Ready Player One

 

In 1981 I remember sitting with my friends Jim  and Karl as they recorded and dubbed their own voices over top of Rutger Hauer speaking to Harrison Ford at the end of the movie “Blade Runner”. “I’ve seen things you people wouldn’t believe…”  This was all Betamax enabled.  Fast forward thirty years and with a few clicks you can find that same scene in under 10 seconds.  With a few more clicks, and the right software, Rutger Hauer can be made to sing, “What Does the Fox Say?”.   Fast forward another thirty years and your avatar from Second Life will enter any movie and interact with any scene you choose. You name it, “War Games”, “Ferris Beuller’s Day Off”, or “Monty Python and the Holy Grail”.  This is how far the on-line gaming community will have advanced the internet.  Oh yes, it will be our passion for online gaming that will turn the internet into our true second life.  At least through the creation of Ernest Cline’s first, and his (I can’t wait for the movie) best selling novel, “Ready Player One”.  It doesn’t end there.  Pick any computer game ever invented and tuck  it neatly into a consolidated worldwide virtual environment.  Inside the OASIS everything we consider to be society will be enabled.  Schools, commerce, entertainment, crime, our every need will be met.  In theory our only need outside of OASIS would be food  delivery and a functioning toilet nearby.  Add a true online quest for a $250 billion dollar prize and the ultimate game is on...Ready Player One...

Ready Player One is a fascinating glimpse of the 1980’s that takes us 30 years into our own future asking us to go back 30 years in order to go forward.  Cline not only has an encyclopedic recollection of music, movies, computer games, and the 1980’s culture, he has a keen view of how our society  could emerge if we fail to solve some of our biggest problems with energy and the environment.  If you can envision people living in vertical trailer parks you will immediately get the idea.  

Epic in scale and as intimate as the text messages between two best friends who have never met in real life. Cline has documented several of our geek generations and invited us all to relish in our memories of music, movies, and technology, and to think about how important they will all still be in 2044...with new technology making it even easier to access everything ever recorded or printed. Throw in an absent government, a love story, the greed of an evil corporate empire, the quest for a copper, jade, and crystal key, with a touch of indentured servitude, and you will understand this book.  This is vintage future fiction.  I think Cline has invented a new genre. I’m giving it 5-Stars, and did I mention, I can’t wait for the movie.