By Ernest Cline (Crown Publishing, 2011)
It’s increasingly challenging to find a good bookstore these days.
As a browser, I’m just not a fan of chains after years of dusty, dimly lit rare
stacks or small independents. Ernest Cline’s science fiction debut came to me
back in April while browsing what books ‘not’ to read (i.e. those on book club
lists with excessive amounts of praise on the cover) at a local chain.
Intrigued by the strange book with an orange toned cover of stacked trailers, I
thumbed the first five pages as usual before buying this summer popcorn read.
Written in 2009-2010, Ready Player One is
set in a dystopian world thirty years in the future not unlike our present
society. Ravaged by energy and climate issues Earth’s inhabitants escape the
crushing disappointment of life via the OASIS. In the OASIS, part virtual
reality utopia part video game junkie paradise, access to information and
community is universal and the world is your oyster. The story follows Wade
Watts and his group of friends on their quest to find Halliday’s [creator of
the OASIS] Easter egg hidden within the simulation and win the grand prize…
Halliday’s fortune and ownership of the OASIS. Wade and the gunters are up
against IOI and the Sixers, a massive corporation that will use any means
possible to win the prize then monetize and restrict the OASIS. IOI’s goal seemed
reminiscent of current transformations within entertainment content and
distribution companies. A runaway New
York Times bestseller, described by USA
Today as “Willy Wonka meets the Matrix”,
reviewers either loved it or hated it. I bought the compelling storyteller’s
tale… to a point.
Cline hooks the audience with his distinctly American premise –
find the ‘Easter egg’ or ‘golden ticket’ (Roald Dahl) and win the pot of gold.
Littered with popular culture references from the 1980s, I quickly found myself
remembering TV series and video games I hadn’t thought of in a decade. I was
sucked in by the nostalgia of when the world seemed innocent and optimistic.
Wade comes across as a straight shooter when he describes the human condition.
“I started to figure out the ugly truth as soon as I began to explore the free
OASIS libraries. The facts were right there waiting for me, hidden in old books
written by people who weren’t afraid to be honest. Artists and scientists and
philosophers and poets, many of them long dead. As I read the words they’d left
behind, I finally began to get a grip on the situation… Basically, kid, what
this all means is that life is a lot tougher than it used to be, in the Good
Old Days, back before you were born.” (p16-17). This protagonist gets it. Watching
the world change around me, and not always for the better, this resonated with
me.
To access in the OASIS, Cline borrowed ideas from the Matrix and evolving virtual reality
technology. Players don a minimum of visors and haptic gloves before logging in
and seeing the magic words, “Ready Player One”. As the story progresses, Wade
is almost consumed by the OASIS as his obsession with finding Halliday’s Easter
egg takes over his entire existence. He becomes an anti-social recluse who literally
suits up from head to toe, plugging into the machine, to better enhance his
immersion in the quest (p190-199). This evolution disturbed me tremendously as
I watch humans connect more and more with their devices and less and less with
each other.
Although initially a nostalgic jaunt through popular culture via a
popcorn quest, this novel quickly deteriorated to a farcical chore. Cline’s
debut unsuccessfully mashes romance, adventure, and over the top whimsy all
under the guise of science fiction. The wheels come off the quest at the start
of the third section when Wade is forced to infiltrate IOI to save the day.
Initially using his intelligence and intuition to solve the puzzles set by
Halliday, Wade succumbs to the same weaknesses as his Sixer opponents thereby
losing his luster. From there I honestly couldn’t read fast enough to get
through the ridiculous final battle scene involving iconic Japanese monsters.
Cline over uses just in time information by introducing characters
or play-through scenarios literally as they were needed. A well-constructed
plot should have these connections mapped and introduced evenly throughout the
story. Without spoiling the “chance” event that leads Wade to winning, I found
it impossible to believe that other gunters had not stumbled upon the side
quest and winning artifact. Finally, the vulgar language throughout really
soured the reading experience for me… Swearing is base and a cop out, period.
During an interview with Adrian Liang for Amazon, Cline was asked
about his thoughts on the immersiveness and escapism of the OASIS and whether
it has parallels to social media. Cline observed, “Right now, in 2018, billions of us carry
small hand-held computers that keep us connected to the Internet every second
of every day. We already have virtual conversations and relationships with
people we've never met. And we communicate through our social media profiles,
which are just like Oasis avatars—idealized versions of ourselves that are
often more representative of who we would like to be, rather than who we truly
are. So yes, I always had those parallels in mind when I created the Oasis, and
they only seemed to have deepened in the years since the book was first published.”
If you can take one thing away from this novel, I challenge you
to consider the ramifications of digital escapism. How ‘plugged in’ are you?
But more importantly, why?
Next on the reading pile is Susan Cain’s game changing exploration
of introversion
