Book Review - Ready Player One

Ready Player One is an awesome book!  I heard about it from RA, who has excellent taste in books!  I didn't read the synopsis, because I wanted to go into it without any expectations.  I thought it would be a book that John might like, so I got the audiobook for our drive out to Indiana over Christmas.  We got about halfway through it, and then I got the book from the library to finish it.  When I finished it, I thought "that might be my favorite book of the year!" and then I realized that since I finished it in January, it was technically my first book of 2014.  So, it might still be my favorite book of the year, but there is time for it to be dethroned!

What to say about it?  It's set in 2044, and the world is in pretty bad shape, but many people spend the majority of their time hooked into a virtual reality (even for school and work).  Unlike some "dystopian future" novels, this actually seems pretty realistic.  The eccentric billionaire creator of this virtual universe dies, and leaves all of his money to whoever can find the easter egg he has hidden within the virtual universe.  Wow, this sounds really dorky.  Trust me, it's good!

Anyway, I loved the characters, and I loved Cline's writing style.  There were a lot of references to 1980's pop culture.  I didn't get all of them, but he explains it enough that I wasn't confused at all.  If you are about 10 years older than me and somewhat into nerdy stuff, you will probably be in pop culture reference heaven! 

It was weird to listen to half and then read the other half.  I'm sure I would have pronounced some of the names and places differently.  I'll add that Wil Wheaton is an excellent audiobook reader!

I think this would make a really cool movie, but I'm not sure how they would handle all the copyright issues.

Have you read this book?  What did you think?