Rating: 3/5
It was the dawn of a new era, one where most of the human race now spent all of their free time inside a videogame.
It’s 2044 and the world has changed dramatically. Fleeing from the terrible reality of the future, the global population spend as much time as they can in a VR simulated utopia: the Ontologically Anthropocentric Sensory Immersive Simulation, or the OASIS.
The book begins at the death of the reclusive James Halliday, programmer of the OASIS. In his will, he tells the entire OASIS population—and therefore the entire world population—that his massive fortune is lying in wait somewhere in the simulation, in the form of a giant egg. The gunters (“egg hunters”) of the OASIS have only to crack some practically impossible puzzles and get their hands on three separate keys in order to unlock the third and final Gate—and reach the fortune.
After five years of unsuccessful searching, news headlines light up as someone finally stumbles upon the whereabouts of the first key. The anonymous gunter at the top of the leaderboard, however, is no one’s idea of a classic hero: American teenager Wade Watts is far from it. But little does he know that his discovery of the Copper Key is the first foundation block of a bloodthirsty war in both the OASIS and the real world…
I thought this book was quite good as an action-packed dystopian sci-fi story, but Cline’s novel certainly isn’t the next
Great Expectations or
Gormenghast. It was original and exciting, but it just wasn’t really awesome or anything.