I started this book recommended by my wife with the unbeatable argument that «it is a book that has many references to video games, I am sure you will like it very much.»
The book is from the year 2011, and therefore I can safely say that I see many similarities with other previous books / series of the same genre. Firstly, with Snow Crash and this idea of being able to live in a virtual reality world. In the case of Snow Crash, the Metaverse, in which one has an avatar and leads a parallel life to avoid reality itself. Sounds familiar? Also, The Matrix films, which explain the possibility of living in the Matrix, a virtual reality world in which life follows other rules. As you see, the concept of Ready Player One is not a new idea, it is not original either, but I think the author wanted to create a new story in this already old context. If you read other people’s comments on Ready Player One, you will see that many agree with this notion. (Some go even further, saying that the author has plagiarized many other books.) Be it Metaverse, Matrix, or the Oasis … the concept is the same. Maybe Tron, too? What do you think? Any other virtual reality universe with avatars you know?
I found it very interesting that the genre Ready Player One belongs to is called LitRPG, which means Literary Role Playing Game. If you liked the Ready Player One book, its writing style and structure, I recommend you read the Wikipedia article about LitRPG: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LitRPG – it has a small list of books you can add to your reading list.
The story ends conclusively, but the story of the characters themselves, not so much. Since I don’t like giving spoilers, I won’t go into details, but when I finished the book I thought that the story could have continued for at least a couple more chapters. To give some closure. Well, if you visit the Ready Player One goodreads profile, https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/9969571-ready-player-one you will see that, behind the name of the book, it appears in parentheses “( Ready Player One # 1) ”, which implies that there will be a second part. I was thinking of a couple more chapters, but the author seems to have thought of more than just a few more. A profile for the book already exists, but no name or details appear, because the book has not yet been written, or at least it has not been published. However, there seems to be people capable of seeing the future and they have already put reviews on Ready Player One # 2. Apparently, it is a great book. (shrug).
As a last comment, I know there is a Ready Player One movie, but I haven’t seen it yet. I want to, but my only streaming service is Amazon Prime, and right now, the movie is not included in their services. If someone has seen it and would like to comment below what they think, please recommend it if it’s worth it. Update in April: I have seen the movie. The book was better. The book is thought for nerds over 30, the movie is thought for kids around 10. I think they completely missed their target audience. Plus, the story is so different from the book you could think it is a different story completely.
Final comment: I thought Ready Player One was interesting and, all the references to video games and movies was a very remarkable technique to get closer to the readers, (if you are over 30 to the very least, to be able to understand most of the references) until it reaches a point where it is more a distraction than it helps the story. Is it worth reading? Yes, because it is entertaining. But, I don’t think it will become one of my all-time favourites.
Book quote: “Going outside is highly overrated.”
Keep on reading,
Questions to answer in the comments:
Have you read “Ready Player One”? Did you like it? Do you agree with my final comments? Have you read any similar books you would recommend, for someone who would like to read more of the same genre? Please answer all these questions in the comments!
GG KLIMT 