Book #104 – Ready Player One by Ernest Cline

Happy belated birthday to my mother! When I asked her to select a book from the Great American Read for her birthday, I wasn’t expecting a newer novel. Then I realized the content.

I was born in the last dredges of the 80s. The worst thing about being born on the cusp of the 90s is that while all of my classmates were getting into Christina Aguilera and Backstreet Boys… I was still listening to Journey and R.E.M. because that’s what my parents blasted from our stereo system whenever possible. The movies I watched growing up where a mixture of Disney (whose renaissance in the early 90s made for great electric babysitter) and WarGames, Short Circuit, and later, Revenge of the Nerds. So, when I got to the two page discussion on whether LadyHawke was good research for the 80s? I immediately knew why my mother chose this book.

Set in 2044, it uses the immersive video game/world builder that Second Life was supposed to be. If you’ve paid any attention to Japanese Anime in the past 6 years, Sword Art Online is basically this set up. The real-world parts of Wade’s life are a dystopian fuel-crisis where Columbus (seriously, Columbus Ohio?) is a mecca of fast WiFi. The online realm, however, is a colorful patchwork of all the things my parents saw in their late teens are early 20s. This book is such an homage to the 80s that I’m not sure why it isn’t sold with parachute pants.