By Erika Berger
The best thing about reading a book is the experience of being transported to another world — becoming a part of the adventure. Being able to transport to a different world is possible in another way — a virtual reality simulation. Ernest Cline’s novel Ready Player One is an exciting reality-inception adventure.
James Halliday, a multibillionaire video game creator, saved his $240 billion fortune to give to the player that can find three hidden keys and complete the three successive tasks in his virtual world called the OASIS. Whoever finds all the keys and completes the tasks first will come into possession of the virtual world and Halliday’s vast fortune. For years, players all over the world participated in the hunt for the keys without success. Ready Player One is the story of how one 18-year-old boy suddenly obtains the first of the three keys after five years of hunting.
Cline sets up the cruel reality of our future. There is disaster beyond description and danger in every corner of every city. Most people live in communities of “stacks,” which consist of trailer homes piled up on top of each other, and that’s if they’re lucky. The political leaders in the country are random celebrities that people carelessly vote in, and food is scarce. In this dystopian world, people turn to the OASIS for an escape from real life.
Now for my totally biased review.
I’ve always had an interest in virtual realities and experiencing other-worldly things, so this novel instantly piqued my interest. I had been on the hunt for it for a while (just like the players searching for the keys) and, when I found it at my local library, I was ecstatic. If you’ve ever read the novel Doughnut by Tom Holt, this novel is a must-read. The concept of traveling to different worlds and universes is very similar and there’s no way you can’t enjoy the idea of being able to escape into an ideal world and have exciting adventures with the possibility of winning billions of dollars in the process.
The Talon 