Ready Player One by Ernest Cline
2044. The climate is wrecked, oil resources have been depleted and the world economy has still not fully recovered from the excesses of the turn of the century. Wade Watts, like millions of other teenagers, escapes the real world by playing in the OASIS, a computer programme that has combined the old Internet and numerous MMORPGs into a virtual reality existence. Five years ago the founder of the OASIS died, leaving his multi-billion-dollar fortune to whoever can solve an elaborate puzzle he left behind in the game. Millions have tried and failed...until Wade stumbles across a key clue. Suddenly a race is on: Wade and several fellow gamers competing with one another and a sinister corporation to be the first to win the prize. Ready Player One is the debut novel by writer Ernest Cline, whose previous genre credit of note was co-writing the 2009 movie Fanboys . Ready Player One , like that movie, is a geek-centric, nostalgia-heavy paean for the past. In this case, Cline references early...