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Description-
#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • Now a major motion picture directed by Steven Spielberg. “Enchanting . . . Willy Wonka meets The Matrix.”—USA Today • “As one adventure leads expertly to the next, time simply evaporates.”—Entertainment Weekly A world at stake. A quest for the ultimate prize. Are you ready? In the year 2045, reality is an ugly place. The only time Wade Watts really feels alive is when he’s jacked into the OASIS, a vast virtual world where most of humanity spends their days. When the eccentric creator of the OASIS dies, he leaves behind a series of fiendish puzzles, based on his obsession with the pop culture of decades past. Whoever is first to solve them will inherit his vast fortune—and control of the OASIS itself. Then Wade cracks the first clue. Suddenly he’s beset by rivals who’ll kill to take this prize. The race is on—and the only way to survive is to win. NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY Entertainment Weekly • San Francisco Chronicle • Village Voice • Chicago Sun-Times • iO9 • The AV Club “Delightful . . . the grown-up’s Harry Potter.”—HuffPost “An addictive read . . . part intergalactic scavenger hunt, part romance, and all heart.”—CNN “A most excellent ride . . . Cline stuffs his novel with a cornucopia of pop culture, as if to wink to the reader.”—Boston Globe “Ridiculously fun and large-hearted . . . Cline is that rare writer who can translate his own dorky enthusiasms into prose that’s both hilarious and compassionate.”—NPR “[A] fantastic page-turner . . . starts out like a simple bit of fun and winds up feeling like a rich and plausible picture of future friendships in a world not too distant from our own.”—iO9
I was jolted awake by the sound of gunfire in one of the neighboring stacks. The shots were followed by a few minutes of muffled shouting and screaming, then silence.
Gunfire wasn’t uncommon in the stacks, but it still shook me up. I knew I probably wouldn’t be able to fall back asleep, so I decided to kill the remaining hours until dawn by brushing up on a few coin-op classics. Galaga, Defender, Asteroids. These games were outdated digital dinosaurs that had become museum pieces long before I was born. But I was a gunter, so I didn’t think of them as quaint low-res antiques. To me, they were hallowed artifacts. Pillars of the pantheon. When I played the classics, I did so with a determined sort of reverence.
I was curled up in an old sleeping bag in the corner of the trailer’s tiny laundry room, wedged into the gap between the wall and the dryer. I wasn’t welcome in my aunt’s room across the hall, which was fine by me. I preferred to crash in the laundry room anyway. It was warm, it afforded me a limited amount of privacy, and the wireless reception wasn’t too bad. And, as an added bonus, the room smelled like liquid detergent and fabric softener. The rest of the trailer reeked of cat piss and abject poverty.
Most of the time I slept in my hideout. But the temperature had dropped below zero the past few nights, and as much as I hated staying at my aunt’s place, it still beat freezing to death.
A total of fifteen people lived in my aunt’s trailer. She slept in the smallest of its three bedrooms. The Depperts lived in the bedroom adjacent to her, and the Millers occupied the large master bedroom at the end of the hall. There were six of them, and they paid the largest share of the rent. Our trailer wasn’t as crowded as some of the other units in the stacks. It was a double-wide. Plenty of room for everybody.
I pulled out my laptop and powered it on. It was a bulky, heavy beast, almost ten years old. I’d found it in a Dumpster behind the abandoned strip mall across the highway. I’d been able to coax it back to life by replacing its system memory and reloading the stone-age operating system. The processor was slower than a sloth by current standards, but it was fine for my needs. The laptop served as my portable research library, video arcade, and home theater system. Its hard drive was filled with old books, movies, TV show episodes, song files, and nearly every videogame made in the twentieth century.
I booted up my emulator and selected Robotron: 2084, one of my all-time favorite games. I’d always loved its frenetic pace and brutal simplicity. Robotron was all about instinct and reflexes. Playing old videogames never failed to clear my mind and set me at ease. If I was feeling depressed or frustrated about my lot in life, all I had to do was tap the Player One button, and my worries would instantly slip away as my mind focused itself on the relentless pixelated onslaught on the screen in front of me. There, inside the game’s two-dimensional universe, life was simple: It’s just you against the machine. Move with your left hand, shoot with your right, and try to stay alive as long as possible.
I spent a few hours blasting through wave after wave of Brains, Spheroids, Quarks, and Hulks in my unending battle to Save the Last Human Family! But eventually my fingers started to cramp up and I began to lose my rhythm. When that happened at this level, things deteriorated quickly. I burned through all of my extra lives in a matter of minutes, and my two least-favorite words appeared on the screen: game over.
I shut down the...
About the Author-
Ernest Cline is a novelist, screenwriter, father, and full-time geek. His first novel, Ready Player One, was a New York Times and USA Today bestseller and appeared on numerous “best of the year” lists. Ernie lives in Austin, Texas, with his family, a time-traveling DeLorean, and a large collection of classic video games.
Wil Wheaton's acting career began in 1986 with acclaimed roles in Stand By Me and Toy Soldiers. He continued acting through his teen years as series regular Wesley Crusher on Star Trek: The Next Generation, and opposite Robin Williams in Flubber. He is also an author, blogger, voice actor, widely followed original Twitter user, and a champion of geek culture.
Reviews-
As narrator of this offbeat, futuristic adventure, Wil Wheaton must evoke a teen's na•veté and cynicism about real life and incorporate this veteran gaming geek's expertise of '80s culture. With nods to Willy Wonka, William Gibson, and Neal Stephenson, a cross-genre plot involves gaming jousts as the hero attempts to win top score on his quest to inherit a dead billionaire's control of an interactive universe of cyber-worlds. Wheaton is up to the task, presenting an engaging treasure hunt while also dramatizing the hero's enthusiasm at playing classic games like Pac-Man. Also a twist on PILGRIM'S PROGRESS, this novel has something for everyone. J.L. (c) AudioFile 2011, Portland, Maine
April 25, 2011 This adrenaline shot of uncut geekdom, a quest through a virtual world, is loaded with enough 1980s nostalgia to please even the most devoted John Hughes fans. In a bleak but easily imagined 2044, Wade Watts, an impoverished high school student who calls a vertically stacked trailer park home, lives primarily online, alongside billions of others, via a massive online game, OASIS, where players race to unravel the puzzles OASIS creator James Halliday built into the game before his death, with the winner taking control of the virtual world's parent company, as well as staggering wealth. When Wade stumbles on a clue, he's plunged into high-stakes conflict with a corporation dedicated to unraveling Halliday's riddles, which draw from Dungeons and Dragons, old Atari video games, the cinematic computer hacker ode War Games, and that wellspring of geek humor, Monty Python and the Holy Grail. (Of course.) The science fiction, video game, technology, and geeky musical references pile up quickly, sometimes a bit much so, but sweet, self-deprecating Wade, whose universe is an odd mix of the real past and the virtual present, is the perfect lovable/unlikely hero.
Janet Maslin, The New York Times
"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 favorite toys and games into a perfectly accessible narrative."
Entertainment Weekly
"Triggers memories and emotions embedded in the psyche of a generation...[Cline crafts] a fresh and imaginative world from our old toy box, and finds significance in there among the collectibles. A-"
Boston Globe
"A most excellent ride...the conceit is a smart one, and we happily root for [the heroes] on their quest...fully satisfying."
USA Today
"Enchanting...Willy Wonka meets the Matrix. This novel undoubtedly qualifies Cline as the hottest geek on the planet right now. [But] you don't have to be a geek to get it."
Cleveland Plain Dealer
"A fun, funny and fabulously entertaining first novel...This novel's large dose of 1980s trivia is a delight...[but] even readers who need Google to identify Commodore 64 or Inky, Blinky, Pinky and Clyde, will enjoy this memorabilian feast."
Huffington Post
"The grown-up's 'Harry Potter'...the mystery and fantasy in this novel weaves itself in the most delightful way, and the details that make up Mr. Cline's world are simply astounding. READY PLAYER ONE has it all."
Austin American-Statesman
"Incredibly entertaining...Drawing on everything from "Back to the Future" to Roald Dahl to Neal Stephenson's groundbreaking "Snow Crash," Cline has made READY PLAYER ONE a geek fantasia, '80s culture memoir and commentary on the future of online behavior all at once."
New York Daily News
"READY PLAYER ONE is the ultimate lottery ticket."
Charlaine Harris, #1 New York Times bestselling author of the Sookie Stackhouse series
"This non-gamer loved every page of READY PLAYER ONE."
Daily Mail (UK)
"Gorgeously geeky, superbly entertaining, this really is a spectacularly successful debut."
Chicago Reader
"A gunshot of fun with a wicked sense of timing and a cast of characters that you're pumping your fist in the air with whenever they succeed. I haven't been this much on the edge of my seat for an ending in years."
Mark Frauenfelder, BoingBoing
"A rollicking, surprise-laden, potboiling, thrilling adventure story.... I loved every sentence of this book"
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
"A 'frakking' good read [featuring] incredible creative detail...I grinned at the sheer audacity of Cline's imagination."
Annalee Newitz, io9.com"[A] fantastic page-turner....READY PLAYER ONE may be science fiction, but it's also written for people who have never picked up an SF novel in their lives..."
Terry Brooks, #1 New York Times bestselling author of the Shannara series
"Fascinating and imaginative...It's non-stop action when gamers must navigate clever puzzles and outwit determined enemies in a virtual world in order to save a real one. Readers are in for a wild ride."
Will Lavender, New York Times bestselling author of Dominance
"I was blown away by this book...A book of ideas, a potboiler, a game-within-a-novel, a serious science-fiction epic, a comic pop culture mash-up--call this novel what you will, but READY PLAYER ONE will defy every label you try to put on it. Here, finally, is this generation's Neuromancer."
Daniel H. Wilson, New York Times bestselling author of Robopocalypse
"I really, really loved READY PLAYER ONE...Cline expertly mines a copious vein of 1980s pop culture, catapulting the reader on a light-speed adventure in an advanced but backward-looking future."
John Scalzi, New York Times bestselling author of Old Man's War
"A nerdgasm...imagine Dungeons and Dragons and an 80s video arcade made hot, sweet love, and their child was raised in Azeroth."
Patrick Rothfuss, #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Wise Man's Fear
"Completely fricking awesome...This book pleased every geeky bone in my geeky body. I felt like it was written just for me."
Booklist, starred review
"An exuberantly realized, exciting, and sweet-natured cyber-quest. Cline's imaginative and rollicking coming-of-age geek saga has a smash-hit vibe."
Publishers Weekly, Pick of the Week
"This adrenaline shot of uncut geekdom, a quest through a virtual world, is loaded with enough 1980s nostalgia to please even the most devoted John Hughes fans... sweet, self-d
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As narrator of this offbeat, futuristic adventure, Wil Wheaton must evoke a teen's na•veté and cynicism about real life and incorporate this veteran gaming geek's expertise of '80s culture. With nods to Willy Wonka, William Gibson, and Neal Stephenson, a cross-genre plot involves gaming jousts as the hero attempts to win top score on his quest to inherit a dead billionaire's control of an interactive universe of cyber-worlds. Wheaton is up to the task, presenting an engaging treasure hunt while also dramatizing the hero's enthusiasm at playing classic games like Pac-Man. Also a twist on PILGRIM'S PROGRESS, this novel has something for everyone. J.L. (c) AudioFile 2011, Portland, Maine
