“Ready Player One.”
Ready Player One by Ernie Cline is what a dystopian future should look like. Economy in the toilet, energy depleted, trailers stacked dangerously close. Most kids going to school in VR called OASIS and the 80’s has made a comeback by way of a Jobsian / Hughes-like computer programer named James Halliday.
James Halliday is D+D playing social outcast when he meets Ogden Morrow. Over the years the two would go from creating games in their basement to forming a company and becoming millionaires. During those years they build a giant VR world called Oasis which only costs a quarter to join. Years later as society slowly crumbles, Halliday, upon his death mass emails everyone on OASIS and says if can decipher my riddle, play my game, get the three keys, win then you would become CEO of my company and get all my money.
There’s a part of me wonders if this book had come out before SDCC if the panel I attended with Cline as one of the speakers would have been more popular and longer than it was because this is so much geek name checking in this book it boggles the mind.
Official Blog of author R. K. Bentley