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Ready Player One

Audiobook
1 of 7 copies available
1 of 7 copies available

Brought to you by Penguin.

***NOW A MAJOR MOTION PICTURE DIRECTED BY STEVEN SPIELBERG***

A world at stake. A quest for the ultimate prize. Are you ready?
It's the year 2044, and the real world has become an ugly place. We're out of oil. We've wrecked the climate. Famine, poverty, and disease are widespread.
Like most of humanity, Wade Watts escapes this depressing reality by spending his waking hours jacked into the OASIS, a sprawling virtual utopia where you can be anything you want to be, where you can live and play and fall in love on any of ten thousand planets. And like most of humanity, Wade is obsessed by the ultimate lottery ticket that lies concealed within this alternate reality: OASIS founder James Halliday, who dies with no heir, has promised that control of the OASIS - and his massive fortune - will go to the person who can solve the riddles he has left scattered throughout his creation.
For years, millions have struggled fruitlessly to attain this prize, knowing only that the riddles are based in the culture of the late twentieth century. And then Wade stumbles onto the key to the first puzzle.
Suddenly, he finds himself pitted against thousands of competitors in a desperate race to claim the ultimate prize, a chase that soon takes on terrifying real-world dimensions - and that will leave both Wade and his world profoundly changed.
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If you loved READY PLAYER ONE and can't wait for more, check out ARMADA, Ernest Cline's latest geek masterpiece!
'Wildly original and stuffed with irresistible nostalgia, Ready Player One is a spectacularly genre-busting, ambitious, and charming debut' Independent
'Part intergalactic scavenger hunt, part romance, and all heart' CNN
'Ernest Cline's novel deserves to be a modern classic' SciFiNow
'Gorgeously geeky, superbly entertaining, this really is a spectacularly successful debut' Daily Mail
© Ernest Cline 2011 (P) Penguin Audio 2012

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  • Reviews

    • AudioFile Magazine
      As narrator of this offbeat, futuristic adventure, Wil Wheaton must evoke a teen's na•veté and cynicism about real life and incorporate this veteran gaming geek's expertise of '80s culture. With nods to Willy Wonka, William Gibson, and Neal Stephenson, a cross-genre plot involves gaming jousts as the hero attempts to win top score on his quest to inherit a dead billionaire's control of an interactive universe of cyber-worlds. Wheaton is up to the task, presenting an engaging treasure hunt while also dramatizing the hero's enthusiasm at playing classic games like Pac-Man. Also a twist on PILGRIM'S PROGRESS, this novel has something for everyone. J.L. (c) AudioFile 2011, Portland, Maine
    • Publisher's Weekly

      April 25, 2011
      This adrenaline shot of uncut geekdom, a quest through a virtual world, is loaded with enough 1980s nostalgia to please even the most devoted John Hughes fans. In a bleak but easily imagined 2044, Wade Watts, an impoverished high school student who calls a vertically stacked trailer park home, lives primarily online, alongside billions of others, via a massive online game, OASIS, where players race to unravel the puzzles OASIS creator James Halliday built into the game before his death, with the winner taking control of the virtual world's parent company, as well as staggering wealth. When Wade stumbles on a clue, he's plunged into high-stakes conflict with a corporation dedicated to unraveling Halliday's riddles, which draw from Dungeons and Dragons, old Atari video games, the cinematic computer hacker ode War Games, and that wellspring of geek humor, Monty Python and the Holy Grail. (Of course.) The science fiction, video game, technology, and geeky musical references pile up quickly, sometimes a bit much so, but sweet, self-deprecating Wade, whose universe is an odd mix of the real past and the virtual present, is the perfect lovable/unlikely hero.

Formats

  • OverDrive Listen audiobook

Languages

  • English

Levels

  • Lexile® Measure:970
  • Text Difficulty:5-7

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