Why I Love Ready Player One

Only a few spoilers ahead.  I’d be a terrible book reviewer. My instinct is to be as subjective as possible and write about how stories make me feel.)

               I read Ready Player One at the very beginning of 2013. Within eight months, I had written the first novel I wasn’t ashamed to show other humans. This happens to me a lot.  Something will inspire me and then I am off to the races creatively.  Most of the time the feeling fades and I go back to wondering what I should do with my spare time in this stupid world. But not with this book.  It hit me so squarely in the jaw that I continue to write in the hope that more than four people will read what I have to offer.

               To begin, I don't know if Ready Player One is even a good book.  I think it is.  In fact I think it’s fantastic, but because it hit so many emotional buttons it’s difficult to truly be objective.  But I don’t care. (See the above bit about inspiring the novel writing.)  It is certainly a fun book, and since it’s going to be a movie, there were enough people who thought as I do.

               There are a few reasons I’ve read this sucker three times.  The story is unique and fun; Ernest Clines kept the tone very light even though the setting is a dystopian American landscape.  The conceit of the story is escapism.  The world is hooked into a VR system called OASIS where all enjoyable human contact occurs. It’s where you go to learn and meet people and get away from poverty and fear.  You can customize your avatar and travel to far off worlds and do and see things that would be impossible in the real world.  As the creator of this world reiterates throughout the book: The real world kinda always sucks.

               My therapist told me that he read this book and immediately thought of me.  Damn straight, you did, I thought to myself.  There is so much of me and my sensibilities wrapped up in this book, it would be ridiculous to list all of the details.  Its also a book about the 1980’s; that sad, shitty, plastic, dumb decade during which I had to grow up. Most things invented or promoted in the eighties are worth forgetting.  However, there were small introductions into the culture that were the impetus of stuff we embrace today.  Computers. Video games. Role-playing games. Early internet access. But the most accurate detail for me was referential-based conversation and humor.

               We were the generations that memorized shit.  We quoted movies, TV shows and music.  We knew movies by heart because they were repeated on TV thousands of time.  Boomers didn’t. Millennials have so much to choose from.  Gen X had (and still has) a secondary shorthand that came directly from Saturday morning cartoons, japanimation, Monty Python and SNL, commercials, movies with Chevy Chase and Bill Murray, early sci-fi movies like The Last Starfighter, Dune, Krull, The Ice Pirates and dozens more.  We used quotes from this media to identify each other like we were members of a club.  A club of kids with too much exposure to TV.  One of those guys was Ernest Cline.

               Forget that Parzival, the protagonist, creates a spaceship in the OASIS and calls it the Vonnegut, the first author I ever binged and remains a huge influence on my writing.  Forget that the creator of the OASIS, the fictional Steve Jobs of this book that takes place in the 2040’s, was born the same month and year as me. Forget the bulk of the action in the third act takes place in Oregon, where I live now.

This book is for us.  This one is for me and mine.

I heard is called a futuristic Willy Wonka, and that is apt.  The plot is a treasure hunt and it follows the lives of young people. I would say it’s a Harry Potter for Gen X.  It has the feel of a young adult book but it is read by adults. It is geared toward me.  I’ve read reviews and comments that take a huge dump on this book and cite the simplified plot and obvious nods to nostalgia.

To them I say: GOOD.

First of all, nostalgia is a spice to be used lightly in life. You can’t escape it entirely. It shouldn’t be demonized in all its forms.  Just don't roll around in it all the time.  Second, the lack of the cultural foothold my generation has is frankly upsetting. We are sandwiched between two giant generations.  The one proceeding gobbled up all the airspace well into their forties, and the succeeding one moves faster than anyone can possibly keep up. We didn’t have a large window of opportunity to make more of a cultural impact.  So, if a few of us want to reminisce about Atari 2600’s and Rush lyrics, it doesn’t bother me one bit.

It’s a book written by someone influenced by film and TV as much as sci-fi lit.  Maybe more.  That’s okay.  Have you seen how many books are out there? There’s plenty of room for the literary equivalent of popcorn fare. It is incredibly visual and the pacing is closer to a movie than a drawn out plot of a science-based thriller. I think that caught my attention, too.  Modern audiences are savvy when it comes to “fun” genres like sci-fi. I like the idea of smart, but fun reads.

This book has hope.  I avoid a lot of dystopian fare because of the lack of hope.  It has hope, fun, charm, and a refreshing innocence.  If you weren’t born between 1965 and 1985 or so, I’m not sure you will get as much out of Ready Player One as I did.  But because of how it really touched me and made my past seem somehow more significant, I guess I really don’t care.