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Ready Player One: A Novel By Ernest Cline | Digest & Review
Ready Player One takes readers on a quest through a virtual world that is filled with pop culture references from the 1970s and ‘80s. Wade, or “Parzival” as he is known online, a sweet yet self-deprecating guy, is the unlikely hero of this story. Ernest Cline successfully combines a quest novel, love story, and virtual space opera into one exciting adventure. The reader will be taken into a universe filled with spell-slinging and giant Japanese robots, and along the way, Wade is faced with a decision of virtual world versus the real world. Should he forsake his perfect virtual world for the real life he so desperately wanted to escape?
Since its release in 2011, Ernest Cline’s debut novel has become a New York Times Bestseller and has been picked up by Warner Bros. to be made into a movie.
With this digest companion, you'll
• A digest of the Ready Player One
• Content for your book club or other group event.
• Stories beyond the digest and tidbits you may not know
• The book's impact and its important to read
• And more!
"You can read it before you read the novel or after you read it as a supplement to the actual book."
"Very concise and helpful for our Book Club."
"It is full of story information, interesting facts about the novel and the author as well."
"This overview gave me an idea of what the book covers. From it, I have been able to decide whether or not to purchase the book."
"The Digest helped clarify the historical background. Beautifully written and deeply moving."
Our Reader’s Companions bring you immaculate study materials on literature at exceptionally low prices that do not compromise on quality. These are supplementary materials and does not contain any text or summary of the book. 100% satisfaction guaranteed.
Since its release in 2011, Ernest Cline’s debut novel has become a New York Times Bestseller and has been picked up by Warner Bros. to be made into a movie.
With this digest companion, you'll
• A digest of the Ready Player One
• Content for your book club or other group event.
• Stories beyond the digest and tidbits you may not know
• The book's impact and its important to read
• And more!
"You can read it before you read the novel or after you read it as a supplement to the actual book."
"Very concise and helpful for our Book Club."
"It is full of story information, interesting facts about the novel and the author as well."
"This overview gave me an idea of what the book covers. From it, I have been able to decide whether or not to purchase the book."
"The Digest helped clarify the historical background. Beautifully written and deeply moving."
Our Reader’s Companions bring you immaculate study materials on literature at exceptionally low prices that do not compromise on quality. These are supplementary materials and does not contain any text or summary of the book. 100% satisfaction guaranteed.
38 pages, Kindle Edition
Published February 26, 2016
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
November 4, 2018
Ernest Cline's Ready Player One exists more as a laundry list of 1980s pop culture than a novel.
Though the author establishes the setting as a dystopian future with critical socio-economic and environmental problems of a critical nature, he makes no effort to comment upon these problems. The setting seems mere facade, window dressing.
In fact the whole of the book consists of facade: paper thin characterizations, lack of description--good writing should continuously appeal to all the senses by telling us what things feel, taste, smell, look and sound like in the world of the protagonist--and a chronic fixation on in-jokes related to a syrupy nostalgia for 1980s pop culture. And all of this to the detriment of the story, which is essential a quest, and its inhabitants.
Yes, those who habituate virtual worlds and remain enamored of them, as seems the case with the author, will revel in this junket into a hermetically sealed world, a world of escapism and avoidance of the truth, suffering and bleakness of the real, visceral world outside the simulations.
However, in a time in which psychology increasingly advises us of the dangers of far too much time spent in front of a screen, and sociologists enumerate the negative trends--for the participants and for the larger society--occurring among a generation raised on the Internet and increasingly immersive games, the book's celebration of this culture seems irresponsible...or at the least naive and oblivious to the real world consequences unfolding from a retreat from engagement in reality to immersion in an immaterial fantasy world, a world in which one can exist as a fake persona, one divorced from one's true self, and live out a fantasy life, rather than confront the difficulties of one's actual life.
Beyond the flat writing and the failure of the book to live up to the responsibilities of a novel, it does seem tailor-made for film, at least the film of today's, grand blockbusters full of the sound and fury of CGI, yet signifying little.
The late Graham Greene referred to his brilliant novels as "mere entertainment." Green was either being disingenuous or staggeringly modest.
Ready Player One is mere entertainment for a niche audience. Those of us outside that niche group, and those who expect more of a novel without accompanying illustrations, will likely find Cline's book as insubstantial as a pixelated avatar.
Though the author establishes the setting as a dystopian future with critical socio-economic and environmental problems of a critical nature, he makes no effort to comment upon these problems. The setting seems mere facade, window dressing.
In fact the whole of the book consists of facade: paper thin characterizations, lack of description--good writing should continuously appeal to all the senses by telling us what things feel, taste, smell, look and sound like in the world of the protagonist--and a chronic fixation on in-jokes related to a syrupy nostalgia for 1980s pop culture. And all of this to the detriment of the story, which is essential a quest, and its inhabitants.
Yes, those who habituate virtual worlds and remain enamored of them, as seems the case with the author, will revel in this junket into a hermetically sealed world, a world of escapism and avoidance of the truth, suffering and bleakness of the real, visceral world outside the simulations.
However, in a time in which psychology increasingly advises us of the dangers of far too much time spent in front of a screen, and sociologists enumerate the negative trends--for the participants and for the larger society--occurring among a generation raised on the Internet and increasingly immersive games, the book's celebration of this culture seems irresponsible...or at the least naive and oblivious to the real world consequences unfolding from a retreat from engagement in reality to immersion in an immaterial fantasy world, a world in which one can exist as a fake persona, one divorced from one's true self, and live out a fantasy life, rather than confront the difficulties of one's actual life.
Beyond the flat writing and the failure of the book to live up to the responsibilities of a novel, it does seem tailor-made for film, at least the film of today's, grand blockbusters full of the sound and fury of CGI, yet signifying little.
The late Graham Greene referred to his brilliant novels as "mere entertainment." Green was either being disingenuous or staggeringly modest.
Ready Player One is mere entertainment for a niche audience. Those of us outside that niche group, and those who expect more of a novel without accompanying illustrations, will likely find Cline's book as insubstantial as a pixelated avatar.
September 2, 2021
It is entertaining, but it has giant holes in the story and they are bugging me. So here I am complaining. Almost the entire story takes place in virtual reality, but the author first establishes that there is a real 18-year-old boy in real-reality carrying on his virtual life as do most other people in 2045 dystopia. But this teen carries on his virtual activities at stretches of 24 hours, with no mention of his real biological functions. There should at least be a reference to a bag of potato chips running out or something. Next giant hole: the teen needs to get away from real people who are really trying to kill him in real life, so he changes his online identity (because he is such a genius) but somehow he still has access to the fortune he has won online. But these nogoodniks have access to pretty much everything on the internet so wouldn't they notice that the teen's winnings are being used by somebody with a different avatar, and therefore figure out that the teen is still alive? There are other big problems in the story. But the book was recommended by three people I love, so I will probably finish it. End of whining.
LATER: so I finished the book. Yes, it was entertaining, but sadly, I wouldn't recommend it. Now and then, there are acknowledgements of the real humans behind the avatars, but the world Mr. Cline creates continues to be inconsistent in too many ways to list here. Nevertheless, the book is an homage to popular culture in the late 20th century, and a warning of the dystopia that we are currently creating. So perhaps my loved ones who recommended the book, took enough pleasure in those features of the story, to not become exhausted by the effort to ignore an inconsistent fantasy world, repeatedly suspending disbelief.
LATER: so I finished the book. Yes, it was entertaining, but sadly, I wouldn't recommend it. Now and then, there are acknowledgements of the real humans behind the avatars, but the world Mr. Cline creates continues to be inconsistent in too many ways to list here. Nevertheless, the book is an homage to popular culture in the late 20th century, and a warning of the dystopia that we are currently creating. So perhaps my loved ones who recommended the book, took enough pleasure in those features of the story, to not become exhausted by the effort to ignore an inconsistent fantasy world, repeatedly suspending disbelief.
February 2, 2025
One of my absolute faves! Still amazing!
August 6, 2016
A fun read in the world of MMO gaming.
January 23, 2017
amazing book
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews