Ready Player One by Ernest Cline Crown Publishers, 374 pages, $24. 2012 Prometheus Award Nerdgasm: 80s pop-culture, a VR MMORPG Easter Egg, retro-VGs, & one hell of a BIG BOSS! Ernest Cline’s debut novel, Ready Player One , already has a reputation that precedes itself. Published only three years ago, this genre-expanding dystopian YA adventure-quest bestseller (that’s not a mouthful) has already climbed the cult-status pantheon. Just flip to his dust-jacket bio and you’ll see Cline posing in front of a DeLorean --a vehicle that makes its fair share of appearances in the novel--along with the claim that “his primary occupation [in spite of everything else] has always been geeking out”. If Ready Player One is any gauge for Cline’s ability to “geek out”, then he’s written an exemplary CV. Jump to a resource depleted America circa 2044, where the Global Energy Crisis has nearly wiped out suburbia. As a result, urban populations have become swollen with th...
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