(Crown Publishers, 2011)
Legendary filmmaker Steven Spielberg is directing a film adaptation of Ready Player One. Is there any other greater recommendation of a book than to say that Spielberg has chosen to adapt it? Should I even keep writing in an attempt to convince you to read this book, or are you already sold? All of the film adaptations directed by Spielberg have gone on to become well-known and well-loved movies and there is no doubt that Ready Player One will also become such a film, not only because the adaptation is being helmed by a director of Spielberg’s caliber but also because of the source material, the novel itself, which is sharp, poignant, fun, funny, and very well-written.

The novel is set in the future, in 2044, where the world is plagued by financial and social issues. Many of the people in the world in which the novel is set use the OASIS, a virtual world with elements of various current video games and multiplayer online role-playing games, as the main form of escaping the many problems that exist in their society. In fact, the OASIS is so popular and so needed, it does seem as though people spend more time in the virtual world, attached to their visors and haptic gloves, instead of the real world where real world problems exist. There is an interesting blurring between the real world and the virtual world in an attempt to show how intrinsic technology is to human existence in the near future. People even go to school in the OASIS.

The main character of the book, Wade, is an overweight and awkward teenager whose use of the OASIS is a reminder of the ways in which gaming can serve as an expression of what is going on in the minds of the players (particularly how gaming, in a manner similar to reading, is also a form, if a more condemned one, of escaping one’s reality), especially when one of the first things we learn about Wade is how he has altered his avatar within the OASIS to be a better looking version of himself – thus communicating so much information about how Wade feels about himself. If we close our eyes and think of the concept: a poor, and poorly-nourished boy stuck in his poverty-stricken home is plugged into this virtual world and is able to live as an entirely other version of himself, we can begin to understand the complexity and beauty of the concept in the novel.

However, thus far, all that has been described is the main premise in which Ready Player One is set. The plot itself has to do with James Halliday, deceased creator of the OASIS, and the will he left behind which contains clues that could lead to one of the players in the OASIS amassing amazing amounts of wealth and power. Wade becomes the first person to solve the first clue and from then on, as we see his encounters with other players (both friends and enemies), as he learns to navigate the large and complex world that is the OASIS, as he escapes from the evil corporation that wants to kill him, and as he figures out clue after clue and moves closer to winning the game, it is impossible to not become enthralled and engrossed in the novel as it spirals, twists and turns, and leads us along on one hell of a rollicking good ride. Wade falls in love, he overcomes his flaws and failings and he does become the great hero he is meant to be – and although this formula does seem similar, be assured that the way it is presented in Ready Player One, in the futuristic, technology-driven world created by Ernest Cline, ensures that it is a fresh and new approach, guaranteed to make you invest time and emotion, to that age-old formula readers will never be able to get enough of.