Ebook Ready Player One Audible Audio Edition Ernest Cline Wil Wheaton Random House Audio Books
Download As PDF : Ready Player One Audible Audio Edition Ernest Cline Wil Wheaton Random House Audio Books
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.
It's the year 2044, and the real world is an ugly place.
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.
And like most of humanity, Wade dreams of being the one to discover the ultimate lottery ticket that lies concealed within this virtual world. 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.
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 20th century. And for years, millions have found in this quest another means of escape, retreating into happy, obsessive study of Halliday's icons. 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.
And then Wade stumbles upon the first puzzle.
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. Now the only way for Wade to survive and preserve everything he knows is to win. 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.
A world at stake.
A quest for the ultimate prize.
Are you ready?
Ebook Ready Player One Audible Audio Edition Ernest Cline Wil Wheaton Random House Audio Books
"Thing about writing a novel like this as one's debut effort is that, from here on out, there's nowhere to go but down. To wit, Armada. Ernie Cline's Ready Player One impacted me the same way that Suzanne Collins' The Hunger Games did. It's compulsive reading. Cline spins his dystopian quest adventure with supreme vitality and brio and unabashed adoration of all things nerdy. Cyberpunk collides with pop culture nostalgia, and how could you not get nerd out about a book that celebrates iconic elements of the 1980s? I mean, Family Ties is referenced! Oingo Boingo gets a mention.
Here comes the plot set-up, and maybe a ***SPOILER ALERT*** now.
The year is 2044, and the global population endures its fourth decade of economic collapse. Huzzah. In a world of fading prospects and rapidly dwindling natural resources, everyone's favorite pastime is the Oasis, a massive, all-inclusive multiplayer online game that had metamorphosed into a globally networked virtual reality universe what's now habitually accessed by nearly everyone on the planet. The Oasis has become such a panoptic entity, it's become synonymous with the Internet. In the Oasis, kids attend virtual school, business offices can purchase virtual landscape to promote their wares, virtual concerts are staged. Who wouldn't prefer this utopian cyberspace over bleak reality? When they can look for James Halliday's fabled Easter egg, nestled somewhere in the vastness of Oasis?
Eccentric genius video game designer - and creator of Oasis - James Halliday, before dying, recorded a video in which he challenges all comers to seek out his hidden treasure, to first unearth and then figure out the clues he'd embedded in the fabric of his Oasis program. His Easter egg, when found, conveys untold riches and power and unfettered administrative control over the Oasis. Overnight, the hunt for Halliday's treasure became the new global recreation. Halliday's addiction with 1980s pop culture was well documented, and so, too, in their feverish pursuit did these Easter egg hunters - nicknamed "gunters" - immerse themselves in Halliday's obsession, triggering a global revival of 1980s culture. But years and years would elapse before the elusive first clue would surface. Meanwhile, the gunters developed into figures of ridicule.
In the slums of Oklahoma City, in the Stacks - a decaying community in which run-down trailer homes are stacked on top of each other - 18-year-old orphan Wade Watts ekes out a miserable existence. Reclusive and anti-social, Wade is a low-level but dedicated gunter, a walking talking encyclopedia of vintage 1980s facts and trivia. He realizes that his only hope for a better life is to win the game. And so he perseveres when so many have given up. And, even though he's only a self-declared "third level wimp," he works out the location of the first clue. It's a life-changing thing.
The virtual scoreboard allows everyone to track his and other competitors' progress. Wade - or, rather, his avatar Parzival - becomes an instant worldwide celebrity - making him the target of fellow gunters and groupies and the media and, worse, of sinister corporations hungry to seize control of the Oasis. In his quest for Halliday's holy grail, Wade Watts - alliteratively named by his comic book-reading father - must call on every bit of his tech savvy and knowledge of 1980s culture to outwit his competitors and enemies. He is an awesome character that boasts impressive measures of pluck and resourcefulness and audacity in the face of frightening odds. And Wade Watts only becomes more awesome once he's compelled to venture out into the real world for survival's sake.
If the cyberpunk yarns of William Gibson and Neal Stephenson tend to intimidate you, be at ease with Ready Player One. Ernie Cline has crafted an immensely accessible story. He makes you swim in nostalgia. I'm not a 1980s buff, but I'm an old cat who actually lived his childhood thru the '80s, and it is so much fun trying to catch all of Cline's references. Ready Player One is a well-told, richly realized, and incredibly satisfying adventure, one populated by appealing characters. There's even a sweet love story. Wade engages in an online flirtation with a talented fellow gunter named Art3mis, and so we get a peek into Wade's gnawing doubts as to what the person beneath the Art3mis avatar is really like (and even what she really looks like). But that's just misdirection. It's another character who drops the startling reveal.
"Unputdownable" isn't a real word, yet it's the perfect adjective for this book. I think that everyone, at some level, has a grain of geekness in them. If you've ever envisioned scenes of your favorite cartoons or animes interacting, if you've once loved a movie so much that you've memorized entire passages of its dialogue, or been influenced by a rock song to the extent that you'd picked up a guitar to learn the chords... Ernie Cline revives these feelings. Ready Player One moves like a locomotive, and there are scenes in it that will absolutely explode your nerdy brain. Ready Player One was a New York Times Bestseller. It's soon to be a blockbuster motion picture what's directed by Steven Spielberg, and, self-deprecating guy that he is, good luck to him trying to tamp down on the book's references to his movies. I'm hyped for the movie. But the book came first, and the book will have an even more special place in my nerd heart. It's easily in my top five favorite reads ever. Ready Player One, yeah, an immersive, imaginative, childhood-mining, unputdownable read. Armada, not so much."
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Ready Player One Audible Audio Edition Ernest Cline Wil Wheaton Random House Audio Books Reviews :
Ready Player One Audible Audio Edition Ernest Cline Wil Wheaton Random House Audio Books Reviews
- Thing about writing a novel like this as one's debut effort is that, from here on out, there's nowhere to go but down. To wit, Armada. Ernie Cline's Ready Player One impacted me the same way that Suzanne Collins' The Hunger Games did. It's compulsive reading. Cline spins his dystopian quest adventure with supreme vitality and brio and unabashed adoration of all things nerdy. Cyberpunk collides with pop culture nostalgia, and how could you not get nerd out about a book that celebrates iconic elements of the 1980s? I mean, Family Ties is referenced! Oingo Boingo gets a mention.
Here comes the plot set-up, and maybe a ***SPOILER ALERT*** now.
The year is 2044, and the global population endures its fourth decade of economic collapse. Huzzah. In a world of fading prospects and rapidly dwindling natural resources, everyone's favorite pastime is the Oasis, a massive, all-inclusive multiplayer online game that had metamorphosed into a globally networked virtual reality universe what's now habitually accessed by nearly everyone on the planet. The Oasis has become such a panoptic entity, it's become synonymous with the Internet. In the Oasis, kids attend virtual school, business offices can purchase virtual landscape to promote their wares, virtual concerts are staged. Who wouldn't prefer this utopian cyberspace over bleak reality? When they can look for James Halliday's fabled Easter egg, nestled somewhere in the vastness of Oasis?
Eccentric genius video game designer - and creator of Oasis - James Halliday, before dying, recorded a video in which he challenges all comers to seek out his hidden treasure, to first unearth and then figure out the clues he'd embedded in the fabric of his Oasis program. His Easter egg, when found, conveys untold riches and power and unfettered administrative control over the Oasis. Overnight, the hunt for Halliday's treasure became the new global recreation. Halliday's addiction with 1980s pop culture was well documented, and so, too, in their feverish pursuit did these Easter egg hunters - nicknamed "gunters" - immerse themselves in Halliday's obsession, triggering a global revival of 1980s culture. But years and years would elapse before the elusive first clue would surface. Meanwhile, the gunters developed into figures of ridicule.
In the slums of Oklahoma City, in the Stacks - a decaying community in which run-down trailer homes are stacked on top of each other - 18-year-old orphan Wade Watts ekes out a miserable existence. Reclusive and anti-social, Wade is a low-level but dedicated gunter, a walking talking encyclopedia of vintage 1980s facts and trivia. He realizes that his only hope for a better life is to win the game. And so he perseveres when so many have given up. And, even though he's only a self-declared "third level wimp," he works out the location of the first clue. It's a life-changing thing.
The virtual scoreboard allows everyone to track his and other competitors' progress. Wade - or, rather, his avatar Parzival - becomes an instant worldwide celebrity - making him the target of fellow gunters and groupies and the media and, worse, of sinister corporations hungry to seize control of the Oasis. In his quest for Halliday's holy grail, Wade Watts - alliteratively named by his comic book-reading father - must call on every bit of his tech savvy and knowledge of 1980s culture to outwit his competitors and enemies. He is an awesome character that boasts impressive measures of pluck and resourcefulness and audacity in the face of frightening odds. And Wade Watts only becomes more awesome once he's compelled to venture out into the real world for survival's sake.
If the cyberpunk yarns of William Gibson and Neal Stephenson tend to intimidate you, be at ease with Ready Player One. Ernie Cline has crafted an immensely accessible story. He makes you swim in nostalgia. I'm not a 1980s buff, but I'm an old cat who actually lived his childhood thru the '80s, and it is so much fun trying to catch all of Cline's references. Ready Player One is a well-told, richly realized, and incredibly satisfying adventure, one populated by appealing characters. There's even a sweet love story. Wade engages in an online flirtation with a talented fellow gunter named Art3mis, and so we get a peek into Wade's gnawing doubts as to what the person beneath the Art3mis avatar is really like (and even what she really looks like). But that's just misdirection. It's another character who drops the startling reveal.
"Unputdownable" isn't a real word, yet it's the perfect adjective for this book. I think that everyone, at some level, has a grain of geekness in them. If you've ever envisioned scenes of your favorite cartoons or animes interacting, if you've once loved a movie so much that you've memorized entire passages of its dialogue, or been influenced by a rock song to the extent that you'd picked up a guitar to learn the chords... Ernie Cline revives these feelings. Ready Player One moves like a locomotive, and there are scenes in it that will absolutely explode your nerdy brain. Ready Player One was a New York Times Bestseller. It's soon to be a blockbuster motion picture what's directed by Steven Spielberg, and, self-deprecating guy that he is, good luck to him trying to tamp down on the book's references to his movies. I'm hyped for the movie. But the book came first, and the book will have an even more special place in my nerd heart. It's easily in my top five favorite reads ever. Ready Player One, yeah, an immersive, imaginative, childhood-mining, unputdownable read. Armada, not so much. - Reads like it was written by a high-school student. And to the people that think that's because it's POV ALL of his writing is like that. Everything that the protagonist needs to happen, happens fine and everything works out because he is the chosen one of some rich nerd's world. It's the worst kind of wish fulfillment. I hate the term Mary-Sue but that's what this book is about.
- I got this after seeing the movie and hearing from a few friends about how different the book is. My two main points after reading this book in 3 days
1. Love the 80's pop culture references integrated into the story. No book I've ever read has ever gone this deep into 80's game, movie, TV, music references. The writer is obviously a true 80's fanatic and geek. No doubt about that, this guy has lived it and did his homework.
2. The main character is completely unlikable. He never arcs or changes, even at the end (finding 'love' is not a character change). Honestly, I've never read a book where the main character is just a complete and utter unlikeable character even to the end. You never really want this jerk to succeed. His inner workings and thoughts are as just about as bad as the main villain.
Conclusion-
Steven Spielberg did a brilliant job taking the meat of this story and actually making the primarily character LIKEABLE because the writer was just down right horrible at it. If the filmmakers had followed the book, no doubt it wouldn't have been successful. I did enjoy the 80's references, but too bad the main character was unlikable. - I can hardly understand the allure of this novel. Or how it managed to gain such popularity. Feels like its written for a fourteen year old, which is in such contrast to the age group who would either understand or have experienced anything that happens in this book... those of us in our late thirties, early forties. It read like a list of games and game explanations, with zero character development. I never finished... because I really didn't care about any of the characters in the book or what the outcome would be. I often found myself nodding off, chapter after chapter. It's a poor write... and a poorer read.
- I really like the story line and the idea. I had to read through to find out how the characters figure it all out. I have a soft spot for virtual worlds - I met my wife online the virtual world called Second Life. I enjoyed how the virtual world is described and all of the technology in this book is within reach (except maybe the huge bandwidth to feed the world to that many people - but it will come with time).
So why only three stars? Ernest Cline writes really well, with one issue - the incredible amount of exposition. At least once every chapter, I found myself saying, "Enough already, get on with it." Sure some of it is from my growing up in the eighties and EC explaining parts of the decade *in detail*, but not all. There is a lot of explanation of the main character's life and how he got where he is. You don't find out things a little at a time - there are multi-page explanations. The book could easily have been half the length - or could include more from the virtual world. I did enjoy the imagination of the author in the building of the worlds (after seeing the amazing variety of user created content in existing virtual worlds).
So, I would have to say - very good book to read, but you can skip a lot of the exposition (or skim it so you don't miss something).
