Is this the case where the movie was better than the book? I watched Spielberg’s Ready Player One twice in the cinemas and really liked its exhilarating take on the metaverse before it was a thing. And to be fair, the source material kept me up almost all night so I can finish its final pages, so there is some good in that. The world that is proposed By Cline is not only plausible, but increasingly more realistic as tech companies are banking on delivering a metaverse to replace our own shitty-ass reality.
The metaverse is a babysitter, a school, a sedation. We are now obsessed with the concept of the metaverse because let’s face it: Our reality is becoming more and more unbearable — wars, pandemics and inching ever closer to the doomsday midnight, this corresponds to our need to escape from this reality — virtual or otherwise. This escape will ultimately cost money, and Cline did what I would deem a logical representation of what this could be. Anybody could jump into the OASIS (the metaverse) to go to school, meet people, entertain themselves and go on quests. It’s almost like real life, except for the going on quest bit.
A game of all or nothing, but it looks cooler
Our guy Wade Watts is Parzival, one of the many avatars that exist in OASIS, and as he is about to graduate from school, he doesn’t have any aspirations for a career except being a gunter. This is short for being an egg-hunter, which endows the founder the ownership of the OASIS which was left after the death of its founder, James Halliday. This is a world where there are years of waiting line to get a job in fast food chains, so to be an expert of owning the metaverse seems the most realistic option.
To grab hold of the egg, the gunter must find a key and use it to unlock the corresponding gate, playing challenges related to the 80s to cross that bridge. There are three keys to collect, each more cryptic than the last. Halliday left clues in verses which give the gunters an indication where these keys and gates may be hidden. Wade is a smart enough kid, and along the way he competes with his so-called best mate Aech and his young-adult plagued love interest, Art3mis. The most formidable opponent is IOI, the ISP organisation which provides the majority of OASIS users the access to play OASIS, they want the keys to themselves too.
An obnoxious glammy lovesong to a pretty shit decade
Man, after watching Stranger Things, I thought I’ve seen it all in the ’80s. The movie didn’t take this direction and chose the path of highly loved pop culture instead — King Kong, Jurassic Park, The Shining. But the book has a lot of reference to obscure games, music and films that has been well buried in that decade and probably would die of in the next decade. This makes me question who the book is for, because the book is written in the typical style of young adult, but with obscure references that only the elderly parents might remember. Even grandparents for some I’d imagine.
I don’t have an issue with the decade itself. Actually, scratch that. I think the ’80s is a pretty shit decade with shit music, shit hair, cheesy movies with shit music and the cold war in full swing. To be fair, the cold war also ended at the end of that decade, so there’s that. But I guess it doesn’t matter what decade that’s in the book, it could be the 1940s or 1960s for all I care, but it’s the fact that it’s been shoved down my throat. Page after page after page. After page. And for someone not super enamored with the decade, it’s like eating a cake baked for the first time from someone who never baked in cooking class and be expected to finish the whole damn thing. And the cake is shit.
I also find these nerds who become gunters pathetic as fuck. If someone is flaunting their knowledge on the most obscure reference to an ’80s arcade game, you’d probably bash their head in in this day and age. You’d put them in their place. Nerds are nerds, sure. Fuck I’m a nerd myself. And as much as I take pride in my knowledge, I don’t use it to outnerd my buddies to feel good about myself. Nor do I feel ashamed of my knowledge. Is this what nerds do? Simping over girls they’ve got no chance on and basically feel good about themselves amassing knowledge that’s only specialised for the field that they focus on that other people may not care about as much? A bit sad if you think about it.
And for that point, these guys are not exactly the best role models, let alone heroes. Sure there is a lot on the line, like $240 billion worth and absolute power. But it’s the implication that the book is about chasing your dreams, even if it means spending fifteen hours a day locked in to the computer and adding to that already redundant baby fat. And besides, Wade Watts is abrasive, toxic, and a bit of a condescending dickhead. Let’s not talk about the other characters, we won’t need to. They’re not any better.
Suckerberg’s wet dream
Ready Player One has some redeeming qualities, which is why for me it’s not a one star read. This world is a plausible one, though perhaps it’s unlikely that we will ever reach a point that we will have to outnerd each other in a battle for the internet. I couldn’t stand the premise though — that all the users of OASIS have to go through James Halliday’s wet dreams to own this world — that they must live and breathe a pretty shit decade, and become the master of it. It’s like for us trying to go through Mark Suckerberg’s perverted fantasies so we can get the keys to Facebook. I don’t even know if that’s worth the thought. Bleeurgh.
