“Everyone my age remembers where they were and what they were doing when they first heard about the contest.”
Ready Player One
written by Ernest Cline
Less than a five minutes ago I finished reading Ready Player One. Before finding this book I felt as though I was in some kind of drought, so to speak. I have been reading many books lately, and while all of them were great reads, they all fell short of being a real honest to God “page-turner”. I was getting becoming annoyed and frustrated with my luck, when I discovered this book. I only encounter the all-around amazing “page-turners” maybe once or twice in a year. In the last three years the winners have been The Hunger Games, The Night Circus, The Help, and The Book Thief. Now I am proud to present 2013’s “page-turner”-drumroll- Ready Player One.
Wade Owen Watt’s is faced with a cruel reality. In the year 2044 the world is in the middle of a global energy crisis. Poverty, famine, and anarchy are present all across planet Earth. Wade at eighteen years old, is well aware that his predetermined life in the Stacks, a vertically built trailer park, will most likely be where he lives out his short uneventful life. Unless he can find Halliday’s Easter Egg. It is important to know the correct definition of "easter egg" before reading the rest of this review. Otherwise you may pick up this book thinking James Halliday is an easter bunny.
Easter Egg(Noun)
1: an egg that is dyed and sometimes decorated and that is associated with the celebration of Easter
2: a hidden feature in a commercially released product (as software or a DVD)
http://www.merriam-webster.com
James Halliday, the multi-billionare games designer, had an unusual will. On the day of his death a video message was sent across the world beginning a contest like the world has never seen. Halliday was the creator of a virtual reality game called OASIS, and everyone was on it. Reality was filled with poverty and pollution, but life in the OASIS you could do anything and be anything. Since Halliday had no family or friends he decided he would create an Easter Egg within the game and whoever discovered it would inherit all of his riches and his majority stock in OASIS. Except he didn't make it easy to find.
"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"
No one has even come close to finding a clue or a key in five years until Wade Watts finds the first key.
This book is surprisingly unique. To get the keys the player must have an extensive knowledge of the games, movies, and songs of the 80's. This is because Halliday grew up in the 80's and loved most everything in it such as the movies War Games, Lady Hawke, and Monty Python and the Holy Grail. Wade has been careful to learn everything about Halliday in order to get the Egg, his only chance to get out of the stack. However getting the Egg is extremely difficult, and the challenges are not only in the game because there are people who would kill for the Egg or any secrets that would lead them to it. This book was one of the most fun and exciting books I've read. Even through it's a science fiction book, the endless references to the 80's gives it an interesting twist. This book has it all.
