lysander

I finished this book recently. Easy read and great book to have on a vacation. I found it be very nostalgic since the subject matter falls squarely into my early teenage years. The story was fine, but it was probably the all of the 80s and 90s references that I really enjoyed. I wouldn't mind seeing this made into a movie as long as it doesn't shift too much into the theme of how the people using avatars are so disassociated from society. That's been done.

mhg83

starseed1981

Very cool!

Nick Danger

I read the book a couple of months ago. It was a fun bit of fluff, but nothing else. It won't last long, because it's full of 2010s pop culture references like YouTube, Yahoo, and SNL. It's like those 1950s science fiction novels where everything in the future is just like 1955, only more.

Greg MacGuffin

I went to a book signing a couple months back and he said he had already registered the domain names for Ready Player Two and Ready Player Three. Sounds like he's currently working on an unrelated book right now though, so it may be a while.

Xander

Cool! I liked it a lot. Will definitely check out a sequel.

Noonan

I just started this one over the weekend. About 80 pages in and I really like it so far.

iggystar

I just finished listening to the audiobook...Wil Wheaton is by far the best narrator of all of the books I've listened to. Amazing!

As a child of the 80's I was in nostalgia heaven with this one. Honestly, if you didn't grow up in the era there's no way you could love this story, IMO. But since I adore all things from the decade I was constantly thrilled by all of the references. I really can't separate the story from the nostalgia, but I guess if the story was horrible, I couldn't have enjoyed it.

popcorn

Finally finished reading this book. Immediately passed it on to my son. Now he's making a list of movies he wants to see, starting with Blade Runner. My wife is reading it next. I enjoyed it so much I want to meet Ernie Cline now.

Canis Firebrand

I would love more in the universe. While reading the sections on the gates, I totally wanted to have the experience where you could "live" the movie and recite lines to continue the dialogue. Kind of like a holodeck from Star Trek.

fumanstan

Read this over the last week while on vacation, really loved it. I'm not a big reader and mostly read stuff that people here seem to find fluff, but I enjoyed all the references, the descriptions of things that were just before my time, and couldn't put the book down once the first key is found. Just a fun read.

Rob V

^^ I echo your sentiments. Was a great read... finished it in 4 days flat -- which is a record for me.

DVD Josh

I really enjoyed the book and also read it very fast but the third act is markedly weaker than the first two.

LurkerDan

Just finished this. I think it's clear that it is a really fun and easy read, and especially cool for kids of the 80s. But it is not a "great book", it is not "literature" in the "let's analyze this book" sense.

Boba Fett

Just finished it today and agree. Really rushed and underdeveloped; still I argue it's much more engaging than the very cliched and dull third act of the film, which I found unwatchable on the second viewing.

Cellar Door

:bump:

I just found out that Ready Player Two will be released this November! No idea what the plot will be about, but the wikipedia article on it says it will have the same characters as RP1. It will be interesting to see if it sticks mainly with the 80s-era pop culture references or incorporates more nostalgia from other time periods as well.

Nick Danger

Strange. At the end of the first book the protagonist inherited ownership of the internet. He should now be protected by corporate armed security forces, corporate lawyers, and corporate anti-hackers. It would be tricky to write a sequel where he is in any kind of danger without having him suddenly becoming stupid.

E Unit

I liked the first book, it was well done, but I don’t have high hopes for a sequel. And Spielberg kind of killed my desire to see a sequel in movie form.

jpcamb

So have many of you read Ready Player 2 yet? I thought it was decent, the beginning was a little bit weak and I found myself not liking Wade very much. Some parts of it would clearly be difficult to translate into movie form (Prince interactions in particular). At times it felt it was trying a little too hard to make as many pop culture references as possible, but I liked the ending more than I had expected. (Trying to be vague to not give spoilers and plot points away.)

Hokeyboy

RP2 was better than it had any right to be, and was mostly enjoyable, but much of Cline's writing on social/gender perspectives was so cringe it was utterly embarrassing. At least he tried, but man how he failed there.

Otherwise it was fun, it stuck the landing, but they spent waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay too much time

whotony

I keep forgetting I have RP2 audio book.
listwned to about 40% awhile ago but lost interest.

Guess I’ll get around to it soon if I remember I have it.

whotony

Still trudging my way through the audio RP2

About 70% through.

whotony

Well, I looked last week and saw that I only had an hour of audio left for the book and I finally listened to it.
while it took me about 18 months I think to finish it I really liked the end.
It was pretty trippy and freaks me out a little bit but it fits the story and makes sense that this is what happens to all these terrific characters.

Michael Corvin

I just made it through RP2 the other day. I decided to give the audiobook a try (my third ever), and Wheaton was pretty solid. The book itself is another story.

I've been reading for 30 years. I've read great books, fun books, average books but not too many outright bad books. RP2 rockets to the bottom with a bullet. It's hands down the worst book I've had the pleasure of experiencing. It takes the crown from The Tommyknockers. The first book was unique in that you had a likable MC living a shit life in the real world who escapes to the Oasis to win the big contest over "the man." An underdog story with pop culture references a plenty. It also had a strong villain and a decent supporting cast. RP2 has none of these things except for the pop culture references which become exhausting after a few chapters. Every other sentence is referencing something. Cline saw that people loved the pop culture stuff and took that as a challenge to add 100x the amount in the sequel. It's overkill.

On top of all that he turns super likable Wade into billionaire asshole akin to Musk. Discard all the supporting cast, except when conveniently needed for the plot, add in a weak villain and totally rehash the original's video game scavenger hunt and you've got a hot mess of a novel. Oh and there's next to no real world action. 99% of the book takes place in the Oasis. There are real world repercussions but when you have a now unlikable character and no support cast you just don't care.

There's just so much wrong with this book. First it comes across as fan fiction written by a high schooler during algebra class... but that's being generous. By the last few chapters it felt like it was written by a middle schooler. First the dude likes padding his word/page count with lists. He'll say something like I like old school PC gaming but 80s-90s consoles where my favorite. Nintendo Entertainment System, Super Nintendo Entertainment System, Nintendo 64, Nintendo Gamecube, Sega Genesis and Sega Dreamcast rank as my favorites but I also really liked the Sega Saturn, Sega Master System and even a little TurboGrafix16.

By the last few chapters I was just shaking my head at one particular writing style (I assume Wheaton just read it word for word). Cline's favorite word, "then." He'll have a half dozen sentences starting the same way. My ex-girlfriend fell from the sky. Then she landed in a superhero pose. Then she stood up. Then the wind caught her cape and she looked like a badass. Then she opened her inventory. Then she equipped the chain of doom. Then she winked at me and we went after the bad guy. Christ, did the dude not learn from fourth grade English class to not start so many sentences the same way?

Worst fucking novel ever. The 4 star amazon review with 40k reviews if baffling. The 1 star reviews echo my sentiments completely.

I bailed on Armada so at this point it looks like Cline is a one hit wonder.

Noonan

Agree about RP2. Steaming pile that I had to force myself to finish. Wade was a shithead with no growth and Halliday was a complete psychopath. Taking the memories of people having sex so others can relive it in the OIS (I think that's what it was called) is so bad.

It's like someone made a new ChatGPT but it was designed to output as if a 13yo was writing and Ernest just typed "Ready Player One Sequel" into it.