It’s got some good plot points. It’s fun to read. It has a few moments where I thought, “Yeah! That’s cool!” There were moments too where I couldn’t see how the excessive writing made any necessary addition to the story. Filler, I guess. Do all books have that? Stuff that gets in there that has nothing to do with the story, pointless fluff, or word-padding? It seemed like there was a fair amount of that in this book. And I haven’t seen the movie yet. I can’t say if the movie was a good representation.
One thing that makes this book stand out from others is that the ending has a good, well-thought-out climax. Have you ever read one of those stories where the main character gets the problem solved too easily? I felt like this one didn’t have that, and it’s all the better for it. I don’t want to read anything in which the solutions are fast and simple. Complicated is better. And although there were some moments within the climax that were definitely simple solutions, the overall feeling of the main character coming off as conqueror was satisfactory.
Ready Player One has one enormous thing in common with my novel Sound Distortion:
Pop-culture references.
While Sound Distortion focuses on musicians and musical references, Ready Player One deals with video game culture. I couldn’t help making comparisons. The main character in Sound Distortion, Djonny Desoto, is an inventor and a deejay. The main character in Ready Player One, Wade Watts, is an inventor and a video game fanatic. The side characters in Ready Player One are mostly new friends and acquaintances of the main character. The side characters in Sound Distortion are long-time friends. The bad-guy in Ready Player One is a super-rich, super-villain, Sorrento (I actually respected the bad guy, because he was written so well; Ernest Cline did a great job at defining his antagonist for this book). The bad-guy in Sound Distortion is just another kid, a student at the same school as the main character, and a persuasive psycho. With all of these similarities, there’s no question why B&N.com lists them both as, “People who like this also bought…”
In Ready Player One, I was thrilled with some of the video game references, bored with others. There are also some movie, cartoon, toy, and television show references, so that at times reading this book feels like a Simpsons episode.
In Ready Player One, I was a little disappointed at the idea of Wade Watts living in a cargo van, especially when I read the description of everything that was supposedly in there with him. I honestly don’t think all of that would fit in a cargo van. Unfortunately, I don’t have a cargo van to experiment on. Anyway, you have to read the book to know what I mean.
My overall impression was good. I could recommend this book. But you can’t read it if your naive and impressionable. You don’t have to have a vast knowledge of pop-culture trivia. You do have to have a firm grasp on reality. If you don’t, then I would probably recommend something else like: How To Lead A Life Of Crime by Kirsten Miller. Ha! So there!
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