Wade Watts: “No one in the world gets what they want and that is beautiful.”

Author:

Ernest Cline

Publisher:

Random House

Published on:

16 August 2011

Story:

The year is 2044 and the world is in near-ruins. The Great Recession has taken its toll on the world’s economy, and resources are scarce. The Internet and gaming culture have evolved into a creation known as OASIS, a massive multiplayer online simulation game created by James Halliday and Ogden Morrow of Gregarious Simulation Systems (GSS), formerly known as Gregarious Games. Halliday, with no heirs or other living family, dies suddenly and leaves a video will to those in OASIS and a book that was dubbed Anorak’s Almanac, which purports to be a volume written by James Halliday’s avatar Anorak in OASIS. The video says that whomever can collect three keys (Copper, Jade, and Crystal) that are hidden throughout the universe of OASIS and pass through the matching gates will receive his fortune and controlling stake in GSS. This becomes known as the Hunt and people immediately begin the search for Halliday’s “egg,” a reference to the first “Easter egg” in video game culture in the game Adventure.

Review:

First when I read the synopsis, of this book, I remembered Tron.. I felt that this book was a modern Tron-esque  story. The premise of playing a game which has become greater than reality and trying to overcome the evil might, has already been explored in Tron. But this is a book.

The book is filled with pop culture references which is sure to bring a smile of recognition to any self respecting geek’s face. Me being only 16 know most of the references.. But any geek who was actually from that time would and should know all of it. I found this book to be a Geeky book written by a geek for geeks.

I thoroughly enjoyed the book and the line were funny and the book was written well. The book  was also narrated awesomely by Will Wheaton. His voice moderation for the different characters was good too. His narration actually made the book sound better and made me like like it better.

Final Verdict:

8/10