Ready Player One

Ready Player One

Ernest Cline

Random House

3 ½ Polychromatic Galaxy Skulls

The pleasure one gets from this book is pretty much the same as the pleasure one gets from watching your brother rack up the high score on Galaga or coming across a copy of your favorite D&D module, some 20 years used, at a random bookstore.  It’s part nostalgia for the childlike life you once led and part recognition for the child that’s still in you.  I think most of us can get the same enjoyment from a good blog about the 80s, but that’s more a testament on blogs than Cline’s novel.  The writing is fine—you’re not going to swoon over the sentences, but you won’t gag either.

If you are child of the 80s, or even almost one, then the novel will probably mean a little more to you than otherwise.  When Knight Rider’s KITT is mentioned, for example, you might recall your brother’s first goldfish, also named KITT.  Your brother was a big fan.  And when characters star slow dancing to “Time after Time,” you might remember that the first cassette tape you ever remember holding was Cyndi Lauper’s She’s So Unusual—owned by your brother. 

And you might recall going to Pinocchio’s for pizza with your mom.  After your brother and you had your pizza, your mom would give you quarters and you’d go down to the arcade in the same building and your brother would play Galaga for hours on just one quarter and you’d own Centipede or Ms. Pacman.  And you might remember the Snow Day when you and Jeffrey Hille walked to the arcade with $20 in quarters in order to finally, finally, finally beat Commando (at least you think it was Commando, maybe it was Gauntlet?).  It makes you remember when New Coke came out, and Weird Al Yankovic at the start of his career, Casey Kasem, the first time you rolled a D&D character, crying when Flint died, Fizban, He Man, She-ra, Jem, G. I. Joe, Gummi Bears, M.A.S.K., and all of those Saturday Morning Cartoons.  It’ll make you think about a lot, for better or worse.

Also, for me, one cool thing about the novel is that the protagonist is from Oklahoma City, with his home on Portland Ave. for the first part of the novel, very near where my father’s house is (though according to the novel, it’s unlikely his house will be around in 2044).  There aren’t enough novels set in Oklahoma.