Ready Player Two: A Novel

I vividly remember reading Ready Player One and being completely enthralled by what the book had to offer. I didn't understand a majority of the 80's references, and I wasn't nearly as much of a sci-fi fanatic, but Ernest Cline's ability to paint a colorfully nostalgic world is what was so captivating about RPO. In Ready Player Two, I get to enjoy those same evocative experiences with the turn of each page. That quality is what makes this series so childishly fun to read.Ready Player Two takes off basically where Ready Player One finished, so it wastes no time catching you up. The strong, unfamiliar pop culture references were going to be a given, but that is what makes this series so unique. Every now and then, I would *insert Captain America meme* understand a reference, and it brought me back to how reading the first one felt. During both books, I kind of liked typing each referenced character and video game into Google to get a look of what it actually looks like. The fact that Cline is creating a totally imaginative world that is heavily based on real-life references is impressive in that Cline has to ensure those references are correct. Ensuring consistencies in his fantasy world AND in relating to actual stories created by someone else seems like a daunting task, but Cline nicely did so in RPO and RPT.The love story between Parzival and Art3mis has a veil of realistic truth around it, in that in this day and age, this is exactly how I would believe an online relationship to feel, begin, and be executed. It's not hard to imagine Wade and Samantha as the geeky, awkward people that are transformed into immortals when online. The way the two act around each other, and the juxtapositions that are their lives (both on and offline, and when they are and aren't together), made their relationship always feel genuine and innocent to me. Most books have the love interests revolve their attractions around sex, money, or other motives that get overplayed. This one revolves around the experience of sharing adventures together, and I've always enjoyed that.Now, there are parts to the plot that are a bit questionable. I won't go into detail about most of the plot, in order to avoid spoilers, but I will say that the entirety of the book takes place roughly in twelve hours. Considering how long it took Wade and his friends to complete the first Easter Egg quest in RPO, in seems a bit rushed and unbelievable that the "almighty Halladay" would create a second scavenger hunt that seemed nowhere near as difficult and time-consuming. The antagonists, too, seemed a little baffling. I don't feel there was too much effort put into developing new, exciting, and practical antagonists -- in fact, that was the area of RPT where I felt the least attached to. But with that said, the plot inconsistencies and lack of strong, sensible bad guys did not drive me away from liking the book.I will admit, my adoration for RPO did play a part in making me a tiny bit biased, but in the end, Ready Player Two is enough like Ready Player One for my liking. It obviously doesn't feel like Cline was planning to write a sequel to RPO, and RPT seems much more brushed and prepared for a movie than its copywrite-infringing predecessor. With that said, Cline still did a good job at, again, capturing and maintaining the flavor that made RPO so enjoyable to experience.

Maybe some other people can review Ready Player Two without mentioning Ready Player One, but I'm not one of them. So, here we go.Ready Player One knocked my socks off from the very first page. I knew it was going to be something amazing and legendary from the get-go, and I stand by that, though even the first book has its obvious downfalls and the biggest critique seems to be that it's an info-dump of 80s pop culture. But, hey. That's the time period I grew up in as well, so while the book may not have captured the imagination and heart of someone older or younger, it did for me.So I waited with baited breath for the next book by Ernest Cline. And I tried to like Armada>, I tried really hard, actually. But I didn't. So that totally upped the ante for Ready Player Two for me--and, I suspect, for many of you. I also have the somewhat limiting habit of putting myself too much in the shoes of the author, anxiously awaiting how the masses are going to like their latest book. Having never (yet) finished a story of my own with which to try the rocky seas of publication see if anybody beyond my own circle of friends will like to read it or not, I know I'm not at the exact same place a published author is when waiting for reader feedback, but I can imagine it's pretty terrifying, especially when the track record has been dubious at best. And I hate hurting anyone's feelings, which compromises how objective I can be in some of my review, I know. So yeah.What I liked about Ready Player Two:The retro video game and 80s/90s pop culture trivia was, if anything, even more interesting to me than it was in the first book, because a lot of this stuff was even more obscure (to me, anyway) and I actually learned a great deal of interesting facts that I didn't know about before. I'd often find myself pausing to google something and find out more about it, and you know what? That's pretty awesome.Cline made an effort to make his characters more diverse this time around, and while some will scoff or take issue with it, I give him points for trying. I tried not to read any articles or reviews before finishing the book, so as not to cloud my own feelings about it, but I did see the headline about the "non-binary sex" fumble. I get that, and we can all improve. But it's better to try to be inclusive, and then accept feedback, than to just not try to be inclusive at all. I loved that there was a non-binary character in this book. I hope we see more of that, going forward.The story, and the character of Wade himself, have both matured. Again--yeah, I get it--there's still tons of room for improvement. But one of the biggest wins for me was Wade's having matured when it came to sex, and sexual orientation, in general. The jokes about Art3mis potentially being a middle-aged man named Chuck, in the first book, gave Wade the vapors and sent him into a sexual identity crisis at the thought of potentially loving and/or being sexually attracted to another male. And yeah, as a teenager, sexual identity crises are not out of the ordinary. But as someone who is not heterosexual myself, it still felt like a stab, like the old "gay joke" which has long outworn its welcome. Cline, and Wade, set that right in the new book. Thanks to the technology of ONI, Wade has now had lots of experiences very diverse from his own upbringing, and yes, that includes sex too, so he's more level-headed about the whole thing, and the thought of "non-heterosexual sex" (for lack of a better term) no longer freaks him out. You know what? That's really cool. It acknowledges all of us out there who aren't heterosexual and/or cisgender, and in my mind, that is something to be celebrated.With more of a focus on the character of Kira Morrow, and the admission that she had been overlooked as one of the founders of the OASIS, some more cracks appeared in the glass ceiling. The retro gamer geek world has some pretty amazing female figures, both as creators and gamers, but they still seldom get the recognition they deserve. This felt like a nod to that.It was also fun to read. While I admit that the first few chapters did not grab me and draw me in as quickly as the first book did, by page 50 or so, I was definitely hooked, and I certainly finished this book a lot faster than any of the other books I've read recently.What I didn't like about Ready Player Two:The pacing. In Ready Player One, there were moments of intense action and pressure, and stretches of downtime (sometimes good, sometimes also tense but in a good way) as the quest for the first easter egg stalled, the way any true treasure hunt would. It was like a brand new game that nobody has ever seen before, and everything along the way had to be learned by trial and error, and luck. But this time around? It read like someone who didn't even *bother* to try to use trial and error, and instead just read the game walkthrough from start to finish. One of the characters always knew exactly what obscure and arcane thing was needed next, and it was a headlong rush to collect a bunch of crystals that felt more like speed-running a game while your friend sits on the couch next to you, reading the walkthrough and telling you what to do step by step. You still get to the same ending, yeah, but some of the fun of it has been stolen away in the process. Now yeah, in the story, the characters are under time constraints to do what they had to do. So I guess it had to go down that way. But it left me dissatisfied.Ditto for L0hengrin and her entire part to play in this. (I use the pronoun she, as it was what the character's preference was stated to be.) I was intrigued by her character, and the entire band of the L0W Five, and I wanted to know so much more! But it felt like a total cop-out, how little we really got to see about what they were off doing. I suppose that could be a gimmick and a way to eke another story out of this fictional universe, and while it's one I would read in a heartbeat, it only contributed to the abrupt pacing of this story, making me feel like I was reading a Cliff's Notes version instead of an entire, unabridged book. There was a lot to pack in, and it didn't all get packed in.Audiences have said loud and clear that they need more to a story than just an info-dump of retro trivia, so while that worked the first time around with Ready Player One, I think we all need more, this time around. And with the rushed pacing and abridged storyline, glossing over or not showing a lot of the action at all left me feeling like I'd only gotten to see 1/4 of the story.

Amazing. Starts slow for just a it, but then it is the same magic as Ready Player One in a unique and thoroughly detailed story that meets the standard set by One. I’m in awe. Cline is an amazing artist.

The story continues, excellent and scary premise. Excellent book, and i hope they make a second movie based off the book.

Loved getting caught up in this world again! Fantastic read, brilliant story!! A must read for everyone! Pass me an ONI!

If you liked the first book "Ready Player One" then Ready Player Two probably will too.It's a great continuation of the first book and it's just keep getting better, the longer I gets into the book.

Es una historia excelente!! Super geek y bien contada. Increíble!!! Perfecta culminacion a ready player one

Ai final eu me sinto parte da tribulação que que tem um universo para explorar. Geralmente eu me sinto órfã depois de grande leitura e fico sem vontade de ler mais nada por um tempo, e até volto a ler o livro tudo se novo para minar a sensação de vazio que fica quando o livro termina. Mas desta vez me senti como os tripulantes de uma nave interstelar que todo tempo que precisa para explorar tudo que o universo tem para ser descoberto. Dessa vez eu terminei a leitura com uma sensação de que realmente tenho tempo e espaço. Muito obrigada Ernest.