Book review: Ready Player One (audible)

Ready Player One narrated by Will Wheaton was my first audible experience and it is easily in the top 3 best decision I made in 2015. After finishing the book, I yearn to tell how much I love the book but to do so is overwhelming for me because I did not read the book, I listened to a narration of the book. Thus it is only fair if I treat both of them separately, the book and the narration.

Ready Player One, written by Ernest Cline.

I love dystopian fiction and Ready Player One is everything dystopian, from the trailer park stacks with subsidized soy meat to the virtual reality escape that distracts people from the harsh reality. Set in 2044, less than 30 years from now which makes it all too easy to relate to and all the more terrifying, the world was hit by an energy crisis where sources are scarce and whatever little that is available is priced expensively, and controlled by the iron clad of consumer giants leading to a society degradation. People find solace and comfort in an Internet virtual reality called the Oasis. The Oasis was everything to the people, inside the virtual world, they can set up an avatar and be a completely new person. Some even work in the Oasis as teachers, tech supports and even virtual garage for virtual spacecrafts. The Oasis was limitless and people use it as an escape, the only place where they can be happy. When the creator of Oasis passed away, his will was to give away the rights to Oasis and also billions of dollars to the person who can solve his final and greatest video game, to find an Easter egg hidden in the Oasis.

This story follows Wade, a high-school senior, who attended public school in the Oasis, on his quest to find the Halliday's Easter egg. This book uses a great deal of references to the 80's pop culture especially video games including some jargons, but fret not, you do not need to be an avid gamer or an 80's pop culture enthusiast to follow the plot, if anything you might finish the book with a list of 80's movies, TV series and music to watch and listen to, or at least I did. This book was an easy read, some might argue that the plot is not strong, and I agree to a certain degree. What makes this book so special is how the author created the oasis so perfectly detailed and how the authors words painted a virtual reality that is so likely to exist with the current technology that we have. There were no surprises in this book (except for a tiny one), no plot twists, but it is overall a fiery page turner because of the games and puzzles for the protagonist to solve.

Ready Player One, read by Will Wheaton.

I am already familiar with Wheaton from his multiple features in the popular TV show 'The Big Bang Theory' where he played himself, and as other reviews have said, his narration made the book even better. I am very bad at describing voice so I will not even try. I admit that I have not listen to many audiobooks to compare but so far his voice and narration is made the story even more convincing. If you have heard this comment somewhere else, I can vouch that the person speaks the truth, Wheaton is an amazing narrator. Here is a link to the audible of ready player one so you can sample the narration.

I am excited to read more from Cline but more so, to listen more to Wheaton. Ready player one is to be made into a movie directed by none other than the amazing Spielberg and set for release in 2017. You bet I will be reviewing that next. ;)