Ready Player One – Book review

by Ernest Cline, Wil Wheaton(Narrator)

Published August 16th 2011 by Random House Audio

Recently, audio-books have been in rage and people have started preferring them to e-books. I always wanted to listen to an audio-book but never gave it a try. This time I got a chance to listen to one and simply loved it. I never even imagined that audio-books can be better than the ebooks/paperbacks.

If you have grown up in 1980s, then just get hold of this book already. If not (like me), then let me give you more reasons to pick it up.

I really loved the book, even though I grew up in 1990s and had never heard of many of those games or books or movies or pop singers. If you are into Online multiplayer games, then this is THE book for you. If you have grown up watching Sci-fi movies, have read sci-fi books/comics or have played any of those old arcade games, this is THE book for you. If you like dystopia, then grab it. If not, get hold of it anyway since it has lot of suspense elements in it, that make it a page turner.

Dystopia – so you get the idea that world is no longer green and no longer a good place to live in. So people take refuge by logging into a virtual world called “OASIS”. The best part about Oasis is that your avatar defines you. You can make yourself look fair, if you are dark; beautiful if you are ugly in reality and so on. The creator of Oasis sets up a contest, winner of which will inherit his multi-billion company (sounds similar to Charlie and the Chocolate factory? Yes it does and that is where the similarity ends). People have been trying to find the “Easter egg” for as long as 5 yrs, until one day our hero discovers the hiding place of one of the keys and thus the hunt for the Easter egg begins.

Considering that this is the first book written by the author, I am really impressed. He has done a great job and the plot is really intriguing and fresh. Only drawback though was the fact that I havent grown up in 1980s, so I couldnt feel the excitement everytime he mentioned about some 80s pop culture icon.

I started reading the ebook initially, but after reading other reviews, I got hold of the audiobook narrated by Wil Wheaton (my first audiobook) and simply loved it. Audiobook is much better since he has narrated really well. Not sure if I would have given it 5 stars, if not for Wil Wheaton’s narration. 1 star is just for his narration.

Only turnoff was the book was tooo long (not sure if others felt it too). Some descriptions were unwanted and some scenes were exaggerated – but it wasnt boring for even a minute. Few concepts I liked in the book : Vid feeds, everyone broadcasting whatever they wanted on their own TV, Oasis gigs, owning an asteroid or moon (so cool!).

I want a MOVIE based on this book. Hollywood directors, are you listening?

A quote from the book that I liked (just to tempt you guys to pick this book up):

“I created the OASIS because I never felt at home in the real world. I didn’t know how to connect with the people there. I was afraid, for all of my life. Right up until I knew it was ending. That was when I realized, as terrifying and painful as reality can be, it’s also the only place where you can find true happiness. Because reality is real. Do you understand?”