The first book by Kline was one of my favorites of the year
and was adapted into a fun film. It made changes, but I still enjoyed it.
This sequel takes place several years after the last, with
Wade (the hero) having acted in a way that caused an estrangement from both the
love of his life and his mentor, Og. When you now have unlimited wealth and
access to a virtual world (Oasis) where every desire can be filled, you can
understand how that might change you.
An AI created by one of the original designers of Oasis,
made in his image, overrides limitations placed on him and decides to hold the
users of Oasis hostage to achieve his goals. Wade, along with most of the High Five, find themselves
trapped in their virtual selves and given a limited time to fulfill a quest. If
they fail they and everyone already logged into Oasis will slowly die or if they survive go insane.
In Ready Player One, it helped to be familiar with '80s pop
culture and early video games of the later 20th Century. Never a big gamer, I
still knew enough not to be completely lost. In this novel, Cline has worlds
dedicated to the teen movies of John
Hughes and the artist Prince. Here, I admit to limited knowledge of either.
I've seen more of Hughes' non-teen films (done with John Candy) than those for
which he's better known. I can probably name 4-5 songs by Prince and have only
seen Purple Rain once. I must admit to being lost for a lot of this.
All that aside, I really did enjoy this book, listening to
the audio version narrated by Wil Wheaton, who also nicely narrated the first
book. Your mileage may vary depending on
how familiar you are with a lot of this pop culture stuff. It definitely was
still worth a 4 out of 5 stars from me.
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