Ernie Cline will likely be a familiar name to anybody who has seen Fanboys, seeing as how he wrote the screenplay, so instantly we know he has some serious Star Wars street-cred! With his first novel, Ready Player One, Ernie proves he’s no one-trick-pony when it comes to knowing his genres, by filling it with references from many other franchises that anyone growing up in the seventies and eighties would undoubtedly recognise.
And yet the book itself is not a period-piece as such, portraying life as it was 30 some-odd years ago, at least not at its core. It might well be classed more as science fiction, given how it is set another 30-plus years into the future. But that doesn’t even begin to cover it. As Shaun of the Dead defined it’s own genre, the RomZomCom, Ready Player One crosses many boundaries and cannot easily be pigeon-holed into just one, maybe not even two or three. It’s a hybrid of part thriller, part sci-fi, part fantasy, part comedy (I can’t see ThriSciFiFanCom catching on anytime soon), though seeing as it is an unadulterated geekfeast, perhaps it could be categorised as geeklit?
So where to begin? Well, let’s start with what we know to be sure. The year is 2044 and the vast majority of the earth’s population spend their lives immersed in the alternate reality of the OASIS. Whilst many live online in an attempt to avoid the humdrum of everyday life, egg hunters, or “gunters”, dedicate their every waking moment to completing the quest set by the virtual world’s creator prior to his death, and claim his vast fortune. The key to unravelling the riddles is an encyclopaedic knowledge of pop culture in the eighties, be it TV and movies, music, computer or board games, and it is the hero of the book, Wade Watts, who is first to decipher the initial clue that has eluded millions for so long.
Basing the story in a virtual world is where the story is allowed to shine, with the extent of Cline’s imagination the only limitation, no longer confined to the natural laws of physics and where anything is possible. If you can think it, it exists in the OASIS, and Cline takes this to the extreme. As the protagonist, Parzival, journeys from zero to hero in his attempts to win the prize pursued by so many, he travels aboard an X-Wing and a Firefly-class starship, turns a toy robot into his own personal fighting machine and shakes his thang whilst R2-D2 is spinning discs at a zero-g rave! Among the challenges that he must overcome as he strives for victory are playing the perfect game of Pac-Man, reciting word-for-word a character’s dialogue in War Games, and in a scene reminiscent of Bill and Ted’s Bogus Journey, going head-to-head with a powerful wizard on an 80s arcade game in a best-of-three contest!
Whilst the bulk of the story is set online, it is not to the exclusion of life in the real world, where Wade must face up to the realities that are thrust upon him following his instant celebrity status, whilst also attempting to stay at least one step ahead of his opponents, some of whom will stop at nothing to beat him to the prize. Despite the switches between the real and virtual worlds, the reader is never left questioning which is which and this is a testament to Cline’s writing. As a first novel, this bodes well for Ernie’s future endeavours and the fact that the movie rights are already in the bag, will not do him any harm either.
And in what might be considered a stroke of genius, the audiobook version of Ready Player One is read by none other than Star Trek alumni and nemesis of Sheldon Cooper, Wil Wheaton.
In summing-up Ready Player One, I’m going to borrow a line from the ForceCast’s Jimmy Mac, who said that the book is “set in the future, but rooted in the eighties” – to my mind, there’s no better way of describing it.
Ready Player One is available now from all good book stores.
Visit the official Ready Player One website.