By Ernest Cline

Rating: 3 of 5 Stars

Three-Word Summary: Real Virtual Reality

Ready Player One is about video games. This establishes it within the growing sub genre of media that is about video games.

The reason this genre is growing is because that generation born during the 1980s when video games were first introduced has now grow up and started producing.

Of course, the books author Ernest Cline falls into this category. As does one of the prominent character in the book, James Halliday.

The book begins in the year 2044 at the time of Halliday’s death. He is established as the multi-billionaire creator of the OASIS, a full-immersion, alternative-reality video game.

In his video will, Halliday leaves his vast fortune to the winner of a massive contest that takes place within OASIS. The Willy-Wonka-like contest is an Easter egg hunt within the game, a global search for unlimited wealth and power.

Those who study the hunt’s creator, including the story’s protagonist Wade Watts, know that Halliday was obsessed with 1980’s pop culture. And they will need to become so too if they are to unravel his mysterious puzzle.

The unfortunate aspect of this obsession was that it bordered on obscurity and threatened to alienate its audience if they failed to follow this lengthy trail of rare video game and Saturday morning cartoon references.

Cline’s writing is very similar to that of Cory Doctorow, which is fitting since Doctorow is mentioned in the text. The disadvantage is that he share’s Doctorow’s occasional sloppiness of writing, especially in dialogue. The characters’ conversations lean towards unrealistic, amateur ranting.

Regardless, the satisfactory blending of these disparate elements, of the past and the future, and the fascinating layering of video games-within-video games, makes Ready Player One a worthwhile read, especially for those of us who grew up with 8-bit graphics and joy-stick controllers.