At once wildly original and stuffed with irresistible nostalgia, Ready Player One is a spectacularly genre-busting, ambitious, and charming debut - part quest novel, part love story, and part virtual space opera set in a universe where spell-slinging mages battle giant Japanese robots, entire planets are inspired by Blade Runner, and flying DeLoreans achieve light speed.

It’s the year 2044, and the real world is an ugly place.

Like most of humanity, Wade Watts escapes his grim surroundings by spending his waking hours jacked into the OASIS, a sprawling virtual utopia that lets you be anything you want to be, a place where you can live and play and fall in love on any of 10,000 planets.

And like most of humanity, Wade dreams of being the one to discover the ultimate lottery ticket that lies concealed within this virtual world. For somewhere inside this giant networked playground, OASIS creator James Halliday has hidden a series of fiendish puzzles that will yield massive fortune - and remarkable power - to whoever can unlock them.

For years, millions have struggled fruitlessly to attain this prize, knowing only that Halliday’s riddles are based in the pop culture he loved - that of the late 20th century. And for years, millions have found in this quest another means of escape, retreating into happy, obsessive study of Halliday’s icons. Like many of his contemporaries, Wade is as comfortable debating the finer points of John Hughes’s oeuvre, playing Pac-Man, or reciting Devo lyrics as he is scrounging power to run his OASIS rig.

And then Wade stumbles upon the first puzzle.

Suddenly the whole world is watching, and thousands of competitors join the hunt - among them certain powerful players who are willing to commit very real murder to beat Wade to this prize. Now the only way for Wade to survive and preserve everything he knows is to win. But to do so, he may have to leave behind his oh-so-perfect virtual existence and face up to life - and love - in the real world he’s always been so desperate to escape.

A world at stake.
A quest for the ultimate prize.
Are you ready?

Listening Length

15 hours and 40 minutes
Author

Ernest Cline
Narrator

Wil Wheaton
Audible release date

August 16, 2011
Language

English
Publisher

Random House Audio
ASIN

B005HG7BWC
Version

Unabridged
Program Type

Audiobook
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Product details

Listening Length	15 hours and 40 minutes
Author	Ernest Cline
Narrator	Wil Wheaton
Whispersync for Voice	Ready
Audible.com Release Date	August 16, 2011
Publisher	Random House Audio
Program Type	Audiobook
Version	Unabridged
Language	English
ASIN	B005HG7BWC
Best Sellers Rank	#258 in Audible Books & Originals (See Top 100 in Audible Books & Originals) #6 in Dystopian Science Fiction (Audible Books & Originals) #6 in Hard Science Fiction (Audible Books & Originals) #9 in Hard Science Fiction (Books)

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Paul Weber

Really bad

Reviewed in the United States on June 21, 2019

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Excruciating. I don't understand how there appeared to be no one who edited this book. Some issues:
1. The first 17% of the book (kindle says how far along you are) is pure exposition of the world. That's one sixth of the book where nothing happens except our hero attends two classes in his nonsensical virtual high school.
2. There is a chapter where the characters sit around and tell each other what's already happened in the book. Why?!! I've already read it, why are the characters explaining it to each other.
3. The insanely over explained pop culture stuff. Example "oh wow that looks like Rivendell!" "Yes it does! Rivendell, from the Lord of the Rings movies!" I'm surprised the author doesn't break the fourth wall and just scream "GET IT?!"
4. The swearing. The multi page treatise on the virtues of masturbation (Lord I wish I were kidding.) I'm not a prude and am all for profanity when it is natural and adds to the emotion of the story. Here it just feels like a 13 year old who just learned to swear and does it to feel grown up.

I skimmed the entire second half and am much happier for it. The only joy I got from this book is reading the one star reviews so I could agree with all of them.

207 people found this helpful

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Tony R.L.

Love/Hate This

Reviewed in the United States on September 21, 2018

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I got this after seeing the movie and hearing from a few friends about how different the book is. My two main points after reading this book in 3 days:

1. Love the 80's pop culture references integrated into the story. No book I've ever read has ever gone this deep into 80's game, movie, TV, music references. The writer is obviously a true 80's fanatic and geek. No doubt about that, this guy has lived it and did his homework.

2. The main character is completely unlikable. He never arcs or changes, even at the end (finding 'love' is not a character change). Honestly, I've never read a book where the main character is just a complete and utter unlikeable character even to the end. You never really want this jerk to succeed. His inner workings and thoughts are as just about as bad as the main villain.

Conclusion-
Steven Spielberg did a brilliant job taking the meat of this story and actually making the primarily character LIKEABLE because the writer was just down right horrible at it. If the filmmakers had followed the book, no doubt it wouldn't have been successful. I did enjoy the 80's references, but too bad the main character was unlikable.

182 people found this helpful

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Evan

Reads like it was written by a high-school student

Reviewed in the United States on April 15, 2018

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Reads like it was written by a high-school student. And to the people that think that's because it's POV: ALL of his writing is like that. Everything that the protagonist needs to happen, happens fine and everything works out because he is the chosen one of some rich nerd's world. It's the worst kind of wish fulfillment. I hate the term Mary-Sue but that's what this book is about.

127 people found this helpful

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Slow, agonizing... and trite

Reviewed in the United States on June 23, 2018

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I can hardly understand the allure of this novel. Or how it managed to gain such popularity. Feels like its written for a fourteen year old, which is in such contrast to the age group who would either understand or have experienced anything that happens in this book... those of us in our late thirties, early forties. It read like a list of games and game explanations, with zero character development. I never finished... because I really didn't care about any of the characters in the book or what the outcome would be. I often found myself nodding off, chapter after chapter. It's a poor write... and a poorer read.

159 people found this helpful

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Every time I re-read this book, I feel like I should put a quarter in a slot

Reviewed in the United States on October 28, 2020

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Thing about writing a novel like this as one's debut effort is that, from here on out, there's nowhere to go but down. To wit, Armada. Ernie Cline's Ready Player One impacted me the same way that Suzanne Collins' The Hunger Games did. It's compulsive reading. Cline spins his dystopian quest adventure with supreme vitality and brio and unabashed nerdiness. Cyberpunk collides with pop culture nostalgia, and how could you not get nerd out about a book that celebrates iconic elements of the 1980s? I mean, Family Ties is referenced! Oingo Boingo gets a mention.

The year is 2044, and the global population endures its fourth decade of economic collapse. Huzzah. In a world of fading prospects and rapidly dwindling natural resources, everyone's favorite pastime is the Oasis, a massive, all-inclusive multiplayer online game that had metamorphosed into a globally networked virtual reality universe what's now habitually accessed by nearly everyone on the planet. The Oasis has become such a panoptic entity, it's now synonymous with the Internet. In the Oasis, kids attend virtual school, business offices can purchase virtual landscape to promote their wares, virtual concerts are staged. Who wouldn't prefer this utopian cyberspace over bleak reality? When they can look for James Halliday's fabled Easter egg, nestled somewhere in the vastness of Oasis?

Eccentric genius video game designer - and creator of Oasis - James Halliday, before dying, recorded a video in which he challenges all comers to seek out his hidden treasure, to first unearth and then figure out the clues he'd embedded in the fabric of his Oasis program. His Easter egg, when found, conveys untold riches and power. Overnight, the hunt for Halliday's treasure became the new global recreation. Halliday's addiction with 1980s pop culture was well documented, and so, too, in their feverish pursuit did these Easter egg hunters - nicknamed "gunters" - immerse themselves in Halliday's obsession, triggering a global revival of 1980s culture. But years and years would elapse before the elusive first clue would surface. Meanwhile, the gunters developed into figures of ridicule.

In the slums of Oklahoma City, in the Stacks - a decaying community in which run-down trailer homes are stacked on top of each other - 18-year-old orphan Wade Watts ekes out a miserable existence. Reclusive and anti-social, Wade is a low-level but dedicated gunter, a walking talking encyclopedia of vintage 1980s facts and trivia. He realizes that his only hope for a better life is to win the game. And so he perseveres when so many have given up. And, even though he's only a self-declared "third level wimp," he works out the location of the first clue. It's a life-changing thing.

The virtual scoreboard allows everyone to track his and other competitors' progress. Wade - or, rather, his avatar Parzival - becomes an instant worldwide celebrity - making him the target of fellow gunters and groupies and the media and, worse, of sinister corporations hungry to seize control of the Oasis. In his quest for Halliday's holy grail, Wade Watts - alliteratively named by his comic book-reading father - must call on every bit of his tech savvy and knowledge of 1980s culture to outwit his competitors and enemies. He is an awesome character that boasts impressive measures of pluck and resourcefulness and audacity in the face of frightening odds. And Wade Watts only becomes more awesome once he's compelled to venture out into the real world for survival's sake.

If the cyberpunk yarns of William Gibson and Neal Stephenson tend to intimidate you, be at ease with Ready Player One. Ernie Cline has crafted an immensely accessible story. He makes you swim in nostalgia. I'm not a 1980s buff, but I'm an old cat who actually lived his childhood thru the '80s, and it is so much fun trying to catch all of Cline's references. Ready Player One is a well-told, richly realized, and incredibly satisfying adventure, one populated by appealing characters. There's even a sweet love story. Wade engages in an online flirtation with a talented fellow gunter named Art3mis, and so we get a peek into Wade's gnawing doubts as to what the person beneath the Art3mis avatar is really like (and even what she really looks like). But that's just misdirection. It's another character who drops the startling reveal.

"Unputdownable" isn't a real word, yet it's the perfect adjective for this book. I think that everyone, at some level, has a grain of geekness in them. If you've ever envisioned scenes of your favorite cartoons or animes interacting, if you've once loved a movie so much that you've memorized entire passages of its dialogue, or been influenced by a rock song to the extent that you'd picked up a guitar to learn the chords... Ernie Cline revives these feelings. Ready Player One moves like a locomotive, and there are scenes in it that will absolutely explode your nerdy brain. Ready Player One was a New York Times Bestseller. It's soon to be a blockbuster motion picture what's directed by Steven Spielberg, and, self-deprecating guy that he is, good luck to him trying to tamp down on the book's references to his movies. I'm hyped for the movie. But the book came first, and the book will have an even more special place in my nerd heart. It's easily in my top five favorite reads ever. Ready Player One, yeah, an immersive, imaginative, childhood-mining, unputdownable read. Armada, not so much.

7 people found this helpful

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Two Bears

Bought Kindle Version and returned it.

Reviewed in the United States on May 2, 2019

Verified Purchase

This books sucks and blows!

I had high hopes this would be like SnowCrash Neal Stephenson, or Daemon or Freedom by Daniel Suarez it’s ANYTHING BUT!

Hits you with the following before the story starts

Evolution
Climate change
No God
Barely get food to eat but fast internet for RPG
Trailers set on top of each other in stacks
Set in Oklahoma (Tornado Alley)

Story may be ok but can’t suspend that much disbelief.

44 people found this helpful

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Top reviews from other countries

Ally A

I loved this book

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on August 27, 2016

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I loved this book! As a woman in her 40s, I'm definitely not the target market for this. It’s a young adult book, and scifi, both of which I don’t usually read. However, as a bit of a gamer geek and an 80s nut, this was recommended to me by friends, and I’m so glad I read it – it was just brilliant!

It’s set in a dystopian future in 2044 – oil has run out, the climate is a wreck, and most people escape reality by spending their lives inside an immense virtual reality video game called the OASIS (similar to Second Life, if you’ve ever played it). It has its own currency, and kids even go to school inside the game. The creator of the game, James Halliday, died years earlier, without an heir to his immense empire, but left a video will with clues/easter eggs to be tracked in the game. Whoever solves these will inherit the OASIS, and the immense wealth that goes with it, and it’s an international obsession. Halliday was a teenager in the 80s and remained fixated with the era, so this means that everyone who is trying to solve the puzzle is just as fanatical, leading to some wonderful references. Wade Watts, our protagonist, is one of the millions trying to crack this. He’s a teenager, stony broke, living with his aunt, and at the bottom of the OASIS food chain. Through a combination of luck and skill with 80s arcade games, Wade somehow manages to be the first solve the first clue, and that’s when everything changes.

I’m not going to give you any spoilers, but I can’t recommend this highly enough. Great characters, very nasty baddies, loaded with 80s references, and actually worryingly possible – it’s definitely worth a read. Oh, and Steven Spielberg bought the film rights – the movie will be released in 2018. I hope he does it justice.

71 people found this helpful

Sci-Fi Kingdom

I wouldn’t waste your time on this book.

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on August 16, 2019

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The premise seemed interesting and I really wanted to like this, but it was just so dull, boring, extremely long-winded and a bit hard to believe. There’s no way a teenager or someone in their early 20s could watch every 80s TV show, film, and animation, as well as read practically every book in existence – multiple times – and remember every single tiny minute detail of them all. While also repeatedly playing every 80s videogame ever created, and having the lyrics to loads of 80s songs memorised. I know this is fiction, but it still needs to be believable. I wouldn’t waste your time on this book. Basically a textbook full of pointless 80s entertainment references.

11 people found this helpful

John D. Payne

Good but not great

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on September 23, 2018

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The concept of this book is much more exciting than the writing of it, unfortunately, which is probably what Spielberg saw in it when he made the movie (which bears only a passing resemblance to its source material). I think the main problem is that the author knows more about playing video games than crafting a good story. I got bored of his descriptions of the main character Wade playing games in the OAsIs. I'm a casual gamer myself, but I'm not sure there's any way of describing the playing of Pac-Man that doesn't make people want to skip a few paragraphs ahead. The story of the treasure hunt is mildly amusing, but the fact that it's all told in past tense doesn't really do it any favours. I would've liked to have seen more of the outside world as well which he briefly described earlier on. In fact, nearer the end we do get to see more of it, and this was my favourite part of the story. I thought that maybe things would improve as the stakes were raised, but it all becomes a bit too safe again. In the movie, there's a great scene in which Wade is in the OAsIs whilst also in the back of a moving van. This makes for great tension and juxtaposition, but in the book (SLiGHT SPOILER) he's safely tucked away in a secure house. There are some exciting moments in there somewhere, but they don't seem to have any great effect on the main character, he just carries on with the hunt. The authors knowledge of eighties movies and video games is admirable to a point, but it doesn't really make for a great read, although I did make it to the end, so maybe I saw a smidgen of potential in the debut author's scribblings. Good luck to him.

12 people found this helpful

lindsayemma

This is a brilliant book!

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on August 31, 2018

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Can I just say that this book is absolutely brilliant!
So very clever, fascinating, funny, enthralling - I didn't want it to end!
I read the book after watching the film - this is the way to go- the book fills in so many details and you do not mind that the story has so many differences because you know that the book came first and the film obviously had a great deal of limitations the book did not.
Read this book it is excellent!
I loved it!

15 people found this helpful

Amazon Customer

Slick mix of Virtual Reality and 80's pop culture!

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on July 25, 2017

Verified Purchase

Started this yesterday and it immediately sucked me in. I loved the premise - billionaire computer games developer dies and leaves a fortune to the first person to find an Easter egg hidden in the virtual world he created.

As we meet the principal protagonist we find that the world of the 2040s is in bad shape. The planet is beset with rampant global warming, economic collapse and the majority of its inhabitants living on government subsidies. So far, so, standard dystopian future! However the thing that moves this from a standard YA dystopia and into the realm of a bestseller are three key features; the hero Wade Watts, the world building and the massive amount of 80’s pop culture references.

Wade has real problems to struggle against; no mother or father, living on his own, no friends his own age and only the quest for the easter egg to keep him focused. A fat kid from the wrong side of town living on his wits and natural intelligence. With no friends or family he has to constantly fight for everything he possess.

The world building is excellent with the reader immediately able to visualise the world of deprivation, global warming and the end of oil. A world so terrible that most of the population has moved into the virtual world to get away from the grim reality of everyday life. The mechanics of the virtual world are also well detailed and thought out. As I was reading the book I kept thinking of a fully immersive version of Warcraft. The book is written from a first person perspective. The reader effectively lives inside Wade's head, which helps a lot with Wade being able to explain a lot of the 80's cultural references.

About half way through we meet the evil corporation trying to thwart our heroes plans. These "bad guys" are simple, one dimensional, greedy corporate goons. Having worked in the financial services sector for many years I recognised, their motivations and methods immediately. The bad guys are cheap and cheesy and a stark contrast with the heroes who are street punks living in a virtual world. The evil corporations motivation is greed and the heroes are motivated by fun, friendship, glory and the pursuit of the prize. Who you gonna root for — come on?

The final third of the book works well with our heroes facing bigger and more complex challenges. The finally is also well done and fun.

All in all an excellent, fun yarn. The book is well written, great entertainment with a blistering pace. If you are looking for a deeper meaning, or insight into nerd culture, this is probably not the book for you.

16 people found this helpful

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