From GoodReads:
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?
My Review: Being a geek I loved this book! I know I cant be the only one who read about immersion rigs wished that we had them RIGHT NOW to play World of Warcraft with. That would be the unltimate trip.
This book was so full of geekdom that I squealed with joy at each reference. It took me down memory lane to the 80’s and 90’s. It made me wistful for the time I DID play Dungeons and Dragons the old fashioned way.
This book is written to resemble a game. You have a quest, bad guys even some power ups. Reading what was happening was like watching a real live game. I have never read this sort of book before and it thrilled me.
The charterers were believable. It wasn’t to hard to make the leap into what the world in the book was like. Cline did excellent world building. From the world running out of fossil fuel to the widespread poverty and the new kind of ghetto’s it felt 100 percent real.
There are twist and turns in this book that will keep you on your toes. There was one point when I thought all was lost but the end redeemed itself.
It is also about good in evil in a uncertain world.In the quest we find that some people will do anything to win, including murder.
I would recommend this book to all the geeks in the world. Especially if you grew up in the 80’s and 90’s
