Pufnstuf shows like that would have been on reruns, though, so it makes sense to include them. Technically speaking, some of the pop culture is pre-1980s, such as H.R. Part of the enjoyment of Ready Player One is trying to guess what 1980s pop culture references will be used next, or realizing where a quote or name comes from. He explains enough about things like Black Tiger that I understood what was going on. Cline’s writing is such that it doesn’t matter. I was in high school and college in the 1980s, so got a lot of the references, but Halliday is much more of a computer geek than I ever was and so many things went over my head. Ready Player One is full of fun references, from Ultraman to Ladyhawke. To understand the contest, to solve the puzzles, requires total immersion into the 1980s. When Halliday designed the contest to determine who would inherit his company and fortune, he used the 80s culture he loved. It may be set in 2044, but Halliday was a child of the 80s and loved everything pop-culture from the 1980s: TV shows, film, music, computer games. The Good: Ready Player One is pure, unadulterated fun. Until something changes: while sitting in Latin class (a virtual class in the OASIS) the cryptic first clue suddenly makes sense.įive years after the game began, player one is on the game board and Wade is no longer just another teen. But to do so, he may have to leave behind his oh-so-perfect virtual existence and face up to life - and love - in the real world he’s always been so desperate to escape.Wade’s just another teen playing games in the OASIS, obsessing over Halliday and trying to figure out the first clue in Halliday’s puzzle. Now the only way for Wade to survive and preserve everything he knows is to win. Suddenly the whole world is watching, and thousands of competitors join the hunt - among them certain powerful players who are willing to commit very real murder to beat Wade to this prize. Like many of his contemporaries, Wade is as comfortable debating the finer points of John Hughes’s oeuvre, playing Pac-Man, or reciting Devo lyrics as he is scrounging power to run his OASIS rig.Īnd then Wade stumbles upon the first puzzle. And for years, millions have found in this quest another means of escape, retreating into happy, obsessive study of Halliday’s icons. For somewhere inside this giant networked playground, OASIS creator James Halliday has hidden a series of fiendish puzzles that will yield massive fortune - and remarkable power - to whoever can unlock them.įor years, millions have struggled fruitlessly to attain this prize, knowing only that Halliday’s riddles are based in the pop culture he loved - that of the late 20th century. Like most of humanity, Wade Watts escapes his grim surroundings by spending his waking hours jacked into the OASIS, a sprawling virtual utopia that lets you be anything you want to be, a place where you can live and play and fall in love on any of 10,000 planets.Īnd like most of humanity, Wade dreams of being the one to discover the ultimate lottery ticket that lies concealed within this virtual world. It’s the year 2044, and the real world is an ugly place. At once wildly original and stuffed with irresistible nostalgia, Ready Player One is a spectacularly genre-busting, ambitious, and charming debut - part quest novel, part love story, and part virtual space opera set in a universe where spell-slinging mages battle giant Japanese robots, entire planets are inspired by Blade Runner, and flying DeLoreans achieve light speed.
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