate does not render it unavailable to others. Those who subsequently pass the tests will receive their own copies of the key, although there is a point bonus for finding it first.)

    So begins an epic quest by Parzival and other gunters, contending with the evil minions of IOI, whose potential gain is so high and ethics so low that the risks may extend beyond the OASIS into the real world. For the reader, it is a nostalgic romp through every aspect of the popular culture of the 1980s: the formative era of personal computing and gaming. The level of detail is just staggering: this may be the geekiest nerdfest ever published. Heck, there's even a reference to an erstwhile Autodesk employee! The only goof I noted is a mention of the “screech of a 300-baud modem during the log-in sequence”. Three hundred baud modems did not have the characteristic squawk and screech sync-up of faster modems which employ trellis coding. While there are a multitude of references to details which will make people who were there, then, smile, readers who were not immersed in the 1980s and/or less familiar with its cultural minutiæ can still enjoy the challenges, puzzles solved, intrigue, action, and epic virtual reality battles which make up the chronicle of the Hunt. The conclusion is particularly satisfying: there may be a bigger world than even the OASIS.
  • Laura Machado
    5.0 out of 5 stars Excelente
    Reviewed in Brazil on 30 May 2018
    Se alguém te falar que para gostar desse livro, é preciso entender as referências dos anos oitenta, estão mentindo. Eu nasci em 91 e, vai saber por quê, nunca tive muito interesse pela década de oitenta, apesar do meu filme e música favoritos serem dela. De todas as referências do livro, só entendi mesmo a do DeLorean, por causa do De Volta para o Futuro ser o amor da minha vida, do Dungeons and Dragons e a da Ms. Pac Man. Todo o resto para mim foi novidade, e ainda assim consegui amar a história praticamente do começo ao fim.

    Na verdade, tenho duas críticas para o livro. A primeira é que tem referências demais mesmo. Acho que o autor estava tentando fazer homenagem a tanta coisa, que passou um pouco do limite. Mas talvez esse número de informações não teria sido tão esmagador se não viesse com tantas explicações sempre, o que é minha segundo crítica. Infelizmente, dá para ver desde o começo do livro que o autor usa muito de explicações na sua narração. E não é só na hora de dizer de que ano e para qual função etc o jogo que ele mencionou é, mas em muitas das ações mesmo. Todas as melhores partes do livro são as mais presenciais e que têm um tom mais de prosa do que de uma história repassada por terceiros.

    Por causa disso, o ritmo do livro cai um pouco em algumas partes, o que eu consegui superar e impedir de me desanimar, já que li rápido e só parava quando estava no meio de uma parte emocionante. Essa é uma mania minha, de sempre parar de ler só quando algo importante está acontecendo e estou realmente animada para continuar, que aí fica bem difícil desanimar. Quem tiver menos tempo para ler e for obrigado a ler de pouco em pouco vai sentir mais essa quebra no ritmo e esse excesso de informações. Só tenho uma coisa a dizer a quem desanimar: continue, porque o final é ótimo!

    Aliás, o livro é dividido em três partes e a terceira é de longe a melhor. Simplesmente amei o clímax, amei a resolução e admiro muito o autor por ter conseguido criar um final que fosse aumentando mesmo o nível, como em jogos de videogame, sem parecer forçado ou exagerado. O enredo da história e seu desenvolvimento, aliás, são impecáveis, o que definitivamente vai me fazer dar uma chance para outros livros do autor. Sem contar com o apego que criei pelos personagens, que não é das coisas mais frequentes para mim.

    Estou extremamente feliz de ter decidido ler este livro, que me surpreendeu completamente e foi divertido do começo ao fim. Apesar das minhas críticas, me apaixonei completamente pela história e pelos personagens e senti desde antes da página cem que ele entraria na minha lista de favoritos. E é por isso que dei nota cinco. Os pequenos defeitos não importam quando a história é tão incrível e bem desenvolvida quanto a desse livro. Ele conseguiu fazer com que eu, uma pessoa que só jogou uns cinco jogos de videogame e um RPG na vida, mergulhasse completamente na história e me divertisse como se tivesse crescido nos anos oitenta. Simplesmente amei.
  • Cliente de Amazon
    5.0 out of 5 stars Amazing!
    Reviewed in Mexico on 19 February 2018
    It’s a good book! Honestly I didn’t expect so much but I was wrong. If you’re a gamer or you used to be a gamer, you will love this book. All the pop references are great! The ending I didn’t like it so much, but still loving the whole concept and characters. In addition, the whole novel is like the description of an utopia inside a catastrophic scenario. So, I recommend this book a lot, no matter if you don’t want to see the coming soon movie.