Ready Player One

by Ernest Cline
Reviewed by Caleb Chang

REVIEW: Ready Player One by Ernest Cline

ISBN#: 9780804190145

THE STORY: 

Ready Player One takes place in the future where virtual reality has taken over everyone’s daily lives, called the OASIS. Halliday, one of the creators of the OASIS, has just passed away and has left no one inside his will. Instead, he started the “egg hunt” inside of the OASIS. The rules are simple, there are three keys and three gates, and the first one to find the keys and pass the gates wins Halliday’s entire fortune. One riddle, for the first key, is announced to the public.

Wade Watts, the protagonist, is one of the many egg hunters, gunters, who throw their lives away just to study Halliday’s past and get to the “egg” first. IOI is a large company that wants to inherit Halliday’s fortune. Gunters hate IOI and the Sixers, IOI’s workers, because of the methods IOI is using to get their hands on the “egg”. It has been five years since the egg hunt has started. No one has found the first key, until Wade Watts deciphers the first riddle. Wade Watts attends school within the OASIS and IOI’s chief of the oology department, Nolan Sorrento, bribed Wade Watts’ principal into giving him personal info on Wade. Nolan then takes advantage of the information he receives and plants bombs on Wade’s house. Luckily, Wade is not present at his house when Nolan detonates the explosives. He warns his friends, who are also gunters, about Nolan Sorrento and what Nolan was willing to do to get the egg before everyone else. Wade and his friends are now on a quest to beat Nolan Sorrento in this soon-ending race to Halliday’s egg. (273)

MY OPINION: 

I found “Ready Player One” by Ernest Cline to be a very intriguing book. There were some areas in the book that mentions 1980s pop culture which I did not quite understand, but I could figure out what the author was trying to deliver by using context clues. Numerous scenes within the book tend to have very descriptive wording, allowing the reader to paint an almost perfect picture of the scene. The author sometimes uses more strong and mature language to further strengthen and elaborate on the emotions of the characters. During some of these more emotional scenes, the author uses such passionate phrasing, it almost feels like the reader is the protagonist of the story. A few weaknesses I would like to emphasize are the understanding of 1980s pop culture and the use of strong phrasing. As we move on towards the future, fewer and fewer people are going to understand what the trends were in the past, and if the number of people that knew what the trends were, grows shorter, then barely anyone will actually understand the references and context in the book. Since the author uses such intense language, I would recommend this book for people thirteen or older. Strengths in “Ready Player One” are the use of more sophisticated vocabulary and the author’s phrasing. One great example of this was during the scene that included older game references. Although I had not participated in playing any of these older games, I could still comprehend what was going on because of the phrasing and context clues the author used. Altogether, I believe this book is a wonderful choice. I rate “Ready Player One” nine out of ten stars and would definitely read it again. (288)

THEME ANALYSIS: 

In the novel “Ready Player One” by Ernest Cline, there is a lasting theme of how internal identity matters more than external image. Wade is an eighteen-year-old kid who lives in a world where poverty dictates the lifestyles of millions. The only escape from reality is a digital interface called the OASIS, in which “you could change your name, age, sex, race, [or] height”, or “cease to be human altogether” (Cline 89). In the OASIS, one’s character can be anything one wants, and because of that, one’s appearance does not matter, but one's personality does. In preparation for the final battle against IOI for access to the final gate, the four friends meet up. One of Wade’s friends, Shoto, is a fellow egg hunter and is known to work with his ‘brother,’ Daito. Shoto explains to Wade that “[they] were not brothers . . . just in the OASIS” (Cline 242). Shoto and Daito never knew each other in person, but their personalities brought them together and formed a lasting relationship, calling themselves brothers. Later, in preparation for a battle against IOI, Aech, Wade’s best friend, has to pick up Wade in person and bring them to a nearby airplane hangar. This is Wade’s first physical encounter with Aech, and when he gets into Aech’s RV, Wade, who always thought of Aech as her avatar, an olive, light-skinned male, finds an African American teenage girl instead. Aech then explains that “when [she] first logged into [the] Oasis, she followed her mother’s advice and created a Caucasian male avatar.” (Cline 500). Aech utilizes the OASIS’s ability to hide her true identity, which portrays the OASIS as a type of blocker for image-based discrimination or differentiation. In this novel, internal identity is prevalent over physical qualities. (291)

STUDY QUESTIONS AND VOCABULARY:

FIRST SECTION

1Q: Why are the “gunters” afraid of IOI taking over GSS? (8%)

1A: The gunters are scared because IOI wants to monetize the OASIS.

2Q:Why doesn’t Aech lend Parzival (Wade) any credits? (15%)

2A: Aech doesn’t lend credits to Parzival (Wade) because they are solos. Solos do not need help from other players on the OASIS.

3Q: Why was I-r0k quizzing Parzival (Wade)? (17%)

3A: I-r0k believes that Parzival (Wade) is a poseur, and Parzival (Wade) is not a poseur so to prove that he is not a poseur, I-r0k quizzes Parzival (Wade) on what he knows.

4Q: When did Parzival find another clue to the Copper Key? (25%)

4A: During Latin class, Parzival (Wade) links what his teacher said, “We go to school to learn” with what group of people have much to learn.

5Q: What did Wade dream about and why did he allow the armies to tear him apart? (23%)

5A: He dreamt of armies charging at him to capture the glass egg that he had in his hands. He let the armies tear him apart because he thought he would have woken up before he was ripped to shreds.

Contemporary (4%)

Coax (16%)

Harpy (16%)

Latticework ( 19%)

Rubenesque (27%)

Malleable (33%)

SECOND SECTION

6Q: Why did Nolan Sorrento blow up Wade/Parzival’s house? PG. 144

6A: The leader of the Sixers, Nolan Sorrento, had bribed Wade’s principal to give him private information on Wade which allowed Nolan Sorrento to know where Wade lives. Then, he tried to persuade Wade to give him a step-by-step tutorial on how to get the copper key and pass the copper gate. Wade refused, and Nolan Sorrento detonated the bomb he attached to the trailer that Wade resides in.

7Q: Why did Daito and Shoto leave heatedly? PG. 156

7A: Daito stated that he and Shoto did not need anyone’s help, but Aech argued that they needed Parzival’s help to find the Tomb of Horrors. This really irritated Daito so Daito and Shoto hastily took a leave.

8Q: Why does Wade/Parzival create a fake identity and what is his fake identity? PG. 163

8A: He doesn’t want IOI knowing that he is still alive and if someone else tries to do research on him as Nolan Sorrento did, they would not be able to find much information. His fake identity is named Bryce Lynch.

9Q: Why does the author describe Wade/Parzival’s feelings as “a large wooden stake had been driven into my chest”? PG. 186

9A: Wade/Parzival had just been “dumped” by Art3mis. Art3mis thinks that their “dates” have gone too far and they’re neglecting their original goals: get the egg.

10Q: Why did the sixer’s raid Ogden Morrow’s birthday party? PG. 186

10A: Parzival and Art3mis were in the same area, which is an unshielded PvP zone, and Nolan Sorrento wouldn’t pass up the chance to take out two of his greatest competitors at once.

Quatrain Pg. 145

Adamantly Pg. 157

Nigh Pg. 178

Shrill Pg. 180

Haptic Pg. 184

THIRD SECTION

11Q: Why does Wade endanger himself by getting locked up at IOI’s indent facility? Pg. 303

11A: It was the fastest way Wade could think of to get past the forcefield that IOI had put up around the third gate.

12Q: Why does Ogden Morrow suddenly appear in Aech’s private chat room and what does he want to do? Pg. 312

12A: Ogden Morrow has special powers within the OASIS which allows him to do as he pleases. He has been spying on Wade and his friends for a while and he wants to help them get to the egg.

13Q: How does Ogden Morrow help them? Pg. 314-315

13A: Ogden Morrow offers them a place at his own house situated in Oregon. He also said that he would provide transportation to his house, state-of-the-art immersion rigs, and fiber-optic connections.

14Q: Why did Ogden Morrow’s friendship with Halliday end? Pg. 324

14A: Ogden Morrow and Halliday both liked the same girl, Kira. They have been liking Kira since high school. Halliday never had the courage to ask Kira out, so Ogden Morrow never had a clue that Halliday liked her. After Ogden Morrow married Kira, Halliday stopped talking to him because of the jealousy he felt. Ogden Morrow never found out about this until a few days before Halliday’s passing.

15Q: Why does Wade’s screen say “Congratulations! You have an extra life!” instead of the normal “Game Over” when the catalyst (a device that can blow up a sector of the OASIS) was activated? Pg. 342

15A: A few chapters ago, Wade was playing Pac-man and had won a quarter. After he placed the quarter in his inventory, he was never able to take it out so he did not know what it was or what it does. The quarter was actually an artifact that gives the avatar one extra free life.

Regurgitated Pg. 273

Inoculation Pg. 277

Genuflecting Pg.306

Adolescent Pg. 317
Omnidirectional Pg. 324