Reader’s Den

October Reader's Den: "Ready Player One" Week 1

Welcome to October’s Reader's Den! This month’s selection will be Ready Player One by Ernest Cline.

It’s the year 2044, and the real world is an ugly place of economic and environmental disasters. 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 live your whole life on any of a thousand planets and like most of humanity, Wade dreams of being the one to discover the ultimate prize that lies inside this giant networked playground; the fortune of OASIS creator James Halliday.

For 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 twentieth century. Wade is as comfortable debating the finer points of John Hughes, playing Pac-Man, or reciting Devo lyrics as he is scrounging power to run his OASIS rig.

And then Wade stumbles upon the first puzzle.

The Adventure begins in this part Space Opera; part love letter to the 1980s; part Quest, as Wade Watts must traverse the weirdest world of all: Reality.