Å·±¦ÓéÀÖ

I needed something like this. A sort of one and done book one night stand that I could just read and be done with. No three or more book commitment. We had a nice time together. It might not have been the greatest book I've ever read. There were times it felt like there was too much info dumping going on. There were times where all the references to the eighties either got on my nerves or were a little lost on me, but all and all this was exactly what I wanted from a book quickie.

The Plot
It's the 2040s and life on Earth pretty much sucks. Global warming, energy crisis, people are living in extreme poverty. This is the type of dystopia I can find credible. Which scared me a bit. Other dystopias on the market right now, while entertaining, don't always make a lot of sense. A lot of times some horrible unexplained event or war happens and now we're just suppose to accept that society lives in factions or has death games. Not here.

We're just supposed to accept because reality sucks so hard a lot of people spend their time in the biggest immersive online gaming platform in the world. It's used for everything. Gaming, school, work. When it's creator dies everyone and leaves one giant quest to find a his hidden easter egg and claim his massive fortune things start to get interesting. Particularly when a evil corporation throws it's hat into the ring with the intent on exploiting the rules to the contest and gaining control of game for themselves.

Characters
Wade a.k.a. Parzival: Wade has grown up with nothing. Scraping to get by living in the trailer skyscrapers in the slums. He doesn't have the money or the means to fully enjoy all the OASIS has to offer, but that hasn't discouraged him from trying to participate in the contest. He's our POV character and at times frustrated the hell out of me.

Art3mis: She's the love interest. Wade cyber stalks her blog and geeks out over her hard. She's a fellow contest in the massive egg hunt and a skilled player. A lot of things could have gone wrong with her character. It was refreshing that she didn't feel like a manifestation of every gamer girl stereotype out there. Still I could have done without the whole love interest portion of her story. Listening to Wade gush about how awesome she was all the time also tended to get tiring.

Aech: While he was absent for a good chunk of the middle because romance and Wade is our POV. Aech is this books saving grace. He's Wade's best friend. A PvP all star. I can't really say much more without spoiling. But Aech is my hero. Aech is amazing. All hail Aech. (view spoiler)[Aech is actually a female in real life. A black female. A black female lesbian who created a white male avatar because it afforded her so many more opportunities in the online communities. I wish this book had been about Aech. (hide spoiler)]

Sorrento: The books antagonist. He works for the corporation that's trying to win control over the OASIS. He's your typical scum bag corporate villain. Pushes around his underlings like they're replaceable garbage. Cheats and bullies to get his way. CEO McDouchebag Gamer thy name is Sorrento.

Overall
I'm going to be honest with you all here. The writing itself is nothing to get excited over. There are sections that vomit background information, world building information, random gamer information all over the page. There are sections that are so padded down with references to music, games, or television shows from the eighties that appear to be nothing more than playful nods to the audience. It can get annoying, but the selling point for me was the pure love and nostalgia this book seems to be written with.

I've read books before that throw in references to things like Dungeons and Dragons and World of Warcraft and you just know the extent of the author's knowledge on the subject is extremely limited. That they threw it in there as short hand for this character is geeky. Not here. You can tell Cline knows what he's talking about. You can tell he's someone who's played these games and been involved in online communities before.

The best part? This book doesn't attempt to use the story line of online gaming and relationships as a platform to demean it. Do you get the sense that Wade might benefit from maybe joining reality every once in awhile? Yes. But the book never implies that Wade should cut this part of his life out entirely. It toes that fine line of acknowledging online friendships, relationships and gaming are awesome and fun and totally acceptable, but also that reality can be pretty good too.