Thursday 27 November 2014

Review: Ready Player One by Ernest Cline

It's the year 2044, and the real world is an ugly place.

Like most of humanity, Wade Watts escapes his grim surroundings by spending his waking hours jacked into the OASIS, a sprawling virtual utopia that lets you be anything you want to be, a place where you can live and play and fall in love on any of ten thousand planets.

And like most of humanity, Wade dreams of being the one to discover the ultimate lottery ticket that lies concealed within this virtual world. For somewhere inside this giant networked playground, OASIS creator James Halliday has hidden a series of fiendish puzzles that will yield massive fortune — and remarkable power — to whoever can unlock them.

For years, millions have struggled fruitlessly to attain this prize, knowing only that Halliday's riddles are based in the pop culture he loved — that of the late twentieth century. And for years, millions have found in this quest another means of escape, retreating into happy, obsessive study of Halliday's icons. Like many of his contemporaries, Wade is as comfortable debating the finer points of John Hughes's oeuvre, playing Pac-Man, or reciting Devo lyrics as he is scrounging power to run his OASIS rig.

And then Wade stumbles upon the first puzzle.

Suddenly the whole world is watching, and thousands of competitors join the hunt — among them certain powerful players who are willing to commit very real murder to beat Wade to this prize. Now the only way for Wade to survive and preserve everything he knows is to win. But to do so, he may have to leave behind his oh-so-perfect virtual existence and face up to life — and love — in the real world he's always been so desperate to escape.

A world at stake.
A quest for the ultimate prize.
Are you ready?
Year Read: 2014
Book Format: Kindle eBook
Star Rating: 5 stars

I had to read Ready Player One because many of my Goodreads friends had and they'd rated it 5 stars! It's also shelved as Science Fiction, Cyberpunk and Dystopian, three genres that I really enjoy!

While reading this book, I was so torn between reading as fast as I could to find out what happened, to slowing down so that I could savour the story, the characters and revel in all those 80s popular culture references.

This book was so good! 5 stars without a shadow of a doubt and it also made it on to my favourites shelf.

So the story is told from the POV of Wade, an 18 year old high school student who lives in a trailer stack in a dystopian future world. We don't see much of that world but it's pretty dank and dismal and life is pretty harsh. So in comes OASIS, a fully submersible computer generated world where you can learn anything you want, go to school, play games, watch movies, and basically do anything you can do in the real world and then some. In this world you can be anyone you want to be and do anything you want to do (if you have enough credits, hit points, experience points and have leveled up). When the designer of OASIS dies, he bequeaths his estate to the person who can find the Easter egg he has hidden in the program. And the quest begins...

No other book has made me feel as much of a geek as this book did. But that's a good thing! The video-game world that the book is based just plays to my inner geek (who am I kidding - there's no inner, I just am!)

The writing and the storyline I suppose you could say is reasonably simplistic but it is really well written with some excellent characters which are well developed - the kind you can really care about and identify with.

I liked the writing style, in particular all the 80's references - yes I've mentioned them again but they are a really important part of the book and what made it so fantastic. The protagonist of the book, Wade, as I have mentioned already is 18 years old and I do wonder what an 18 year old person would think of this book if they read it now - would they enjoy it as much as I did without knowing what all those book, game, comic book, TV, film references related to?! Sure they'll recognise a few but some are quite obscure. The author is American and so naturally the pop culture references are to do with the American 80's as opposed to the British 80's (which I experienced) and while a vast majority of that decade is shared, there were also many differences, so I did miss some of the references.

I can't recommend this book highly enough. It was so much fun and I spent the vast majority of the time fangirling over all the references in the book (and the book as a whole). I see that Ernest Cline has a book set for publication in 2015 and I will definitely be reading that one as soon as it comes out.

I'm really sad that the book is over now but I think I'd actually read it again some day.

Friday 14 November 2014

Playing Catch Up...

It's been a while since I posted any reviews or taken part in my usual book memes. Real life has gotten in the way some what. All good things though which is always a bonus. Since my last post I have purchased, borrowed and received many books. And I've read quite a few too. So, in this post I am going to give a quick run down of these books to incorporate my Mailbox Monday and WWW Wednesdays book memes.

Here are the books which made it in to my house over the last few weeks:

Kindle Purchases:


NetGalley Books for Review:


What are you currently reading?
I am currently reading my first Robert McCammon book, Swan Song. It's a real whopper at 856 pages. It is set in a post-nuclear-apocalyptic world with some supernatural elements thrown in to the mix. I am really liking the writing style and there are some great characters. It's pretty bleak as you'd expect when life as you know it goes down the pan. I'm nearly half way through it. I will definitely be reading more of McCammon's books in the future.

What have you read recently?
I've read quite a number of books since I last posted. My most recently read book was a firm favourite of mine, Ready Player One by Ernest Cline. Many of my Goodreads friends had read it and rated it 5 stars so I've wanted to read it for a while now. I decided to treat myself to the book with some money I got for my birthday. I read it as a buddy read which I am glad of as I got to discuss and reminisce over the 80s popular culture references throughout the book. I will post my review soon.

I read Horns by Joe Hill, one of my favourite authors, in preparation for the film release. The book was fantastic, although I'm yet to go to the cinema and see it.

I also read a horror classic for Halloween - Ghost Story by Peter Straub. This was my first book by Straub. I thought the book was pretty slow in pace but it still had me captivated which is quite unusual for me. I will certainly check out his other books though.

Another favourite recent read was Odd Thomas by Dean Koontz. I have read a large proportion of Koontz's work and this book is a great start to the series. I've already bought the follow up book for it. I do love it when I find a series I like that has already quite a number of books in it to work through.

Another classic was Interview with a Vampire by Anne Rice which I thought I had better read as I received it for my birthday last year and a year has already flown by. I profess to loving anything vampire so it's quite embarrassing that I have never read this book before (I've seen the film though). I did enjoy it, loved the writing style but it was quite slow in pace.

And finally, I read The Golden Compass by Philip Pullman. This is a fantastic book - I wish I had been a kid when it came out to experience it with childhood imagination and wonder.

What will you be reading next?
I've pretty much finished all my book challenges for the year so after I've finished Swan Song, I am going to read something fun I think. I've got quite a number of NetGalley books to read and review but also I would like to read some of my dead tree books so they can go off to the charity shop so I have one less book to pack when I move house. Decisions, decisions!

Have you read any of these? And what did you think?