A Review of “Ready Player One.”
by Kyle Pollard
Just finished Ernest Cline’s novel “Ready Player One.” The novel is, like a lot of novels these days, a dystopia where the world is running out of energy and suffering from an acute case of global warming. In the midst of this backdrop, everyone is addicted to and fixated on a virtual world called the OASIS. Earth society is in a state of major social upheaval, and the world is experiencing a widespread economic downturn. The OASIS thrives and even though it’s an MMORPG game (Massively multiplayer online role-playing game), it functions as the only thriving society on the planet. A place where people can interact without needing to go outside where the streets are unsafe and the air not fit to breathe. OASIS virtual currency is the defacto world currency trusted more than government-backed money. When James Halliday, the principal founder of the OASIS dies, it’s announced that he hid an Easter egg in the virtual world and willed his entire multi-billion dollar empire to the person or persons that can find it. An easter egg in programming jargon is an intentional hidden message or feature a programmer places in an interactive game. In this case, James Halliday hid an Easter egg coded deep within the matrix of the OASIS.
Enter Wayde Owen Watts, an orphan living with his aunt who dedicates his entire life to finding what comes to be known as Halliday’s Egg. He is joined by four other players in the game known as Gunters: H, Art3mis, Shoto, and Daito. To locate the egg players in the game must find three keys that unlock three gates where the egg is hidden. The quests the players must complete are hellaciously hard and only solvable in VR by knowing the most minute details of the eighties pop culture scene. Since I graduated from High School in the eighties, reading this book was pure joy. With so many references to eighties music, console games, movies, you name it; there were many good feels and memories unlocked by the words on the page. It’s a wonder how Cline managed the licensing in the book, or how Spielberg will tackle the issue of licensing in the upcoming movie. Fill me in if you know the answer?
The most interesting aspect of the novel to me was the subtle way that Cline works dystopia into the story. The OASIS is incredibly fun, and it’s an exciting game on the surface. The reader can quickly forget about the wasted lives of those who have forsaken existence in the real world to swirl about as zeros and ones in the virtual space. Players can use standard VR rigs to log into the OASIS, or they can use haptic form fitting suits/gloves/goggles and kick back in a suspended chair. Wealthy users of the OASIS have rooms designed with spherical treadmills that function like a gerbil’s exercise ball to produce an entirely immersive experience. You can run in any direction with simulated physical touch and smell served up like room service to the gerbil on the exercise ball.
So while the book covers the fun and exciting aspect of the OASIS, it’s easy to forget that beneath the fun surface veneer of the novel exist people that have shaven their entire bodies to include those pesky eyebrows to cut down on time needed for personal grooming IRL. In one scene Wade is forced to rent a public OASIS terminal. The assistant at the counter warns him that there is an extra charge for any waste left behind – feces, sperm, vomit – that sort of thing. The world of the novel is a dying world, and everyone is escaping their nightmarish existences by living their lives in VR as much as possible. In Japan, for instance, OASIS addicts are called “the lost generation” and count on families to bring food and water to keep them alive. Cline highlights none of this in his book, but the concept is always present, lurking in the shadows like an addict waiting to score.
Is this where we are now heading? Suspiciously, virtual reality, while still not capable of producing an instance as great and immersive as the OASIS, is getting its groove on and gearing up for production. The climate on our little blue grain of sand is at a critical tipping point, and there are signs that efforts to fight global warming may fail. We are of course not at the point of total collapse as you see in “Ready Player One,” but the warning signs are there. I guess we will have to wait and see if we plunge into dystopia.
Personally, I believe that Cline’s book will prove to be very prophetic unless we can learn how to concentrate on what life in the real world has to offer. Technology sings with the beautiful voice of the Greek Sirens that enticed sailors of long ago to crash into dangerous reefs. Virtual Reality may turn out to be the most gorgeous and talented singer of all. This Siren’s song will be powerful and all-consuming. We live in an uncertain world. The dogs of war are howling for more blood, more weapons, more death, as the oceans slowly rise. We may soon need the OASIS to plug in and tune out the crumbling world around us.
Ready Player One Part 2: Parzival’s Quests – Online Games You Can Play Now
Photo Credit: “Arcade Games” by Sam Howzit is licensed under CC-BY 2.0
Text added to the image that was resized and manipulated with photo filters.
An enjoyable review that lays out the things that anyone curious about this book would be interested in. It certainly hits on the things that are currently at the top of our pop culture society.
Thanks, Otto! It was fun to write. I know the review has a rather serious tone. Decided to do it that way because after I finished the novel that was the feeling I was left with. That is, I could not help but feel that it was an extremely fun book that did a bang-up job of hiding a pretty crappy dystopian existence. I am planning a lighter post on the novel featuring the aspects of the novel that were indeed fun – the music, the quests, that sort of thing.