The global economy has collapsed due to depletion of natural resources and an energy crisis, the book tells us, and some elements of social order and public schools and other things like that have gone down with it. There’s some amount of inventiveness to imagining this virtual world, but beyond that, the world of Ready Player One is not particularly well-fleshed out. If you were to take those things out of the book though, there wouldn’t be much left to it. I ended up skimming a few sections that were just name after name of arcane old stuff. The game, then, is set up and for the most part proceeds along as you would expect, but of course, the point is always the journey.įrom Zork to Monty Python to Dungeons & Dragons and DeLoreans and Joust, the geeky references are endless. Meanwhile, an all-powerful corporate conglomerate, the IOI, has set out to win the competition as well, using whatever means necessary to wrest control over the ubiquitous OS into their evil grasp. OASIS was built by Jim Halliday, a geek and 80’s fanatic, so finding this treasure, an “Easter Egg” in video game parlance, requires mastery of the classic games Halliday played and knowing arcane facts about the things Halliday loved. The reward up for grabs is billions of dollars and control over the OASIS ecosystem. In Ready Player One, Wade Watts - screen name Parzival - is one of the countless people looking to find a treasure hidden inside the virtual reality simulation environment, “OASIS,” that now dominates everyone’s lives. If Willy Wonka loved the 80s and video games instead of candy, the result would be this book. The Spielberg trailer for the upcoming Ready Player One movie was recently released, so I knew I needed to finally read this book that had been quietly collecting dust on my shelf for the last few years. By Jennifer Marie Lin on Jan 22nd, 2018 (Last Updated Feb 16th, 2018)

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