Some Overdue Posts: Book #4: Ready Player One

I am late on posting and I apologize! I had a crazy (but fun) long day at work yesterday and when I got home, I was completely exhausted. So thanks for reading and get ready for a lot of updates!

I finished book 4 out of 20 for my 22 Things list! I read “Ready Player One” and I really loved it. I got the suggestion from Lara’s Book Club (I mean Lara is only one letter away from Clara) because the summary just sounded so interesting. I'm a huge fan of science fiction and Ender's Game is one of my favorite books to read over and over again.

“Ready Player One” is set in the future where global warming has melted the polar ice caps and earth has pretty much become a wasteland. As respite from the depression that is around them, populations around the world check into OASIS – a virtual reality where you can be anything you want to be and it’s accessible for free! In the beginning of the novel, the creator of OASIS, James Halliday, passes away and in his will, he declares a contest. Hidden within the many worlds of OASIS is a hidden egg and whoever finds it wins ownership of OASIS and all of Halliday’s fortune.

Pitted against each other are “gunters” (the shortened version of “egg hunters”) and the Sixers, members of a huge corporation who wants to take over OASIS and charge people for it. Our protagonist is Wade Watts, an orphaned student who lives with his aunt and escapes daily into OASIS where his friends are.

As the story progresses, Halliday’s obsession with 80’s pop culture permeates the novel as the characters study his life and his favorite decade in order to solve the puzzles that lead to the hidden egg. One can’t help but geek out and reminisce about all the great stuff the 1980s gave us: Pac Man, Monty Python, Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, just to name a few. My favorite parts of the book were the intricate details that Ernest Cline uses to describe the OASIS and how players can completely immerse themselves in the game. I almost wish the description was even more languid and expanded upon because the technology he describes is so cool. Google Glass looks like a pair of hipster lenses compared to the visor and haptic gloves used in the OASIS.

www.experiencepoints.net

My next book is “A Beautiful Mind” by Sylvia Nasar. I’ll admit to never have seen the movie but I’m certainly curious about it and having studied a little game theory in college and the subject really fascinated me. I’m hoping reading the book first and then watching the movie (which is the reverse order since the movie was released first but who cares) will give me better insight into this profoundly interesting professor and individual, John Nash of the Nash equilibrium.