'Ready Player One' by Ernest Cline

Happy New Year! Here is to a delightful 2012 full of many good books :). 

I wanted to let you all know that I've added an Aug/Sept/Oct archive page and moved the corresponding posts to it. I also added the viewable comments on the bottom of the main page. Apparently there is no way to have them below each post on the main page without requiring a 'click', so Blogger makes you add a 'gadget' at the bottom of the page.

Hopefully you will feel comfortable commenting - thanks to Diane for some great comments. This was always intended to be a conversational blog, as much as possible!

Here is my first, great book of 2012:

Ready Player One, Ernest Cline (4.5)

I must say, I really enjoyed reading this book! Several times, while reading it, I told S ‘you are going to love this’. That being said, my caveat for my rating is that not everyone will likely agree with me. Ernest Cline seems to be a mix of William Gibson, Neal Stephenson and Cory Doctorow. If you like these authors, this book is for you. The story is set in the future where many people spend the majority of their time in the OASIS, an on-line world where they can live and function through their avatar. The inventor of OASIS, a Steve Jobs like figure, has died. As his legacy, he has established a game within OASIS that invites all to find the keys and gates by doing tasks with the final goal being an ‘egg’. Whoever finds this will get all of his enormous fortune and be the ultimate owner of the OASIS.  This is an exciting quest story that follows a handful of youth as they fight their way through the challenges while trying to stay ahead of the evil conglomerate that fiscally enslaves users to help them win. The story is exciting and taut; an extra joy for those of us in our 40’s comes from the constant references to 80’s pop culture (movies, music and arcade games) that were shockingly familiar.  Not only did he quote many of my favorite movie lines, but even referenced some favorite obscure characters. For those of you who like cyberpunk and pine for 80’s pop culture, enjoy!