• READY PLAYER ONE

• by Ernest Cline

• [rated by pbs readers as #76]

• 608 pages

After finishing my lovely Curious Dog book (so special! great read!), I was still going to be in the ocean listening along to Moby Dick for the vast foreseeable future. So it was time for another book to be read on land.

I picked some titles and even read a couple of pages out of A Prayer for Owen Meany. I even put a bookmark in it, which means that I mean business!

But I am aware of wanting to insert the longer books into the mix, so that horror or horrors, I don’t have to read two bohemoths back to back. And plus, Ready Player One was, for some reason, sitting on my desk and kept grabbing my attention and pulling me to it.

So I picked it up and started to read a bit of it. Over 100 pages in, Owen was moved back to the heap for next time. Or the time after that. Great first page with Owen, though. I’m sure the rest will follow suit. Although, why I would say I’m sure about anything in this little ride eludes me. Every single book has surprised me in one way or another.

Reading Ready Player One, I am filled with thanks for embarking on this 100 book read. I am really, really enjoying it and without this project, I would absolutely never have read it. Ever. Love when that happens.

I’m not even sure of my sci fi genres. This is futuristic, which I believe takes up real estate in the sci fi area, but I’m not sure – and even less sure if it’s important.

The two elements that matter to me with a futuristic alternate reality are 1) is it conceivable that we could really get to this point, even if it takes a lot of conjuring and 2) does the writer keep you in that reality, through pacing and most importantly detail?

In answer to these two elements, Cline is nailing it more than any other book like it that I’ve read. This thing is fun and utterly conceivable! It picks you up, like a video game, absorbs you into its reality and then never loses you. For one minute!

Oh I know what you’re thinking. What difference does it make that I revere this example of futuristic novels when I never read them? You would have a point. But then again, I have been transported to many worlds in my reading life and some travels to get there have been bumpier than others. Also, I’m not an extremely visual person, so when I can visualize what is being described, that means the writer describing it is working it on all levels and that is something to be admired. Many simpler books have carried fans of this stuff, but Cline wrote a book that brought me along in every minute.

So, here’s the idea. This kid is living in urban squalor, as are most people after we have used up fossil fuels. He and most people spend a lot of time in an AI Universe called the OASIS, created by a Steve Jobs kind of character. It has universes to it and he, possessing few opportunities in life, goes to virtual school in OASIS. All of this, so far, is very conceivably, where we are headed.

The OASIS creator, a human God to many, especially nerds, has died with a huge fortune and no heirs and no friends. He has left the key to finding and claiming the whole thing within his Universe. The search becomes the obsession of people everywhere, for decades and decades. Great premise, right?

FINISHED!!!

Mother fucker, is this book ever fantastic!!!! Wow. One of the best reads of my life. I would never have known that.

Picture this, just to make my point. I spent tonight reading the last 150 pages of this thing, drinking tons of water and going to the bathroom a bunch – and still not putting the book down! It’s that kind of good!

This is a whole book about life and death in an alternative universe populated by video games. Sound like your cup of tea? It certainly wasn’t mine.

But I’m telling you. Reading this felt like I was back in high school, with the juiciest read ever, that you’d stay up late with a flashlight under the covers not to get caught.

Every technological detail does not leave the less aware reader out of it, which is a minor miracle by itself. Every plot twist comes of the air, with twists and turns that you couldn’t have known would happen, because you gave up trying to predict anything in the first 100 pages and you just lean back, enjoying the ride.

The book is long and never lets up. You deeply care about the characters and you haven’t rooted this hard in a long time.

It would be impossible for me to step back and really explain this story. Couldn’t do it. But again, how amazing that I couldn’t do that, but for the length of the book, I was as into it as a reader could be.

Oh and the futuristic stuff is so on target that it takes your breath away. Ernest Cline nailed it. He wrote a wise, artistic, thrilling story. Wow. I am completely blown away.

I don’t have a star system for rating these reads, but it gets all my stars. Or whatever. Wow. I feel honored to have gotten the chance to read it. What an amazing experience! Thank you, Ernest Cline. Your fantasy world was an unforgettable ride.

If you yearn for an old-fashioned juicy read, grab this. Don’t listen to it on audible or watch the movie on TV. Pour yourself a drink, go off somewhere quiet and enter the world and the story of Ready Player One.