Good news, if you’re not a “reader” then Ready Player One by Earnest Cline is a book that may make you one (it did for me). If you’re into ionic 80′s movies like Escape From New York, Running Man, and Total Recall, this book is laser-focused on you.  It actually pays homage to ALL genres from the 80′s (music, movies, board and video games, comics) and does it beyond well.

Ready Player One will take you on your dream adventure of searching for the most difficult “easter egg” within the largest, most popular game of all time. It’s surprisingly comforting to see that watching TV, playing video games, and reading comics will actually come in handy to someone in real life. To be honest, the book makes so many references to 80′s cliches that I’d wager at least half went over my head, although when the ones are made that you know, a proud geek can’t help but smile. This my friends, is Ready Player One. Are you game?

If we here at The Weekly Blend had a rating system (ed. note – actually, we do ) , I’d give this book an 11 out of 10. It is geek+awesome all mixed together. I can’t recommend this short read highly enough!

Below is the Amazon.com plot summery, note that if you really want to go into the book blind, you may want to skip the summery and go straight to reading the book!

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 ten thousand 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 twentieth 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?

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