Ready Player One

Ernest Cline is an effective story teller with a great story to tell for our generation of over-prepared and under-challenged youth. This is an incredible book about a young cyber-punk hero, Wade, who needs to beat the evil MegaCorp in the World's Greatest Video game in order to save the world (the video game world) from being lost (be subject to a small fee to play rather than be free).

The author paints a beautifully depressing picture of a dark and dying future where most people spend their time in virtual reality with some kind of full body feed-back suit that lets them interact with the video game world, called the Oasis.

I shouldn't give too much away about how and why our hero is a starving, video game addicted homeless teenager playing in a game for his life in virtual reality against the World's largest and most evil company, but I can tell you this is a hell of a dystopian ride and I would recommend it to everyone that wants a great story and to feel really shitty about the future we are leaving our children at the same time.

From the start, the concept is great, nearly everything is told from within the video game. At times games are being played within "the game" and the reader is completely taken in to the virtual world along with the characters. Of course the author plays with ideas like people forgetting to eat, sleep, or keep their real-life bodies warm while they are in game and we get to have a lot of fun imaging their world, where anyone can slip away from the real at anytime into their own personally designed digital heaven.

A great read, I'll be looking for more from Ernest Cline ASAP, now I gotta unplug get back to reality for a bit :(