Ready Player One (Unabridged)
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4.5 • 3.6K Ratings
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- $16.99
Publisher Description
#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • Now a major motion picture directed by Steven Spielberg.
“Enchanting . . . Willy Wonka meets The Matrix.”—USA Today • “As one adventure leads expertly to the next, time simply evaporates.”—Entertainment Weekly
A world at stake. A quest for the ultimate prize. Are you ready?
In the year 2045, reality is an ugly place. The only time Wade Watts really feels alive is when he’s jacked into the OASIS, a vast virtual world where most of humanity spends their days.
When the eccentric creator of the OASIS dies, he leaves behind a series of fiendish puzzles, based on his obsession with the pop culture of decades past. Whoever is first to solve them will inherit his vast fortune—and control of the OASIS itself.
Then Wade cracks the first clue. Suddenly he’s beset by rivals who’ll kill to take this prize. The race is on—and the only way to survive is to win.
NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY Entertainment Weekly • San Francisco Chronicle • Village Voice • Chicago Sun-Times • iO9 • The AV Club
“Delightful . . . the grown-up’s Harry Potter.”—HuffPost
“An addictive read . . . part intergalactic scavenger hunt, part romance, and all heart.”—CNN
“A most excellent ride . . . Cline stuffs his novel with a cornucopia of pop culture, as if to wink to the reader.”—Boston Globe
“Ridiculously fun and large-hearted . . . Cline is that rare writer who can translate his own dorky enthusiasms into prose that’s both hilarious and compassionate.”—NPR
“[A] fantastic page-turner . . . starts out like a simple bit of fun and winds up feeling like a rich and plausible picture of future friendships in a world not too distant from our own.”—iO9
APPLE BOOKS REVIEW
Choosing Wil Wheaton to narrate Ernest Cline’s sci-fi love letter to ’80s pop culture is a stroke of genius. Wheaton is both an online ambassador of geek culture and a living embodiment of '80s trivia (he played Wesley Crusher in Star Trek: The Next Generation and Gordie in Stand by Me). Pouring energy and enthusiasm—and a surprisingly good Sean Connery imitation—into his storytelling, Wheaton channels the giddy nostalgia of Cline’s breathlessly paced virtual reality adventure. In other words, he Crushers it.
Customer Reviews
No other words need said
This is the best book like ever, and I love how well it was read by Wil!
A Must-Read for 80s Kids (Even Non-Gamers!)
I don’t do sci-fi, I can't stand the saccharine rot of romance novels, and I’ve never been a gamer. But Ready Player One? It’s a hell of a ride.For anyone who came of age in the 80s, this book is a fever dream of arcade grease, alternative tracks, and those gloriously weird movies that defined us. It paints a future where the world has gone to hell, leaving the "have-nots" to rot in the Stacks—a grim, logical conclusion to our current trajectory. Their only escape is a digital ghost of our past.The "romance" isn't some starry-eyed trope; it’s a cold look at a future where personal connection is as distorted and dangerous as a modern-day cat-fishing scheme. The real soul of the book is the hunt—the obsession with the "Perfect Score." It’s about the quest for a digital medal of honor in a world where your leaderboard rank is the only currency that buys respect.The Bottom Line: If you lived through the 80s and have eyes open to where we’re heading, read this.
If I could give more stars I would
One of my favorite books of all time.