Book Review "Ready player one"

Rob asked me (his wife) to do a guest stint on his blog this week when I couldn't stop talking about an audio book I was devouring. We felt that the content of the book would be appealing to his readers and that a review would be perfect, since the his audience needs things to listen to while they are building costumes or painting armies. Ready Player One by Ernest Cline
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I love stories in any form: podcasts, television, movies, books, comics and games. So when I was queuing up what I'd listen to next during my daily commute, I decided on an audiobook version of a book I'd been hearing about in various circles I creep within. This one was so good, I found myself listening to it in any spare moment , not just saving it for my drive time.

Ready Player One appealed to my geek savvy, and it was a selling point that Wil Wheaton reads it. I mean, who doesn't love Wheaton embracing his own geek in The Guild web series or on Syfy's Eureka? It is a perfect match. He even name checks himself at one point in the book, it was pure geek joy.

Why would the 1980s be so relevant to a society that is immersed in a virtual reality in 2044?

When billionaire game designer, James Halladay dies in 2044, he leaves his vast fortune to whichever player in his virtual reality/MMO, the OASIS, could. This led a global society who were already spending copious amounts of time in the OASIS to take up the hunt hoping to get rich. The catch? Halladay was born in 1972 and so every portion of the quest he designed was concerns the 1980s pop culture, especially early video games. Enter the Gunters, OASIS players who become 1980s pop culture gurus to try and find the Easter egg he left in the OASIS.

Thus begins a race where the stakes extend beyond the OASIS and become higher and more deadly the nearer anyone gets to finding the egg. You don't have to have grown up in the 1980s to appreciate this story. There are plenty of references to keep any self respecting geek happy. At its root, this is a cleverly constructed quest story that finds you rooting for a group of underdogs and hoping for the downfall of some poser corporate bad guys. It just happens to contain enough fantasy, scifi, and epic action to make me a happy camper.


Audio sample: http://www.randomhouse.com/audio/cata...#

Watch this link for a book trailer:
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Sierra Trees-Turner has spent the majority of her adult life working professionally with books. She has worked for both Barnes and Noble, Inc. and Random House, Inc. where her love of literature earned her a paycheck. She now writes technical manuals for a living and lives with her awesome husband and blogger, Rob, and a cat hell bent on world domination.