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Ready Player One #2
Ready Player Two
An unexpected quest. Two worlds at stake. Are you ready?
Days after winning Oasis founder James Halliday's contest, Wade Watts makes a discovery that changes everything.
Hidden within Halliday's vaults, waiting for his heir to find, lies a technological advancement that will once again change the world and make the Oasis a thousand times more wondrous—and addictive—than even Wade dreamed possible.
With it comes a new riddle, and a new quest—a last Easter egg from Halliday, hinting at a mysterious prize.
And an unexpected, impossibly powerful, and dangerous new rival awaits, one who'll kill millions to get what he wants.
Wade's life and the future of the Oasis are again at stake, but this time the fate of humanity also hangs in the balance.
Lovingly nostalgic and wildly original as only Ernest Cline could conceive it, Ready Player Two takes us on another imaginative, fun, action-packed adventure through his beloved virtual universe, and jolts us thrillingly into the future once again.
Days after winning Oasis founder James Halliday's contest, Wade Watts makes a discovery that changes everything.
Hidden within Halliday's vaults, waiting for his heir to find, lies a technological advancement that will once again change the world and make the Oasis a thousand times more wondrous—and addictive—than even Wade dreamed possible.
With it comes a new riddle, and a new quest—a last Easter egg from Halliday, hinting at a mysterious prize.
And an unexpected, impossibly powerful, and dangerous new rival awaits, one who'll kill millions to get what he wants.
Wade's life and the future of the Oasis are again at stake, but this time the fate of humanity also hangs in the balance.
Lovingly nostalgic and wildly original as only Ernest Cline could conceive it, Ready Player Two takes us on another imaginative, fun, action-packed adventure through his beloved virtual universe, and jolts us thrillingly into the future once again.
370 pages, Hardcover
First published November 24, 2020
About the author
Ernest Cline
19 books27.6k followersERNEST CLINE is a novelist, screenwriter, father, and full-time geek. His first novel, Ready Player One, was a New York Times and USA Today bestseller, appeared on numerous “best of the year” lists, and is set to be adapted into a motion picture by Warner Bros. and director Steven Spielberg. His second novel, ARMADA, debuted at #4 on the NYT Bestseller list and is being made into a film by Universal Pictures. Ernie lives in Austin, Texas, with his family, a time-traveling DeLorean, and a large collection of classic video games.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 20,303 reviews
September 11, 2021
GAME. FINALLY. OVER.
For f*ck’s sake. That’s the phrase that repeats itself over and over in my Kindle notes as I was slogging my way through this soulless cash grab of a clusterf*ck.
It’s been a while since I’ve been this irritated by a book. Time to rant.
I got a huge kick out of its predecessor, Ready Player One, even if it often read like the reiteration of Wikipedia pages of the 1980s trivia. Yes, it was a trivia-laden wish fulfillment, but it appealed to our human instinct of rooting for an underdog against soulless evil. It’s hard not to root for a determined self-taught orphan who’s set to take on an evil entity and succeeds against all odds, resulting in a world that’s better than the one he started in. And since it led to a successful (although seriously dumbed down) movie and probably loads of cash for the creator of this world, we all knew the sequel was to come, and by Hollywood rules anyone could have predicted the most likely title. Of course it would be Ready Player TWO.
With a sequel, you have two paths you can take. One is to develop the world and the characters further, take risks, push boundaries. The other is to try to please the fans by sticking to the same exact formula that netted you success. Let’s guess which one this sequel follows.
Yeah. That one.
Whether it makes sense or not, the point is to tediously recreate yet another quest for magical objects based on the poorly rhymed riddles made from beyond the grave by an oddball OASIS creator James Halliday and grounded in obscure 1980s trivia, with the same band of characters as before and the quest to get the girl. Even if all that seemingly was already achieved by the end of the first book.
No problem. A few plot contrivances will still get us the quest with all the above, with riding into the sunset with the girl included. And hero worship, for the wish fulfillment pleasure.
Wade Watts of the first book was easy to root for (being a plucky underdog and all that jazz). In this one, however, we get Wade 2.0 — now an entitled and petulant multi-gagillionnaire man-child OASIS owner who:
- spends untold riches on decking out his gagillionnaire hideout, reluctantly trying to throw some cash onto the world’s issues before deciding that the world is going to hell anyway...
- and therefore is building an interstellar spaceship that will take a couple of dozen people from this planet when Earth’s problems become too real...
- all while bitching about people being mean to him because of his newfound fame, vengefully killing the livelihoods and the avatars of those who were meeeeeeeaaaaaan to him...
- and cyberstalking his ex-girlfriend who dumped his sorry ass after seeing him for the asshole he is after a week of dating (or, as Wade classily puts it, “making the beast with two backs” - since it’s vital for us to know that he’s no longer a virgin)...
- while criminally breaching the privacy of OASIS users due to the privacy-circumventing abilities he has as the owner of the simulation...
- while thoughtlessly releasing barely tested plug-into-the-brain hardware and software because it’s apparently cool...
- and enjoying his own perceived superiority of a rich brat with a life better than that of the resentful plebs...
- while watching tons of porn that apparently opens his eyes to the idea of tolerance and empathy...
- and pats himself on the back for it because he apparently “helps” people through the power of distraction from their very real problems.
—————
And then the ridiculous quest starts and OF F*CKING COURSE in the end Wade turns out to be super-specially right about everything and none of his mistakes or carelessness matter because turns out he’s not a bumbling game-addicted idiot but a visionary. His awful personality that had alienated his friends and girlfriend prior to the events of the quest suddenly is forgotten and from the first moments of the actual quest suddenly he’s on excellent terms with his former friends, and his ex-girlfriend (who a few pages ago couldn’t stand to even be in the same virtual room as he) is making eyes at him and compliments him and kisses him, and everything is suddenly reset to hunky-dory with no explanation and no inner logic, all within the 12 hours of the quest (or even within its first 30 minutes).
The ridiculous quest itself is now artificially compressed to 12 hours, so there is no time to think and logically work out the clues (the quest in the last book, in case you forgot, takes about a year to complete). With the time crunch Wade always very conveniently has a sidekick or two who not only instantly figure out the clue (and the very first clue he actually buys, Sixers-like, for a billion dollars from an adoring fan) but also apparently have already excelled at relevant quests at some point off-page and therefore are able to just walk Wade right through them, screaming directions at him and preemptively grabbing all the quest items and artifacts that they already know will be needed. That’s how we get through John Hughes movies quest, Prince quest and Silmarillion quest — by Wade following others’ directions. Wade is really unnecessary here and contributes almost nothing.
But hey, all those quests would look great in the movie. Which is why, I assume, they were written the way they were. For an easier adaptation to eventual future screenplay.
And bumbling sociopathic obsessed idiot Wade Watts of course ends up *totally right* at the end, which his girlfriend Art3mis (the only one with the semblance of common sense through most of this clusterf*ck) explicitly admits. And the petulant childish gagillionnaire gets to live ever after in bliss ().
Not to mention that Cline seems to have abandoned any pretense of organically introducing the trivia bits into the story, instead just lumping them in every other sentence and eventually having Wade just read stuff off the “Gunterpedia”. Seriously, I got quite bored reading two whole pages of a literal arcade game walkthrough. It seems like a poorly-done fanfic of the first book, really. Ugh.
I think what the author was banking on was that the same tricks that earned the first book its legions of fans (myself included) would suffice to turn this one into a smash hit as well. And maybe it will. I mean, I contributed to its sales myself - $14.99 that I’ll never see again. But you can’t be just phoning it based just on the successful formula for Ready Player One while relying on a despicable character with no consequences and a half-baked plot based on nostalgia for the first book.
To sum up: What a fragging boring mess.
But it will make an entertaining movie with all kinds of cool flashy special effects.
But while having potential as a future screenplay, it’s just not a good book.
1.5 stars. After a year, I can’t recall why I rounded up my rating, so rounding down to 1 star it deserves.
For f*ck’s sake. That’s the phrase that repeats itself over and over in my Kindle notes as I was slogging my way through this soulless cash grab of a clusterf*ck.
It’s been a while since I’ve been this irritated by a book. Time to rant.
I got a huge kick out of its predecessor, Ready Player One, even if it often read like the reiteration of Wikipedia pages of the 1980s trivia. Yes, it was a trivia-laden wish fulfillment, but it appealed to our human instinct of rooting for an underdog against soulless evil. It’s hard not to root for a determined self-taught orphan who’s set to take on an evil entity and succeeds against all odds, resulting in a world that’s better than the one he started in. And since it led to a successful (although seriously dumbed down) movie and probably loads of cash for the creator of this world, we all knew the sequel was to come, and by Hollywood rules anyone could have predicted the most likely title. Of course it would be Ready Player TWO.
“Don’t you kids ever get tired of picking through the wreckage of a past generation’s nostalgia?” He stretched his arms out wide. “I mean, look around. The entire OASIS is like one giant graveyard, haunted by the undead pop-culture icons of a bygone era. A crazy old man’s shrine to a bunch of pointless crap.”
With a sequel, you have two paths you can take. One is to develop the world and the characters further, take risks, push boundaries. The other is to try to please the fans by sticking to the same exact formula that netted you success. Let’s guess which one this sequel follows.
“Jeez Louise,” Shoto said, rolling his eyes. He turned to me. “We’re gonna be looking for Horcruxes next.”
Yeah. That one.
Whether it makes sense or not, the point is to tediously recreate yet another quest for magical objects based on the poorly rhymed riddles made from beyond the grave by an oddball OASIS creator James Halliday and grounded in obscure 1980s trivia, with the same band of characters as before and the quest to get the girl. Even if all that seemingly was already achieved by the end of the first book.
No problem. A few plot contrivances will still get us the quest with all the above, with riding into the sunset with the girl included. And hero worship, for the wish fulfillment pleasure.
“Or I could just log in to the OASIS, where I was treated like a god, and where everything now felt completely real—as real as the most vivid dreams feel while you’re having them.”
——————
Wade Watts of the first book was easy to root for (being a plucky underdog and all that jazz). In this one, however, we get Wade 2.0 — now an entitled and petulant multi-gagillionnaire man-child OASIS owner who:
- spends untold riches on decking out his gagillionnaire hideout, reluctantly trying to throw some cash onto the world’s issues before deciding that the world is going to hell anyway...
“To me, this room was hallowed ground. And I’d spent three years and millions of dollars re-creating the vast collection of classic videogame consoles and home computers Halliday had originally kept on display here.”
- and therefore is building an interstellar spaceship that will take a couple of dozen people from this planet when Earth’s problems become too real...
“What we were doing was doomsday-prepping on a multibillionaire scale, packing the ultimate bugout bag—the means to escape the planet if, and when, everything went to shit.”
- all while bitching about people being mean to him because of his newfound fame, vengefully killing the livelihoods and the avatars of those who were meeeeeeeaaaaaan to him...
“They posted a music video to the ONI-net that racked up over a billion downloads before I had it taken offline. Then I sued the band for defamation and bankrupted each of its members. Which, of course, only made the public hate me even more.”
“I gleefully zeroed out hundreds of trolls in this fashion. If someone talked shit about me, I found them and killed their avatar.”
“A few dozen class-action lawsuits were filed against me. In the end, none of them amounted to anything; I was a multibillionaire with unlimited resources and the world’s best lawyers on my payroll, and there was no proof of wrongdoing on my part. But there was nothing I could do about the anger I’d caused.”
- and cyberstalking his ex-girlfriend who dumped his sorry ass after seeing him for the asshole he is after a week of dating (or, as Wade classily puts it, “making the beast with two backs” - since it’s vital for us to know that he’s no longer a virgin)...
“Of course, Samantha was furious when she found out we’d spent over three hundred billion dollars to build a ship to escape our dying planet instead of using that money and manpower to help her try to save it.”
- while criminally breaching the privacy of OASIS users due to the privacy-circumventing abilities he has as the owner of the simulation...
“Then I went ahead and pulled up L0hengrin’s private account profile to find out her real-world identity. I justified violating her right to privacy as an OASIS user the way I always did—by telling myself it was necessary. […] What it really boiled down to was plain old curiosity. I was curious about who L0hengrin was in the real world. And I had the ability to find out. So I did.”
“Since I’d already violated her privacy, I decided to go full-on Big Brother and have a look at her headset feeds. There were ten wide-angle surveillance cameras mounted on the exterior of each ONI headset, which allowed the wearer to keep an eye on their body and its surroundings from inside the OASIS. The Robes of Anorak gave me access to a secret submenu on every ONI user’s account, where I could monitor the video feeds coming from those cameras. Meaning I had the ability to spy on people in their homes. This was one of GSS’s uglier secrets, and there would be riots and class-action suits galore if our customers ever found out about it. But these were exceptional circumstances, I assured myself.”
- while thoughtlessly releasing barely tested plug-into-the-brain hardware and software because it’s apparently cool...
“Now instead of following their favorite celebrity on social media, ONI users could become their favorite celebrity for a few minutes each day. Exist inside their skin. Live short, heavily curated fragments of far more glamorous lives.”
- and enjoying his own perceived superiority of a rich brat with a life better than that of the resentful plebs...
“And yes, the rational part of my brain knew that the vast majority of the people who trolled us online were acting out, due to crushing disappointment with their own miserable lives. And who could blame them? Reality was completely miserable for a vast majority of the world’s population. I should’ve taken pity on the sad, pathetic souls who had nothing better to do with their time than vent their frustrations by attacking me and my friends.”
- while watching tons of porn that apparently opens his eyes to the idea of tolerance and empathy...
“Thanks to years of surfing the ONI-net, I now knew what it felt like to be all kinds of different people, having all different kinds of sex. I’d experienced sex with women while being another woman, and sex with men as both a woman and a man. I’d done playback of several different flavors of straight and gay and nonbinary sex, just out of pure curiosity[…]”
- and pats himself on the back for it because he apparently “helps” people through the power of distraction from their very real problems.
“The ONI made the lives of impoverished people all around the world a lot more bearable—and enjoyable. People didn’t mind subsisting on dried seaweed and soy protein when they could log on to the ONI-net and download a delicious five-course meal anytime they pleased.”Yeah.
—————
And then the ridiculous quest starts and OF F*CKING COURSE in the end Wade turns out to be super-specially right about everything and none of his mistakes or carelessness matter because turns out he’s not a bumbling game-addicted idiot but a visionary. His awful personality that had alienated his friends and girlfriend prior to the events of the quest suddenly is forgotten and from the first moments of the actual quest suddenly he’s on excellent terms with his former friends, and his ex-girlfriend (who a few pages ago couldn’t stand to even be in the same virtual room as he) is making eyes at him and compliments him and kisses him, and everything is suddenly reset to hunky-dory with no explanation and no inner logic, all within the 12 hours of the quest (or even within its first 30 minutes).
The ridiculous quest itself is now artificially compressed to 12 hours, so there is no time to think and logically work out the clues (the quest in the last book, in case you forgot, takes about a year to complete). With the time crunch Wade always very conveniently has a sidekick or two who not only instantly figure out the clue (and the very first clue he actually buys, Sixers-like, for a billion dollars from an adoring fan) but also apparently have already excelled at relevant quests at some point off-page and therefore are able to just walk Wade right through them, screaming directions at him and preemptively grabbing all the quest items and artifacts that they already know will be needed. That’s how we get through John Hughes movies quest, Prince quest and Silmarillion quest — by Wade following others’ directions. Wade is really unnecessary here and contributes almost nothing.
“Luckily, she already knew exactly where and how to obtain each of the five pieces.”
But hey, all those quests would look great in the movie. Which is why, I assume, they were written the way they were. For an easier adaptation to eventual future screenplay.
And bumbling sociopathic obsessed idiot Wade Watts of course ends up *totally right* at the end, which his girlfriend Art3mis (the only one with the semblance of common sense through most of this clusterf*ck) explicitly admits. And the petulant childish gagillionnaire gets to live ever after in bliss ().
“I was wrong,” she told me, after she’d told Wade. “This technology does make a lot of people’s lives infinitely better than they would be without it.”
Not to mention that Cline seems to have abandoned any pretense of organically introducing the trivia bits into the story, instead just lumping them in every other sentence and eventually having Wade just read stuff off the “Gunterpedia”. Seriously, I got quite bored reading two whole pages of a literal arcade game walkthrough. It seems like a poorly-done fanfic of the first book, really. Ugh.
“I searched my memory, but the only woman hero of a Rieko Kodama game I could think of was Alis Lansdale, the fifteen-year-old protagonist of Phantasy Star I—and that was a home console game. Released for the Sega Master System in Japan in 1987, and in the United States in 1988.”
I think what the author was banking on was that the same tricks that earned the first book its legions of fans (myself included) would suffice to turn this one into a smash hit as well. And maybe it will. I mean, I contributed to its sales myself - $14.99 that I’ll never see again. But you can’t be just phoning it based just on the successful formula for Ready Player One while relying on a despicable character with no consequences and a half-baked plot based on nostalgia for the first book.
To sum up: What a fragging boring mess.
But it will make an entertaining movie with all kinds of cool flashy special effects.
But while having potential as a future screenplay, it’s just not a good book.
1.5 stars. After a year, I can’t recall why I rounded up my rating, so rounding down to 1 star it deserves.
“Half the world already spends every waking moment ignoring reality inside the OASIS. We already peddle the Opiate of the Masses. And now you want to up the dosage?”
January 18, 2021
Hello, everyone.
Roll call time! Let’s make sure we’re all present:
- me, the cynical and disappointed reviewer, equal parts dreading the angry comments to come and wizened and numb by the angry comments that have come before (here!)
- other people who were genuinely disappointed by this book after really liking the first one
- the lifeless incels who are sure to yell at me for being a woman on the internet who dares to have an opinion on something that’s For The Boys (definitely here - see comments)
Okay! With that, I think we’re ready to get started!
(insert throat clearing, glass tapping, and so on)
...
This book is bad.
Something impressive is that it’s actually bad in a variety of ways, instead of just really bad in a couple. It’s groundbreaking in that way.
I mean, let’s start with the pacing, considering that was the inescapable nightmare that plagued me for seemingly one thousand pages, unrelentingly boring and yelling WHAT IF I RUIN EVERYTHING? WHAT IF THIS IS NEVER FUN FOR EVEN ONE MOMENT? WHAT THEN? until I break down in tears.
Just kidding. I don’t cry. I’m too powerful.
Be warned, angry men. (It’s funny to pretend they’re actually reading this when we all know they saw the rating and skipped right to the comments section.)
But anyway, back to the garbage fire.
We kick off this rollercoaster ride of fun and excitement with about a hundred pages of worldbuilding, which would make more sense if this weren’t the SECOND BOOK IN A SERIES. A SEQUEL. We spend 20% of the book pm info dumping, when the action starts we have to pause for 25 pages to go in-depth into every single technological side effect or potential problem.
Of fictional technology.
It made me want to scoop my brain out with a melon baller. (Already regretting how gross that mental image is, but I simply must speak my truth.)
Then, once we get past what I’m calling What We Talk About When We Talk About How Not To Write Sci-Fi, we get to...well, more of that.
When we skip past the worldbuilding, we FINALLY!!! get to the quest, which is, uh. Not better.
They say if you don’t have anything nice to say, don’t say anything at all. But unfortunately we’re already 400 words in.
Once we get to the actual plot, it constantly interrupts itself to info-dump, give more nonsense explanations, and build up romantic relationships NO ONE CARES ABOUT!!! The entire reason the first book is fun is because it is almost all action.
This is...almost none action. Because the quest itself is somehow never the focal point?
Even the clues and riddles and tasks the story does focus on seem to be the most boring ones. I swear it felt like we spent 82% of this book following Aech around as she ran through Prince trivia.
Or people who actually read that section would feel that way, I imagine. I skimmed the hell out of it.
Let’s take this lovely little side path to talking about the characters.
Our main character, Wade, is super selfish and a dumbass and it sucks to read about. To put it, you know, bluntly. In the first book he can be hard to like, but I liked him, because he was dedicated and single-minded and determined and had a development arc I found compelling. Also he was doing interesting things.
In this, he has all of the stamina, backbone, and critical thinking skills of a Build-a-Bear (trademark). And not one of the ones you can put a voicebox in.
He is constantly thinking things like “What? How could this technology that enters people’s brains and controls them fully and has life-ending side effects and destroys any hope of fixing the world be bad? To me, it sounds good.”
And it’s like...didn’t we just spend an entire book doing this?
He’s also, like, a trillionaire, so instant guillotine in my book.
Wade has two friends who, unsurprisingly, seem pretty uninterested in being his friend. (Who would be?) There’s Shoto, a Japanese guy who is obsessed with all things ninja-related, and Aech, a Black girl who speaks totally differently from the other characters (“Oh! Yo! I said God damn, Shoto!”) and inexplicably breaks into hip-hop style dance moves.
Enough said, no? (See you in the comments, people who want to be angry at me for not letting straight white men write “diverse” characters by drawing on *checks notes* racial stereotypes.)
Then there’s Samantha, Wade’s love interest and a true barrel of laughs. I love a girl who is a full-on snooze. I hated this romance in the first book, and I hate it even more now that I have to read Wade thinking about losing his virginity to Samantha, featuring details on how they “couldn’t stop making love.”
So, to sum up: bad pacing, bad plot, bad worldbuilding, bad characters, bad relationships, bad morals.
Bottom line: This book should be reserved only for punishing society’s most heinous criminals.
-----------------
pre-review
let the games begin.
review to come / 1.5 stars
-----------------
currently-reading updates
people have gotten angrier at me in the comments of this review than possibly in any other i've written, and i haven't even read it yet.
let's give them something to be mad about, shall we?
-----------------
tbr review
NOTE: i wrote this review in TWO THOUSAND AND EIGHTEEN, when this book was announced. it's not a review, it's me marking it as to-read. chill the ever-living hell out.
title!!! cover!!! pub date!!!
i don't know what this book is about and i don't know why people are getting mad at me in the comments of this review but regardless things are happening!!!
-----------------
announcement review
I'M FURIOUS.
CATCH ME OUT HERE BEING: FURIOUS.
WHAT IS HAPPENING. WHY IS THIS BOOK BEING BROUGHT INTO EXISTENCE. WHO ASKED. WHO SAID, "YOU KNOW THAT PERFECT STANDALONE THAT DOESN'T NEED A SECOND BOOK? YEAH. GIVE IT A SECOND BOOK." WAS IT STEVEN SPIELBERG? JUST TELL ME. I'M NOT MAD. I JUST WANNA TALK.
i mean. i'm going to read this book. that should go without saying.
BUT I'M NOT GOING TO BE HAPPY ABOUT IT.
okay. maybe a little bit happy. okay yes i will probably be at least mostly happy BUT ALSO THERE WILL STILL BE ANGER INVOLVED.
in the immortal words of jessie j featuring B.o.B.: it's all about the money.
Roll call time! Let’s make sure we’re all present:
- me, the cynical and disappointed reviewer, equal parts dreading the angry comments to come and wizened and numb by the angry comments that have come before (here!)
- other people who were genuinely disappointed by this book after really liking the first one
- the lifeless incels who are sure to yell at me for being a woman on the internet who dares to have an opinion on something that’s For The Boys (definitely here - see comments)
Okay! With that, I think we’re ready to get started!
(insert throat clearing, glass tapping, and so on)
...
This book is bad.
Something impressive is that it’s actually bad in a variety of ways, instead of just really bad in a couple. It’s groundbreaking in that way.
I mean, let’s start with the pacing, considering that was the inescapable nightmare that plagued me for seemingly one thousand pages, unrelentingly boring and yelling WHAT IF I RUIN EVERYTHING? WHAT IF THIS IS NEVER FUN FOR EVEN ONE MOMENT? WHAT THEN? until I break down in tears.
Just kidding. I don’t cry. I’m too powerful.
Be warned, angry men. (It’s funny to pretend they’re actually reading this when we all know they saw the rating and skipped right to the comments section.)
But anyway, back to the garbage fire.
We kick off this rollercoaster ride of fun and excitement with about a hundred pages of worldbuilding, which would make more sense if this weren’t the SECOND BOOK IN A SERIES. A SEQUEL. We spend 20% of the book pm info dumping, when the action starts we have to pause for 25 pages to go in-depth into every single technological side effect or potential problem.
Of fictional technology.
It made me want to scoop my brain out with a melon baller. (Already regretting how gross that mental image is, but I simply must speak my truth.)
Then, once we get past what I’m calling What We Talk About When We Talk About How Not To Write Sci-Fi, we get to...well, more of that.
When we skip past the worldbuilding, we FINALLY!!! get to the quest, which is, uh. Not better.
They say if you don’t have anything nice to say, don’t say anything at all. But unfortunately we’re already 400 words in.
Once we get to the actual plot, it constantly interrupts itself to info-dump, give more nonsense explanations, and build up romantic relationships NO ONE CARES ABOUT!!! The entire reason the first book is fun is because it is almost all action.
This is...almost none action. Because the quest itself is somehow never the focal point?
Even the clues and riddles and tasks the story does focus on seem to be the most boring ones. I swear it felt like we spent 82% of this book following Aech around as she ran through Prince trivia.
Or people who actually read that section would feel that way, I imagine. I skimmed the hell out of it.
Let’s take this lovely little side path to talking about the characters.
Our main character, Wade, is super selfish and a dumbass and it sucks to read about. To put it, you know, bluntly. In the first book he can be hard to like, but I liked him, because he was dedicated and single-minded and determined and had a development arc I found compelling. Also he was doing interesting things.
In this, he has all of the stamina, backbone, and critical thinking skills of a Build-a-Bear (trademark). And not one of the ones you can put a voicebox in.
He is constantly thinking things like “What? How could this technology that enters people’s brains and controls them fully and has life-ending side effects and destroys any hope of fixing the world be bad? To me, it sounds good.”
And it’s like...didn’t we just spend an entire book doing this?
He’s also, like, a trillionaire, so instant guillotine in my book.
Wade has two friends who, unsurprisingly, seem pretty uninterested in being his friend. (Who would be?) There’s Shoto, a Japanese guy who is obsessed with all things ninja-related, and Aech, a Black girl who speaks totally differently from the other characters (“Oh! Yo! I said God damn, Shoto!”) and inexplicably breaks into hip-hop style dance moves.
Enough said, no? (See you in the comments, people who want to be angry at me for not letting straight white men write “diverse” characters by drawing on *checks notes* racial stereotypes.)
Then there’s Samantha, Wade’s love interest and a true barrel of laughs. I love a girl who is a full-on snooze. I hated this romance in the first book, and I hate it even more now that I have to read Wade thinking about losing his virginity to Samantha, featuring details on how they “couldn’t stop making love.”
So, to sum up: bad pacing, bad plot, bad worldbuilding, bad characters, bad relationships, bad morals.
Bottom line: This book should be reserved only for punishing society’s most heinous criminals.
-----------------
pre-review
let the games begin.
review to come / 1.5 stars
-----------------
currently-reading updates
people have gotten angrier at me in the comments of this review than possibly in any other i've written, and i haven't even read it yet.
let's give them something to be mad about, shall we?
-----------------
tbr review
NOTE: i wrote this review in TWO THOUSAND AND EIGHTEEN, when this book was announced. it's not a review, it's me marking it as to-read. chill the ever-living hell out.
title!!! cover!!! pub date!!!
i don't know what this book is about and i don't know why people are getting mad at me in the comments of this review but regardless things are happening!!!
-----------------
announcement review
I'M FURIOUS.
CATCH ME OUT HERE BEING: FURIOUS.
WHAT IS HAPPENING. WHY IS THIS BOOK BEING BROUGHT INTO EXISTENCE. WHO ASKED. WHO SAID, "YOU KNOW THAT PERFECT STANDALONE THAT DOESN'T NEED A SECOND BOOK? YEAH. GIVE IT A SECOND BOOK." WAS IT STEVEN SPIELBERG? JUST TELL ME. I'M NOT MAD. I JUST WANNA TALK.
i mean. i'm going to read this book. that should go without saying.
BUT I'M NOT GOING TO BE HAPPY ABOUT IT.
okay. maybe a little bit happy. okay yes i will probably be at least mostly happy BUT ALSO THERE WILL STILL BE ANGER INVOLVED.
in the immortal words of jessie j featuring B.o.B.: it's all about the money.
Shelved as 'dnf-lost-interest'
December 2, 2020
Read
March 30, 2018why is the garbage man coming back
December 1, 2020
Where do I start with my review of Ready Player Two?
When I first read Ready Player One almost 7 years ago, I was a big fan. It was fun, fresh, exciting and unlike anything I'd read before. It's a truly enthralling adventure story with loads of references to 80's pop culture and other 'nerd' stuff that, though I may not have had a vast knowledge of, I enjoyed.
Ready Player Two follows pretty much the same arc to a tee. There's truly nothing new in this book, and if anything it soured my memory of RP1 for one major reason: Wade.
Wade is just not an interesting character. There are infinitely more fascinating characters in this story—Samantha, Aech, and Kira, for example—that would've been better protagonists. Cline tries to 'redeem' Wade for his narrow-minded, video gamer mentality in this book by doing some major retcon. It feels like he's trying to address criticism the first book, and Wade, may have received in the last 9 years since it came out. Now don't get me wrong, I am all for characters learning, growing and changing their opinions. But the way Cline doles this out on the page doesn't feel authentic. It feels like an author making moves to appease audiences or position characters in a certain way for the sake of the story, not because that's how those characters would actually exist. And at the end of the day it's still boring ole Wade projecting onto other characters or being their mouthpiece, rather than actually letting those characters tell their own story.
Aside from all that, the plot is exactly what you expect. It's another challenge that Wade, and his trusty sidekicks, have to solve because the stakes are conveniently very high. A lot of stuff in this book is convenient. There are so many dei ex machina and somehow they all serve to aid Wade and almost never harm him. Unlike real video games, the learning curves Wade faces seem to be constantly eclipsed by their encyclopedic knowledge of...basically everything they are challenging. By the 2/3 mark of the book, it's just not fun anymore.
Ultimately, my memory of RP1 is still that it's an original story that presents the reader with something fun and new to get lost in for a few hours. RP2, sadly, re-hashes all of that with worse characterization, and the redundancy of the plot makes this a far less exciting read.
When I first read Ready Player One almost 7 years ago, I was a big fan. It was fun, fresh, exciting and unlike anything I'd read before. It's a truly enthralling adventure story with loads of references to 80's pop culture and other 'nerd' stuff that, though I may not have had a vast knowledge of, I enjoyed.
Ready Player Two follows pretty much the same arc to a tee. There's truly nothing new in this book, and if anything it soured my memory of RP1 for one major reason: Wade.
Wade is just not an interesting character. There are infinitely more fascinating characters in this story—Samantha, Aech, and Kira, for example—that would've been better protagonists. Cline tries to 'redeem' Wade for his narrow-minded, video gamer mentality in this book by doing some major retcon. It feels like he's trying to address criticism the first book, and Wade, may have received in the last 9 years since it came out. Now don't get me wrong, I am all for characters learning, growing and changing their opinions. But the way Cline doles this out on the page doesn't feel authentic. It feels like an author making moves to appease audiences or position characters in a certain way for the sake of the story, not because that's how those characters would actually exist. And at the end of the day it's still boring ole Wade projecting onto other characters or being their mouthpiece, rather than actually letting those characters tell their own story.
Aside from all that, the plot is exactly what you expect. It's another challenge that Wade, and his trusty sidekicks, have to solve because the stakes are conveniently very high. A lot of stuff in this book is convenient. There are so many dei ex machina and somehow they all serve to aid Wade and almost never harm him. Unlike real video games, the learning curves Wade faces seem to be constantly eclipsed by their encyclopedic knowledge of...basically everything they are challenging. By the 2/3 mark of the book, it's just not fun anymore.
Ultimately, my memory of RP1 is still that it's an original story that presents the reader with something fun and new to get lost in for a few hours. RP2, sadly, re-hashes all of that with worse characterization, and the redundancy of the plot makes this a far less exciting read.
December 5, 2020
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This is gonna be a rant review because despite having low expectations, it still managed to disappoint me. Let me quote my friend Jonathan who said “Ooh, sounds like Player 2 was most definitely not ready.”
I think book 1 was definitely a much better book despite me growing as a reader and a reviewer and having read the 2 books with 600 books in between. I don’t like it when series get extended, because let’s be honest as we all know it is usually just an excuse to milk some extra money from an already successful franchise. The author tried something new with his Armada novel which was not a big hit so as most authors do he came back to expand his already established world.
And there is a good reason why I don’t like those extensions; They are not planned so the author has to come up with something new and try to make things from book 1 sound like foreshadowing when it is not ruining both books in the process instead of only the new book and that was the case here.
I am gonna stat with the writing which I did not find anything special with. It was not bad that I wanted to DNF the book but it was bad when it came to puns, when it came to women in general and when it tried to be preachy! I will touch more on this later in the review. Also the book suffered from telling rather than showing specially at the beginning when it was slow and we just had to take everything for granted.
The characters were a hot mess, I liked the main characters in the first book, I liked that Wade was a smart underdog who worked very hard to achieve his dreams. In this book Wade is an A-hole! He is abusing the power and wealth he has, he is mean to his friends and I felt that he was stupid when it came to solving the riddles. I was like who is this person and where is Wade from book 1?! Also the cloak that he had was OP and we had to be continuously reminded how it can basically do everything! Wade’s friends who are good people where kind of shown as stupid specially Artemis.
The plot continues after the ending of book 1 and out of nowhere we have new riddles and an adventure to ensue. I thought it basically tried to mimic the events of book 1 and it did so except that it did it worse. I did not feel the characters were in any danger and there was no competition like in book 1. The references honestly felt forced in this book and I did not get most of them to be honest.
The book sounded preachy and all-inclusive in a modern since of way. The main character had to tell us that he had tried sex in all forms and in all genders and that he doesn’t care about gender (kind of). When he goes through the memories of Kira and is using her body, what do you think the first thing he notices? Yup, her boobs *Face palm*
Then the book criticizes Tolkien at some point for having white characters as the good guys and dark ones as villains. And I don’t know what the point was there because a whole adventure in middle earth follows that! Was it trying to make both supporters and critics happy? I don’t know! I just felt it was awkward!
Summary: This book succeeded in disappointing me although I had low expectations. The writing felt weak, the characters went through a developmental regression and everything else felt forced. I think it is game over for me with this series!
This is gonna be a rant review because despite having low expectations, it still managed to disappoint me. Let me quote my friend Jonathan who said “Ooh, sounds like Player 2 was most definitely not ready.”
I think book 1 was definitely a much better book despite me growing as a reader and a reviewer and having read the 2 books with 600 books in between. I don’t like it when series get extended, because let’s be honest as we all know it is usually just an excuse to milk some extra money from an already successful franchise. The author tried something new with his Armada novel which was not a big hit so as most authors do he came back to expand his already established world.
And there is a good reason why I don’t like those extensions; They are not planned so the author has to come up with something new and try to make things from book 1 sound like foreshadowing when it is not ruining both books in the process instead of only the new book and that was the case here.
I am gonna stat with the writing which I did not find anything special with. It was not bad that I wanted to DNF the book but it was bad when it came to puns, when it came to women in general and when it tried to be preachy! I will touch more on this later in the review. Also the book suffered from telling rather than showing specially at the beginning when it was slow and we just had to take everything for granted.
The characters were a hot mess, I liked the main characters in the first book, I liked that Wade was a smart underdog who worked very hard to achieve his dreams. In this book Wade is an A-hole! He is abusing the power and wealth he has, he is mean to his friends and I felt that he was stupid when it came to solving the riddles. I was like who is this person and where is Wade from book 1?! Also the cloak that he had was OP and we had to be continuously reminded how it can basically do everything! Wade’s friends who are good people where kind of shown as stupid specially Artemis.
The plot continues after the ending of book 1 and out of nowhere we have new riddles and an adventure to ensue. I thought it basically tried to mimic the events of book 1 and it did so except that it did it worse. I did not feel the characters were in any danger and there was no competition like in book 1. The references honestly felt forced in this book and I did not get most of them to be honest.
The book sounded preachy and all-inclusive in a modern since of way. The main character had to tell us that he had tried sex in all forms and in all genders and that he doesn’t care about gender (kind of). When he goes through the memories of Kira and is using her body, what do you think the first thing he notices? Yup, her boobs *Face palm*
I also had Kira’s boobs, and her hips, lips, fingertips—all of it.
Then the book criticizes Tolkien at some point for having white characters as the good guys and dark ones as villains. And I don’t know what the point was there because a whole adventure in middle earth follows that! Was it trying to make both supporters and critics happy? I don’t know! I just felt it was awkward!
Summary: This book succeeded in disappointing me although I had low expectations. The writing felt weak, the characters went through a developmental regression and everything else felt forced. I think it is game over for me with this series!
June 30, 2021
A quick spoiler-free word before I begin. I’m likely the only Blaine you know. It is not a common name. So as the unofficial gatekeeper of the Blaine Hall of Fame, I am here to tell you that the Hall only has four members: Blane from the movie Pretty in Pink, Blaine from Glee, Blain from the movie Predator (the self-described “goddamn sexual tyrannosaurus” who “ain’t got time to bleed,” two lines I promise you I used a lot in my teens), and Blaine the Australian surfer who was Barbie’s boyfriend for about two years after she and Ken broke up in 2004. Yes, Blaine’s World is so small that all four of our heroes are fictional, two don’t spell their names correctly, and one is made of plastic. So I don’t know why Mr. Cline decided that he needed to take some shots at 25% of the Titans of Blaineness, but know that I am absolutely, 100%, NOT HERE FOR IT.
Ok. Now that I’ve gotten that off my chest .... 😜
I’ve loved Ready Player One since the first time I read it. You can read my thoughts on why that book worked so well here. Ready Player Two picks up just after the events of Ready Player One. Wade learns that James Halliday had also developed a neural interface for the OASIS, which would allow users not only more immersive experiences in the system, but would actually allow users to record real-life experiences and digitize them for others to playback and experience from a first-person perspective. The introduction of this new technology leads to a second, somewhat different contest—collecting the seven shards of the Siren’s soul—that forms the majority of the story here.
There are some things I liked about this story. The pop culture references are much broader, and not so focused on the 1980s this time. They are also a bit more about music and movies (the set pieces involving Prince and Pretty in Pink were my favorites), and less about video games. Thematically, the novel deals much more with Halliday the man, and his relationships with Ogden and Kira. While it again explores humanity escaping online from its real-world problems, it also talks about the fallibility of our heroes, the destructiveness of our social media, how tech companies misuse its customers’ data, and even Wade’s struggles in dealing with haters who attack him now that he vaulted from obscurity to worldwide fame (I could not help but wonder if that last part grew from Mr. Cline’s own dealings with fame). And on an optimistic note, the book also shows how technology can be a great tool for creating empathy for others.
However, there were some significant problems with the story. First, Wade is pretty unhappy through much of the book. I’m not saying there aren’t valid reasons, I’m just saying that his narration has the depressing feel of angsty Harry from the beginning of Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. And perhaps because I’ve lived through all the same pop culture touchstones as Mr. Cline, I found the plot turns largely predictable.
But the biggest problem with this novel is probably the pacing. In Ready Player One, the clues to the keys and gates were difficult, often taking months or years to solve. During those long interludes between puzzle-solving, the book introduced characters, did its amazing world building (real-world and OASIS), and set up and resolved some conflicts. This alternation created balance, and made the solving of each puzzle feel like an event. Here, after the first shard is found, the plot uses a ticking clock scenario. Because there would be no time to research or struggle, every other clue is instantly understood by at least one character (and sometimes even by the reader). They read the clue, and someone immediately knows know where to go, what to do, and how to do it. As a result, well over half the book is just scene after scene of read clue, go to new location, explanation of what to do, watch them do it, get the next clue and repeat. It’s a format that stifles the humor, magic, and sense of wonder that grew within the breathing space provided in the first book. It also leaves little room for any character development beyond Wade, and frankly not much for him either.
I went on record that Ready Player One did not need a sequel, and I absolutely stand by that. I also said I was nervous about a sequel ruining the magic of that standalone hit. I wouldn’t go that far. Ready Player Two may lack the magic of its predecessor, but it doesn’t do anything to tarnish it. On the scale of sequels, it’s not The Empire Strikes Back or The Godfather Part II, but it’s not The Hangover Part II or Caddyshack II either. This book is more like Ghostbusters 2, not as good as the original, but it has its moments.
***Update: I re-read to this book with my daughter, who was reading it for the first time. I was hoping that maybe I’d appreciate it more now that I was over my initial disappointment. And I should mention that Wil Wheaton once again does a great job with the audiobook. But no, my feelings about Ready Player Two didn’t change and I stand by my initial review. If anything, I came away more mystified by a couple of fundamental choices by Mr. Cline I didn’t mention above:
1. Why introduce Lowengrin and the Low Five, and then use them so sparingly? My daughter thinks the book should have been set decades later, with Wade old or dead, and use this next generation as the main characters of a new story. I think I agree that would have worked better.
2. Why introduce a cool new concept like Sector Zero, and a search for a relic like the Dorkslayer, and then not show them to the reader?
I still love Ready Player One, and generally think the people who didn’t like it just didn’t give themselves over to the fun of that book. But I have to admit the Tolkien quest in this book is so boring that it actually opened my mind to the possibility that other parts of this book—or maybe even Ready Player One—could be intensely, painfully boring if you don’t care about the underlying source material.
Ok. Now that I’ve gotten that off my chest .... 😜
I’ve loved Ready Player One since the first time I read it. You can read my thoughts on why that book worked so well here. Ready Player Two picks up just after the events of Ready Player One. Wade learns that James Halliday had also developed a neural interface for the OASIS, which would allow users not only more immersive experiences in the system, but would actually allow users to record real-life experiences and digitize them for others to playback and experience from a first-person perspective. The introduction of this new technology leads to a second, somewhat different contest—collecting the seven shards of the Siren’s soul—that forms the majority of the story here.
There are some things I liked about this story. The pop culture references are much broader, and not so focused on the 1980s this time. They are also a bit more about music and movies (the set pieces involving Prince and Pretty in Pink were my favorites), and less about video games. Thematically, the novel deals much more with Halliday the man, and his relationships with Ogden and Kira. While it again explores humanity escaping online from its real-world problems, it also talks about the fallibility of our heroes, the destructiveness of our social media, how tech companies misuse its customers’ data, and even Wade’s struggles in dealing with haters who attack him now that he vaulted from obscurity to worldwide fame (I could not help but wonder if that last part grew from Mr. Cline’s own dealings with fame). And on an optimistic note, the book also shows how technology can be a great tool for creating empathy for others.
However, there were some significant problems with the story. First, Wade is pretty unhappy through much of the book. I’m not saying there aren’t valid reasons, I’m just saying that his narration has the depressing feel of angsty Harry from the beginning of Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. And perhaps because I’ve lived through all the same pop culture touchstones as Mr. Cline, I found the plot turns largely predictable.
But the biggest problem with this novel is probably the pacing. In Ready Player One, the clues to the keys and gates were difficult, often taking months or years to solve. During those long interludes between puzzle-solving, the book introduced characters, did its amazing world building (real-world and OASIS), and set up and resolved some conflicts. This alternation created balance, and made the solving of each puzzle feel like an event. Here, after the first shard is found, the plot uses a ticking clock scenario. Because there would be no time to research or struggle, every other clue is instantly understood by at least one character (and sometimes even by the reader). They read the clue, and someone immediately knows know where to go, what to do, and how to do it. As a result, well over half the book is just scene after scene of read clue, go to new location, explanation of what to do, watch them do it, get the next clue and repeat. It’s a format that stifles the humor, magic, and sense of wonder that grew within the breathing space provided in the first book. It also leaves little room for any character development beyond Wade, and frankly not much for him either.
I went on record that Ready Player One did not need a sequel, and I absolutely stand by that. I also said I was nervous about a sequel ruining the magic of that standalone hit. I wouldn’t go that far. Ready Player Two may lack the magic of its predecessor, but it doesn’t do anything to tarnish it. On the scale of sequels, it’s not The Empire Strikes Back or The Godfather Part II, but it’s not The Hangover Part II or Caddyshack II either. This book is more like Ghostbusters 2, not as good as the original, but it has its moments.
***Update: I re-read to this book with my daughter, who was reading it for the first time. I was hoping that maybe I’d appreciate it more now that I was over my initial disappointment. And I should mention that Wil Wheaton once again does a great job with the audiobook. But no, my feelings about Ready Player Two didn’t change and I stand by my initial review. If anything, I came away more mystified by a couple of fundamental choices by Mr. Cline I didn’t mention above:
1. Why introduce Lowengrin and the Low Five, and then use them so sparingly? My daughter thinks the book should have been set decades later, with Wade old or dead, and use this next generation as the main characters of a new story. I think I agree that would have worked better.
2. Why introduce a cool new concept like Sector Zero, and a search for a relic like the Dorkslayer, and then not show them to the reader?
I still love Ready Player One, and generally think the people who didn’t like it just didn’t give themselves over to the fun of that book. But I have to admit the Tolkien quest in this book is so boring that it actually opened my mind to the possibility that other parts of this book—or maybe even Ready Player One—could be intensely, painfully boring if you don’t care about the underlying source material.
October 4, 2021
Mr. Cline sat in front of his laptop and started thinking... how to make this book good?
- People liked the quest... so let's do that.
- But hey let's increase the stakes with some crazy plot. Doesn't matter if it's going to be messy.
- And let's have the first 20% a wiki that recaps and tries to catch the reader up to the current events of where the last one ended. Doesn't matter if we have almost no present time dialogue, it’s a whole mess of info dumping right at the readers face.
- To make the book more interesting, let's have the same exact cast (most of the book of course), not without adding some new characters for a couple of scenes (or three to be exact). Oops, they're not as well-written as in the first book,actually they’re badly written and fall deplorably flat like cardboard cutouts with personalities that match a shoe box... but it doesn't matter either. We need the book soon for the movie.
- Since the important thing is the movie adaptation and not writing a well developed and thought out novel, it’s all right if some scenes were obviously only written to be on screen and won’t be enjoyable if one is reading them.
- Let's preach about the current hot topics without fully discussing the morality and ethics of what we're doing much. Let’s also show Wade as this empathic character even if he didn’t have any empathy in RP1even if it was in some fucked up way.
- Let's also make things crazier by blurring the line between advanced tech and magical tech. I mean since these things don’t exist, I can give whatever explanation I want and it’ll work without any remote logic, rhyme, or reason. And dead Halliday isn’t here to explain his genius.
- Maybe we can give some foreshadowing illusions because of course, the events of this book didn't start now.
To sum it up, this book was some fucked up mess. Bad characters. Illogical turn of events. A recycled RP1 plot (but badly done). And it wasn’t just “bad” like some books are, you find them annoying/boring. Sure, it was that, but it also featured some unacceptable content.
But if you want more of an explanation, prepare yourself for a long one.
I really wanted to give this book a fair shot. Even before its release, we were predicting a disappointing sequel, but I didn’t want to let my prejudice affect my reading. So, I was even positive, thinking other reviewers might be overreacting, and this book may actually have some good stuff. Sadly, they weren’t. I even rated it 2 stars at first but the more I thought about it, the worse it got.
It started okay, actually. Sure, the first 20% were info-dump but I read through them quickly. Then the quest was announced, and it was interesting... until the “bad guy” made an appearance and I had to roll my eyes. It went downhill from there.
The characters were the lame shadow husks of what they were in RP1, like carbon copies but lacking the true essence and substance. Wade was annoying, Aech trying to criticize Tolkien’s white characters while the clock is ticking, and they have no time to think. Shoto very dull and forgettable. I had to remind myself that he’s there sometimes. Samantha, the only person with some common sense, admitted she was mistaken. And that Wade was right, of course. Wade weakly justifying his invasion of others’ privacy.
Wade and the squad making crucial decisions without taking a moment think about the consequences and the morality of it or if it’s even ethical.
It didn’t help that Wade was an asshole. Let’s attack all those users in the OASIS with my godly powers because they said bad stuff about me. My insecure self can’t handle those poor jealous users. I have everything now so yeah let them mock me as much as they want. They’ll see. He sounded more immature in this book although this one takes place three years after RP1. So much for growing up, Wade.
Look it’s not wrong to feel insecure because of haters, of course, many famous people did/do. Heck, I’m very insecure and I’m no one. But you can’t justify one bad with another bad thing, it doesn’t work like that. Using fear mongering and fear tactics to shut people down is definitely not the way to go about things. Just because they criticized you even if it’s unjustly, you can’t go around abusing your power thereby making matters much worse. I just felt there are far better ways of handling those situations. But don’t abolish different opinions from yours. Apparently, the new Wade is a spoiled, very powerful gazillionaire. What a bad combination. But hey, he can be trusted in making the right decision when it comes to changing the course of humanity!
We also had secondary characters, a new cast, “the l0w five” who were very convenient and appeared just at the right moments, in three scenes exactly. While they were interesting on the surface, it was obvious later that they were there to serve the plot to move in a certain direction and then once their jobs were done they too were done and forgotten.
I wish the book was told from another point, at least it would’ve been more interesting.
- People liked the quest... so let's do that.
- But hey let's increase the stakes with some crazy plot. Doesn't matter if it's going to be messy.
- And let's have the first 20% a wiki that recaps and tries to catch the reader up to the current events of where the last one ended. Doesn't matter if we have almost no present time dialogue, it’s a whole mess of info dumping right at the readers face.
- To make the book more interesting, let's have the same exact cast (most of the book of course), not without adding some new characters for a couple of scenes (or three to be exact). Oops, they're not as well-written as in the first book,
- Since the important thing is the movie adaptation and not writing a well developed and thought out novel, it’s all right if some scenes were obviously only written to be on screen and won’t be enjoyable if one is reading them.
- Let's preach about the current hot topics without fully discussing the morality and ethics of what we're doing much. Let’s also show Wade as this empathic character even if he didn’t have any empathy in RP1
- Let's also make things crazier by blurring the line between advanced tech and magical tech. I mean since these things don’t exist, I can give whatever explanation I want and it’ll work without any remote logic, rhyme, or reason. And dead Halliday isn’t here to explain his genius.
- Maybe we can give some foreshadowing illusions because of course, the events of this book didn't start now.
To sum it up, this book was some fucked up mess. Bad characters. Illogical turn of events. A recycled RP1 plot (but badly done). And it wasn’t just “bad” like some books are, you find them annoying/boring. Sure, it was that, but it also featured some unacceptable content.
But if you want more of an explanation, prepare yourself for a long one.
I really wanted to give this book a fair shot. Even before its release, we were predicting a disappointing sequel, but I didn’t want to let my prejudice affect my reading. So, I was even positive, thinking other reviewers might be overreacting, and this book may actually have some good stuff. Sadly, they weren’t. I even rated it 2 stars at first but the more I thought about it, the worse it got.
It started okay, actually. Sure, the first 20% were info-dump but I read through them quickly. Then the quest was announced, and it was interesting... until the “bad guy” made an appearance and I had to roll my eyes. It went downhill from there.
The characters were the lame shadow husks of what they were in RP1, like carbon copies but lacking the true essence and substance. Wade was annoying, Aech trying to criticize Tolkien’s white characters while the clock is ticking, and they have no time to think. Shoto very dull and forgettable. I had to remind myself that he’s there sometimes. Samantha, the only person with some common sense, admitted she was mistaken. And that Wade was right, of course. Wade weakly justifying his invasion of others’ privacy.
Wade and the squad making crucial decisions without taking a moment think about the consequences and the morality of it or if it’s even ethical.
It didn’t help that Wade was an asshole. Let’s attack all those users in the OASIS with my godly powers because they said bad stuff about me. My insecure self can’t handle those poor jealous users. I have everything now so yeah let them mock me as much as they want. They’ll see. He sounded more immature in this book although this one takes place three years after RP1. So much for growing up, Wade.
Look it’s not wrong to feel insecure because of haters, of course, many famous people did/do. Heck, I’m very insecure and I’m no one. But you can’t justify one bad with another bad thing, it doesn’t work like that. Using fear mongering and fear tactics to shut people down is definitely not the way to go about things. Just because they criticized you even if it’s unjustly, you can’t go around abusing your power thereby making matters much worse. I just felt there are far better ways of handling those situations. But don’t abolish different opinions from yours. Apparently, the new Wade is a spoiled, very powerful gazillionaire. What a bad combination. But hey, he can be trusted in making the right decision when it comes to changing the course of humanity!
We also had secondary characters, a new cast, “the l0w five” who were very convenient and appeared just at the right moments, in three scenes exactly. While they were interesting on the surface, it was obvious later that they were there to serve the plot to move in a certain direction and then once their jobs were done they too were done and forgotten.
I wish the book was told from another point, at least it would’ve been more interesting.
We also hear about the main characters throwing money to “make the world better” by feeding the poor, providing housing, etc. Yet, they aren’t any closer to solving anything. I’m very familiar with humanitarian and aid organizations. If they had the resources (aka money) they teach the poor how to fish and not simply give them food assistance. Meaning, you don’t solve the world’s poverty by providing houses and giving people something to eat. No. You create more job opportunities. You give them fair salaries. You study the market, give loans with zero interest for people to open businesses. You teach them trade skills and crafts. You try to rely more on agriculture and industry. But this isn’t an economics class. All I’m saying that what they’re doing of course won’t solve anything. If an author is going to introduce a topic such as something as massive as this one then there needs to be more forethought and research put into it, you can’t use a stamp like here’s a house problem solved, there are far more steps to eliminating poverty then the cluster fuckery I read about in RP2. And someone as rich as them could’ve known by hiring a consultant. Not everything needed to be done on paper, their NGOs can manage things and occasionally check in.
And Wade spent millions upgrading his own space but hey it’s okay because he’s spending billions helping others. Also, I refuse to believe they’re throwing so much money without studying the best way they can spend them to make a real difference… He was complaining about Samantha’s humanitarian efforts, oh poor guy, there are dying kids out there more important for you.
Just chill in your super expensive lounge.
Another thing I disliked is how the plot got preachy. Sometimes Cline just mentioned something trying to mainstream some current hot topics. Mind you, this isn’t wrong -good if anything- as long as it’s subtle. In this book, it was anything but. Other than the Tolkien bit, Wade emphasized more with people with different gender identity after he experienced all sorts of porn in the OASIS. Yes, I’m sure the lgbtq+ community would want people to accept them after experiencing their sexual intercourse… and of course, not because they see them as fellow humans. Oh, he was also wrong about Halliday’s discrimination against women. Speaking of whom, I wonder what else he would’ve invented if he lived a few more years??? Maybe another planet? Mind control machines to “control criminals”? Or something equally absurd? I can’t believe someone did so much from scratch and died not that old.
Moreover, the book tried to be philosophical in the wrong places. The events at the end, which stretched the word “science-fiction” too far and basically abused it, needed a lot of thinking and analyzing before taking course. But our characters didn’t spare the ethics of them a second. We couldn’t ask everyone, surely, so we did what we want without their consent. I can’t talk about this issue much because of spoilers. But suffice to say the book took a cliché turn at 25% (not in predictable as much as are you serious? Haven’t we see seen this type of plot enough?). It’s also something I hate reading about (it wasn’t mentioned in the blurb either).
Also, Wade mentioned adult related stuff too many times. Is Cline trying to say this book isn’t young-adult? Whatever his intentions are, he overdid it. (He also tried to remind us at every chance of that time he lost his virginity.) We also got some romance no one ever asked for especially towards the end. Well fits the surreal (even for this genre) ending anyway
I’m also not exposed to pop culture since birth. It happens if one isn’t American, you know? Sure, I’ve watched movies but it was whatever was on the tv. Anyways, I’m no 80’s references wiki. I also don’t play video games. While RP1 was more focused on video game references which I didn’t understand most of the time, it was still tons of fun. However, although this book focused on subjects other than gaming too, like music and books, I still didn’t enjoy it. The references were thrown around at every chance. But if you get them, you’d appreciate them more for sure. I didn’t. BUT they didn’t make me lower my rating to be clear, I already know what these books are known for.
Moving on to the plot, it was very boring. I had to fight to stay awake most of the time and I was simply not invested in the story.
Since the characters weren’t interesting enough this time, I hoped I’d enjoy the story regardless. So we also had a quest in this (why bother with something new if it already worked the first time?) but unlike RP1, the characters have 12 hours to solve it.
It took Wade 3 years to find the first shard (they need to collect 7 shards) and only because of outside help. Which is fine… since he isn’t an encyclopedia. But then. They solve the 6 remaining one after the other. Sometimes immediately knowing the reference after reading the riddle. With barely much thought. It also happened that one of the four was always an expert, THE EXPERT, in the subjects of the quests. Which was simply too convenient. The first shard took them three years to find but suddenly the rest can be found AND COMPLETED in less than half a day? Too easy. In RP1 it took them months to find everything. The plot was a complete mess honestly and it was ridiculous how suitable each quest was to what they know. ALSO, WADE WAS THE MOST USELESS. So yeah, it ended up being very boring and predictable.
The pacing also didn’t make sense. Some chapters stretched waaayyy too long.
Another problem I had with this book is how obvious it was set up to be a movie. Some scenes, like the Prince, would honestly look great on screen. But reading about them? It’s just not very interesting.
Additionally, I’m left wondering and have numerous questions. How is the world functioning if everyone is so addicted to OASIS? Don’t people have jobs to do? How does society survive if everyone is plugged in, sure OASIS provides opportunities for people, but I’m talking about real-life how does that function? Escaping your problems is only a temporary reprieve. Since everyone is spending so much time online, how is the real world running on 5 hours of real-world time per day?? And Wade was so proud, ONI is improving people’s lives… this is a big spoiler but I have to mention it so please ignore if you want to read the book
Ready Player Two had none of the magic and uniqueness that made us enjoy Ready Player One so much. It was not needed. To top all of the issues I’ve had with this book, it was boring. It wasn’t interesting. People sounded like they were reciting references at every chance they got and some didn’t even make sense or fit the scenes. And I can only name a few things I like (the Tolkien quest for example but then something happened and whatever interest I had vanished) but other than that, the book was bad. Exceptionally and horrifyingly so. I would say I’m disappointed, but I should have expected this end result however, my aforementioned slight enthusiasm made me hope for better than what we got.
IT’S GAME OVER.
November 24, 2021
I’m so grumpy, whiny, upset right now! This is not about cleansing program I apply for 5 days ( no alcohol, no sweets, comfort food, I’m so close to beg someone just kill me now!) it’s the side effects of the book.
Two years ago when I attend a conference about the importance of visual effects on AT&T shape and Ready Player One’s producers, digital artists, screenwriters, a few actors were the speakers. At the first time they told about a sequel of the movie was coming sooner but they waited for the author finish the second book ASAP! At that time i raised my hand to ask them why the hell they needed a sequel ? Spielberg’s adaptation was good but the story I didn’t invest so much was already ended!
I’m asking the same question to the author a little louder : WHYYYYY! WHYYYYY! WHYYYYY! Why you had to write this ultra boring, unnecessary, going nowhere, irritating sequel! WHYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY???
Too much Y later I rested my case. If you’re devoted fans of the first book, please don’t read it !
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Two years ago when I attend a conference about the importance of visual effects on AT&T shape and Ready Player One’s producers, digital artists, screenwriters, a few actors were the speakers. At the first time they told about a sequel of the movie was coming sooner but they waited for the author finish the second book ASAP! At that time i raised my hand to ask them why the hell they needed a sequel ? Spielberg’s adaptation was good but the story I didn’t invest so much was already ended!
I’m asking the same question to the author a little louder : WHYYYYY! WHYYYYY! WHYYYYY! Why you had to write this ultra boring, unnecessary, going nowhere, irritating sequel! WHYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY???
Too much Y later I rested my case. If you’re devoted fans of the first book, please don’t read it !
December 19, 2020
This was easily my biggest disappointment for the year. I thoroughly enjoyed Ready Player One and expected the sequel to at least be an entertaining re-immersion into the promising world of the Oasis. While it offered some interesting philosophical discussion, the majority of the book felt like a rushed plot with little setup and overweighted the importance of 80s references. In the first book these references offered a unique voice, but here they felt like forced cameos on a sitcom that’s lost its way.
This book was all pay off with very little setup creating a constant sense of unfulfillment. This was a problem in the first book but the setting was so inspiring the first go around that this flaw didn’t matter as much. Now, the constant reflections on all the things the high five had done in the past being conveniently tossed into the text when the characters needed help with a challenge eliminated all tension (and without that tension it made me question what was the point in continuing a number of time).
When I say this happened on every quest, I mean every quest. The John Hughes quest Samantha knew, the learning is fun kids quest Wade remembered and dropped out of nowhere he couldn’t go back without any prior reference to it, the Prince quest Aech knew, and middle earth one Samantha again — all seven shards (except for the first) was someone in the band saying “well luckily Ive studied this piece of pop culture for years and am an expert at it so we have nothing to worry about.
The first quest offered a moment of “wow maybe things will be different this time” cause Mr. Know It All Wade had to eat some humble pie and ask for help however the “low five” band of friends showed up for like three paragraphs then conveniently arrived later in the book with a massive info dump (like literally piles of documents for the high five).
I cracked up when the all powerful sword to kill Anorak was revealed and called the dork slayer cause this book unironically made a less funny version of the south park world of warcraft quest for the sword of a thousand truths. It was one of the only moments in the book that had a setup and a payoff though so I can’t knock it beyond the premise.
In terms of technical storytelling this book had a ticking clock, elevated stakes, and a systematic removal of side characters leading up to the final showdown so the protagonist could prove they were the deserving hero all along but both of these were completely wiped out when Anorak revealed all his hostages were fine once they were unconscious and never in any real danger. So not only did we feel nothing when Aech and Shoto “died” but any sadness we could’ve felt was wiped away. This was also done when Samantha jumped from her plane and any possible nervousness we felt for her safety was quickly eliminated when she popped up a paragraph later to let everyone know she was fine then signed offline.
As for the characters falling off prior to the final showdown, it turned out Wade wasn’t even the hero who needed to prove himself. Og was. So I guess it subverted this plot structure trope but the only result was me feeling like we followed the wrong character the entire story.
There’s more I could say about this book but honestly at this point it will just be me nitpicking how much I disliked small details and I think I’ve made my point clear enough.
I really enjoyed the first book but this sequel felt like a cash grab with some interesting (but under explored) philosophical discussions thrown in
This book was all pay off with very little setup creating a constant sense of unfulfillment. This was a problem in the first book but the setting was so inspiring the first go around that this flaw didn’t matter as much. Now, the constant reflections on all the things the high five had done in the past being conveniently tossed into the text when the characters needed help with a challenge eliminated all tension (and without that tension it made me question what was the point in continuing a number of time).
When I say this happened on every quest, I mean every quest. The John Hughes quest Samantha knew, the learning is fun kids quest Wade remembered and dropped out of nowhere he couldn’t go back without any prior reference to it, the Prince quest Aech knew, and middle earth one Samantha again — all seven shards (except for the first) was someone in the band saying “well luckily Ive studied this piece of pop culture for years and am an expert at it so we have nothing to worry about.
The first quest offered a moment of “wow maybe things will be different this time” cause Mr. Know It All Wade had to eat some humble pie and ask for help however the “low five” band of friends showed up for like three paragraphs then conveniently arrived later in the book with a massive info dump (like literally piles of documents for the high five).
I cracked up when the all powerful sword to kill Anorak was revealed and called the dork slayer cause this book unironically made a less funny version of the south park world of warcraft quest for the sword of a thousand truths. It was one of the only moments in the book that had a setup and a payoff though so I can’t knock it beyond the premise.
In terms of technical storytelling this book had a ticking clock, elevated stakes, and a systematic removal of side characters leading up to the final showdown so the protagonist could prove they were the deserving hero all along but both of these were completely wiped out when Anorak revealed all his hostages were fine once they were unconscious and never in any real danger. So not only did we feel nothing when Aech and Shoto “died” but any sadness we could’ve felt was wiped away. This was also done when Samantha jumped from her plane and any possible nervousness we felt for her safety was quickly eliminated when she popped up a paragraph later to let everyone know she was fine then signed offline.
As for the characters falling off prior to the final showdown, it turned out Wade wasn’t even the hero who needed to prove himself. Og was. So I guess it subverted this plot structure trope but the only result was me feeling like we followed the wrong character the entire story.
There’s more I could say about this book but honestly at this point it will just be me nitpicking how much I disliked small details and I think I’ve made my point clear enough.
I really enjoyed the first book but this sequel felt like a cash grab with some interesting (but under explored) philosophical discussions thrown in
June 17, 2021
Dearly beloved, we are gathered here today to get through this thing called “Ready Player Two.”
And get through it I did, with pleasure. I understand many readers have planted firmly in the no-way-no-how camp for this follow up, believing it either to be at best unnecessary and at worst a lazy cash grab. I guess I see those points, but I also see how one’s enjoyment of the novel depends largely on how well one relates to the themes of the quests Wade and crew face as they pursue a new unexpected prize.
This is a book where I think in order to heed a review, you need to know the reviewer.
So here are some quick deets on me: I grew up in the glorious ‘80s. We were home alone a lot. When it rained it was purple. I ate at a breakfast club so many times I knew the menu by heart. I LITERALLY HAD A CAT NAMED FERRIS.
If any of the above brings a nostalgic smile to your face, there’s a good chance you’ll get a great big kick out of "Ready Player Two." Because I could easily play along in figuring out a few of the riddles the characters unraveled, I enjoyed this book so much. I also got a sense that Ernest Cline enjoyed writing it. If he got a lot of cash for the effort, or if he didn’t plan on writing a sequel when he wrote "Ready Player One," makes absolutely no difference to me.
Blog: https://www.confettibookshelf.com/
IG: @confettibookshelf
And get through it I did, with pleasure. I understand many readers have planted firmly in the no-way-no-how camp for this follow up, believing it either to be at best unnecessary and at worst a lazy cash grab. I guess I see those points, but I also see how one’s enjoyment of the novel depends largely on how well one relates to the themes of the quests Wade and crew face as they pursue a new unexpected prize.
This is a book where I think in order to heed a review, you need to know the reviewer.
So here are some quick deets on me: I grew up in the glorious ‘80s. We were home alone a lot. When it rained it was purple. I ate at a breakfast club so many times I knew the menu by heart. I LITERALLY HAD A CAT NAMED FERRIS.
If any of the above brings a nostalgic smile to your face, there’s a good chance you’ll get a great big kick out of "Ready Player Two." Because I could easily play along in figuring out a few of the riddles the characters unraveled, I enjoyed this book so much. I also got a sense that Ernest Cline enjoyed writing it. If he got a lot of cash for the effort, or if he didn’t plan on writing a sequel when he wrote "Ready Player One," makes absolutely no difference to me.
Blog: https://www.confettibookshelf.com/
IG: @confettibookshelf
May 25, 2021
"Poor widdle Wade", I say with extreme sarcasm. Not long after the end of Ready Player One, Wade is a multi billionaire, mostly holing up in his enormous mansion (so big that he hasn't even found all the bathrooms), spending twelve hours a day with the newest, bestest, most immersive virtual reality device that will ever be invented. And Wade has become bored, miserable, lonely, embittered, and cruel. Wade's best friends are out in the world doing real good, making a huge difference in the world in ways that really matter. Wade does fund many helpful ventures that help the poor and downtrodden but he does it from a distance, hiding in his self pity and internet/social media addiction, sinking deeper into his ridiculous miserable self. And while he's at it, he's blasting to smithereens the avatars of his haters and detractors, because he's all powerful in the virtual world and because he can do it.
Days after the ending of the last book Wade discovers Halliday's greatly enhanced headset immersion rig and makes the decision to release these new rigs to the world. But there is also a new riddle from Halliday and Wade is determined to spend all his time and billions of his extra bucks to figure out the riddle. I had trouble with the pacing of the book because it seems like many, many years go by as he flounders around searching for the first shard of seven that he needs to win this latest prize. In the end, I think just three years have passed from the end of the first book to the end of the second book but I only know that because Wade is twenty one years old at the end of the first book.
Another pacing problem is when there is less than twelve hours to get a LOT of things done or else very bad and deadly things will happen. Wade and company complete various trials and actions, with lots of dialogue and gawking at favorite locations and subjects of various team members, the clock ticking loudly in my head, while time is wasting. There seems to be a lack of tension during this tight timeline and I think it comes from the great detail we get during some parts of this timeline. The entire battle with Prince (seven of him!) is an example of a time when I felt like the clock stopped for them (did it?). There are a lot of other instances when they are interacting with movie characters, being all nerdy/geeky about it all, that caused the story to lack a sense of the current peril.
Still, I could follow this story better than the first one because I seemed to be more aware of a lot of the movie/music trivia this time. Since Wade is feeling so sorry for himself, there is less action and more navel gazing, which was easier for me to follow, even if I didn't want to be there. I enjoyed the story but at the same time, I was often bored and had such a hard time feeling sorry for Wade, while he moaned and groaned about how much he had and how unhappy he was. I thought I was going to rate the story 4 stars but writing this review has made me know that it's a 3 star story for me.
Published November 24th 2020
Days after the ending of the last book Wade discovers Halliday's greatly enhanced headset immersion rig and makes the decision to release these new rigs to the world. But there is also a new riddle from Halliday and Wade is determined to spend all his time and billions of his extra bucks to figure out the riddle. I had trouble with the pacing of the book because it seems like many, many years go by as he flounders around searching for the first shard of seven that he needs to win this latest prize. In the end, I think just three years have passed from the end of the first book to the end of the second book but I only know that because Wade is twenty one years old at the end of the first book.
Another pacing problem is when there is less than twelve hours to get a LOT of things done or else very bad and deadly things will happen. Wade and company complete various trials and actions, with lots of dialogue and gawking at favorite locations and subjects of various team members, the clock ticking loudly in my head, while time is wasting. There seems to be a lack of tension during this tight timeline and I think it comes from the great detail we get during some parts of this timeline. The entire battle with Prince (seven of him!) is an example of a time when I felt like the clock stopped for them (did it?). There are a lot of other instances when they are interacting with movie characters, being all nerdy/geeky about it all, that caused the story to lack a sense of the current peril.
Still, I could follow this story better than the first one because I seemed to be more aware of a lot of the movie/music trivia this time. Since Wade is feeling so sorry for himself, there is less action and more navel gazing, which was easier for me to follow, even if I didn't want to be there. I enjoyed the story but at the same time, I was often bored and had such a hard time feeling sorry for Wade, while he moaned and groaned about how much he had and how unhappy he was. I thought I was going to rate the story 4 stars but writing this review has made me know that it's a 3 star story for me.
Published November 24th 2020
December 10, 2020
Oh, the perils of reading a book that is a sequel to one I loved so much!
Will it be as good?
If it isn’t, how crushed will I be?
Am I even giving it a fair chance going in since my expectations are already set so high?
I read the author’s last book and didn’t care for it – was that the start of a downward trend and this is just the next step down?
I am already seeing negative reviews because it wasn’t as good and a major disappointment, so how can I not go into it expecting the worst?
Yes, all of these things went through my mind as I started Ready Player Two. But there was no way I wasn’t going to read it!
I can honestly say that I did like it, but it was not quite as mind-blowingly awesome as Ready Player One. I think it had lots of the same feel and formula, but the cheesiness was raised by a factor of ten. I mean, you really have to be ready to nerd out over very specific pop culture topics for several hours. But I know that is what I should expect going into an Ernest Cline novel (and you should, too!). However, a couple of slower/draggy spots and some places where he pushed plot conveniences too far brought the experience down from the first book for me.
I listened to the audiobook this time and Wil Wheaton does a great job. I am not surprised as I have heard many accolades for his narration of Ready Player One. If I ever go back for a reread of Ready Player One, I will likely listen to Wheaton. I commented to someone else reading this that Wheaton does what he needs to do to sell all the pop culture cheesiness. I think his part in pop culture cheesiness over the past 30 years or so probably helps a lot!
I am going to get a bit spoilerish with a couple of the parts I didn’t care much for. So, only click if you have finished the book or if you don’t care about spoilers:
Should you read this?
If you liked Ready Player One like I did, you may like this. But, be aware that I am seeing many Ready Player One fans give it one or two stars. So, proceed with caution and expect anything!
Are you ready to nerd out for several hours? And, I mean REALLY nerd out! Like – go overboard into a raging sea of nerdiness? Open a can of pure, concentrated nerd-juice and chug it until you have to rush to the restroom and purge yourself of all the pop-culture?? And then, after all that, eat a big, fat nerd sandwich? If you cannot answer yes to all of this or are not sure you are at least okay with this being the experience, then you need not read this book . . . if you do and didn’t listen me, don’t come back and say that I didn’t warn you!
Will it be as good?
If it isn’t, how crushed will I be?
Am I even giving it a fair chance going in since my expectations are already set so high?
I read the author’s last book and didn’t care for it – was that the start of a downward trend and this is just the next step down?
I am already seeing negative reviews because it wasn’t as good and a major disappointment, so how can I not go into it expecting the worst?
Yes, all of these things went through my mind as I started Ready Player Two. But there was no way I wasn’t going to read it!
I can honestly say that I did like it, but it was not quite as mind-blowingly awesome as Ready Player One. I think it had lots of the same feel and formula, but the cheesiness was raised by a factor of ten. I mean, you really have to be ready to nerd out over very specific pop culture topics for several hours. But I know that is what I should expect going into an Ernest Cline novel (and you should, too!). However, a couple of slower/draggy spots and some places where he pushed plot conveniences too far brought the experience down from the first book for me.
I listened to the audiobook this time and Wil Wheaton does a great job. I am not surprised as I have heard many accolades for his narration of Ready Player One. If I ever go back for a reread of Ready Player One, I will likely listen to Wheaton. I commented to someone else reading this that Wheaton does what he needs to do to sell all the pop culture cheesiness. I think his part in pop culture cheesiness over the past 30 years or so probably helps a lot!
I am going to get a bit spoilerish with a couple of the parts I didn’t care much for. So, only click if you have finished the book or if you don’t care about spoilers:
Should you read this?
If you liked Ready Player One like I did, you may like this. But, be aware that I am seeing many Ready Player One fans give it one or two stars. So, proceed with caution and expect anything!
Are you ready to nerd out for several hours? And, I mean REALLY nerd out! Like – go overboard into a raging sea of nerdiness? Open a can of pure, concentrated nerd-juice and chug it until you have to rush to the restroom and purge yourself of all the pop-culture?? And then, after all that, eat a big, fat nerd sandwich? If you cannot answer yes to all of this or are not sure you are at least okay with this being the experience, then you need not read this book . . . if you do and didn’t listen me, don’t come back and say that I didn’t warn you!
January 6, 2021
Review posted on: https://books-are-a-girls-best-friend...
Wil Wheaton is Back! And that my friends, made the geek in me one very Happy Girl!
Another day in the Oasis, brings on another contest for Wade Watts and his friends. This time, it’s to find the “Seven Shards of the Siren’s Soul.”
Time however, is of the essence. Most folks now get into the Oasis with new ONI headsets and unfortunately for them, Anorak, Halliday’s avatar has hacked the system such that, when their daily time limit for using them runs out, so do they.
While the quests are in fact easier, this go round, with either one of the High Five, knowing how to find and solve them or with the team getting a little help from some friends, there was one quest that I personally found to be quite brilliant, given my love for 80’s movies.
It takes place in a fictional place, known well to John Hughes fans:
Shermer.
(Yes, that, Shermer.)
At that point, I might have squealed with joy. (Honest, truth.) For me, that quest was sheer perfection.
While entertaining, the other quests weren't as imaginative as the original quests in “Ready Player One” or as the Shermer quest, though I enjoyed having the team back together.
In its entirety, “Ready Player Two” may not be quite as good as its predecessor, and it may have started off a little slow, but it is in my opinion, a worthy follow up and frankly, I could listen to Wil Wheaton, all day, any day. (Baaahhh!!!) 3.7 Stars.
Published on Goodreads on 12.6.20.
Wil Wheaton is Back! And that my friends, made the geek in me one very Happy Girl!
Another day in the Oasis, brings on another contest for Wade Watts and his friends. This time, it’s to find the “Seven Shards of the Siren’s Soul.”
Time however, is of the essence. Most folks now get into the Oasis with new ONI headsets and unfortunately for them, Anorak, Halliday’s avatar has hacked the system such that, when their daily time limit for using them runs out, so do they.
While the quests are in fact easier, this go round, with either one of the High Five, knowing how to find and solve them or with the team getting a little help from some friends, there was one quest that I personally found to be quite brilliant, given my love for 80’s movies.
It takes place in a fictional place, known well to John Hughes fans:
Shermer.
(Yes, that, Shermer.)
At that point, I might have squealed with joy. (Honest, truth.) For me, that quest was sheer perfection.
While entertaining, the other quests weren't as imaginative as the original quests in “Ready Player One” or as the Shermer quest, though I enjoyed having the team back together.
In its entirety, “Ready Player Two” may not be quite as good as its predecessor, and it may have started off a little slow, but it is in my opinion, a worthy follow up and frankly, I could listen to Wil Wheaton, all day, any day. (Baaahhh!!!) 3.7 Stars.
Published on Goodreads on 12.6.20.
Shelved as 'wishlist'
August 10, 2020READY PLAYER ONE: BREAKS THE INTERNET
Wade's OASIS is under attack by the evil TubeYou gamer DewPieDee, who has given it a bad review. Aech is tired of living in his shadow and goes off to seek her own fortunes. Wade must create his own TubeYou account under a fake name and accidentally goes viral, which he then uses to go to a TubeYou conference to challenge DewPieDee with unexpected results. His nemesis, the gamer who threatens to destroy everything...
Is his friend, Aech.
Wade's OASIS is under attack by the evil TubeYou gamer DewPieDee, who has given it a bad review. Aech is tired of living in his shadow and goes off to seek her own fortunes. Wade must create his own TubeYou account under a fake name and accidentally goes viral, which he then uses to go to a TubeYou conference to challenge DewPieDee with unexpected results. His nemesis, the gamer who threatens to destroy everything...
Is his friend, Aech.
Read
May 24, 2020
August 30, 2023
AUTHOR CAUGHT THE WOKE BUG, which completely infected THEIR boring APOLOGIA FOR BEING a "cisgender male" HETEROSEXUAL
I enjoyed the trip that Ready player One took me on. The author transforms the sequel into a stinking turd of WOKEness.
I hate propagandist uber left bullshit. We’ve suffered propaganda from the other side of the cultural divide from a clownishpresident who I have been working to defeat since day one.
I dont need pinko crap pushed on me now, in an adventure novel full of virtue signaling and instructing all readers, including very young ones, that being a male or a female is ABSOLUTELY meaningless, that all people should have sex with whomever : Who cares what sex a partner is, our protagonist says, it makes no difference, that in his virtual world, he has been a woman having sex with a man, he has been a man having sex with a man, and a woman having sex with a woman, and combinations of gender fluids ad infinitum, all the time! Who needs a sexual organ anyway!?! What is it but a limitation on the possibilities in my mind and in cyber space?
Why does an entertaining author have to shovel shit on his readers? It is too much. You can tell right away when a writer is pushing an agenda. Shamelessly so.
I enjoyed the trip that Ready player One took me on. The author transforms the sequel into a stinking turd of WOKEness.
I hate propagandist uber left bullshit. We’ve suffered propaganda from the other side of the cultural divide from a clownishpresident who I have been working to defeat since day one.
I dont need pinko crap pushed on me now, in an adventure novel full of virtue signaling and instructing all readers, including very young ones, that being a male or a female is ABSOLUTELY meaningless, that all people should have sex with whomever : Who cares what sex a partner is, our protagonist says, it makes no difference, that in his virtual world, he has been a woman having sex with a man, he has been a man having sex with a man, and a woman having sex with a woman, and combinations of gender fluids ad infinitum, all the time! Who needs a sexual organ anyway!?! What is it but a limitation on the possibilities in my mind and in cyber space?
Why does an entertaining author have to shovel shit on his readers? It is too much. You can tell right away when a writer is pushing an agenda. Shamelessly so.
January 17, 2021
This book is for… people who are not hell-bent on hating this sequel as a matter of principle.
⤐ Overall.
The sad truth is, a lot of people went into Ready Player Two determined not to like it. You could tell by the updates they made long before they ever even touched the book and the whiny reviews they wrote after. If this is how you wanna go about reading unexpected sequels, don't read this book. Or any sequels at all. You'll be unable to appreciate it for what Ready Player Two is: a decent sequel with tons of easter eggs for nerds all over the planet. Don't get me wrong, scepticism per se is not a bad thing but don't let it ruin your reading experience.
What made both RPO and RPT such great reads for me is that Ernest has a remarkable way of connecting his nostalgia for the 80s to the criticism of society, seamlessly feeding into my hunger for deeper meaning in my reads.
It’s true that the novelty that came with RPO is lost with this sequel and it did impact my reading experience somewhat but I still by. The reason this is not a full five-star review is that I just had to deduct one entire star for that lame and creepy ending. Considering the overall theme of Ready Player Two - the dangers of (advanced) technology - it was just a bit too unreflected for me. But each to their own.
⤐ What’s happening.
‘The simulation had now become indistinguishable from real life.’
spoiler alert: It will only add to the problems of Wade's society. And lead to another easter egg hunt.
Ready, Player Two?
_____________________
4 STARS. Would stay up beyond my typical hours to finish it. I found some minor details I didn't like, agree with or lacked in some kind but overall, this was enjoyable and extraordinary.
April 24, 2021
Me: Ready Player One doesn't need a sequel!
Also Me: *Adds to Want to Read* *Mentally/Emotionally subscribes to updates about said sequel*
Also Me: *Adds to Want to Read* *Mentally/Emotionally subscribes to updates about said sequel*
July 3, 2022
In this sequel the 'High Five' are living the good life when their virtual universe is hijacked, and not only do they have to go on another quest, they have to defeat the dark side of Halliday and save the world. It was great returning to these characters that I have a soft spot for, but it felt like Cline wanted to repeat the success of the first book by pretty much duplicating it; what he and his publishers failed to grasp, in my opinion, was that it was its novelty and unpredictability that made the book so awesome, something that this sequel is in serious lack of! 5 out of 12.
2022 read
2022 read
June 3, 2021
”My friend Kira always said that life is like an extremely difficult, horribly unbalanced videogame”.
Vaya, por lo que veo esto es una opinión impopular, pero a mí sí me gustó muchísimo Ready Player Two.
Aquí nos encontramos con Wade unos años después de haber ganado la competencia que acabó con él y sus amigos siendo dueños y señores de Oasis. Al principio todos disfrutaron de la novedad, el reconocimiento y la omnipotencia dentro del juego y, prácticamente, en la vida real; sin embargo, con el paso del tiempo, las cosas no salieron tan bien. Sí, Oasis creó un nuevo sistema, el ONI, de realidad inmersiva tremendamente real y son los líderes absolutos del mercado y del mundo, pero la relación de Wade y los chicos con Art3mis se deterioró muchísimo. Y no solo eso, sino que Wade siente que le falta motivación a su vida. Por eso, cuando descubre que Halliday pudo haber dejado un segundo concurso tras él, se lanza en picado para resolver las nuevas pistas, encontrar los huevos de pascua y… salvar al mundo real. Esta no es solamente una misión más del mundo virtual, sino que de su éxito depende que sobrevivan miles de millones de personas en el mundo.
De verdad, a mí me pareció un libro tremendo y, curiosamente, lleno de reflexiones sobre la tecnología, el evadir la realidad, el futuro de la humanidad, el papel de los híper multimillonarios del mundo y la importancia de las conexiones humanas reales. Creo que en esta segunda entrega vemos a un Wade con el que muchos de nosotros nos pudimos identificar y eso me gustó un montón.
Ahora, lo único que, igual que con el primero, me jodió un poco fueron las eternas e incontables referencias a cultura pop de los 80 y de las cuales no tengo ni la más remota idea. Es un poco molesto cuando empiezan a hacer info dump de todas esas referencias en medio de las pruebas, pero, en el fondo, si sabes ignorarlas y centrarte en la acción, puedes lograr que no te abrumen. Eso es lo que hacía yo, leía todas esas referencias como si fueran ruido de fondo y me centraba en lo que de verdad importaba de la trama.
Y, hablando de eso, me encantó que la trama de este libro fuera muchísimo más peligrosa que la de Ready Player One. Es decir, en el primer libro todos jugaban para ganar un gran premio y ya está, pero en Ready Player Two están jugando y buscando pistas para salvar a la mismísima humanidad. No hay margen de error, no hay tiempo que perder. De Wade y sus amigos depende que los seres humanos sigan existiendo y que cierta desviación de la tecnología no se haga con el poder absoluto.
Y es que, claro, si me conocen, saben que soy la más fan de las IAs que se vuelven locas y quieren dominar el mundo. Et voilà! Aquí tenemos exactamente ese escenario y es bastante aterrador. Además, me fascina leer todas las reflexiones que siempre propicia la existencia de una Inteligencia Artificial verdaderamente perfecta a independiente.
Creo que todo el recorrido y los peligros que viven los personajes de este libro hacen que no puedas dejar de leer, de pasar páginas. Engancha muchísimo y, además, el final te deja con la boca abierta. Es impresionante todo lo que los autores de ciencia ficción pueden llegar a plasmar en un libro. Y es más impresionante aún si pensamos que se basan en ciencia especulativa real, es decir, en cosas que puede que realmente sucedan en el futuro. En fin, una pasada. Y, sinceramente, espero que Ernest Cline nos dé otro libro de esta saga porque ese final da para muchísimo, de verdad muchísimo.
June 18, 2021
I’ve read so many mixed reviews on this one. I didn’t go in with the highest of hopes. 😬 Perhaps that’s what made me like it more?… 🤷🏼♀️ It has been a few years since I’ve read (and loved) the first book. Knowing that it definitely wasn’t going to live up to the first, somehow made this better for me. I love the high five gang and was glad to dive back into an adventure with them again. 😉❤️📚
December 4, 2020
Really really good. Bit different to book 1, and I still didn't get a lot of the 80s references, but still very good and a fun read.
September 30, 2021
***5 stars***
Did we need this book?
But was it amazing nonetheless?
Writing a good sequel to a massive hit book is very difficult, as I've come to realize over the years. But wonderful things happen sometimes and Ready Player Two definitely captures the spirit and magic of its predecessor. Cline took the same concepts from the first book and amped them up further. Everything that made the first novel great -the pop culture references, the heartfelt human experiences, the world of the OASIS- all are present in the sequel. Ready Player Two takes you on a heck of a ride.
So don't let yourself be turned away by others who talked shit about this book just because some people have to find something negative in everything and be outraged about everything they read or see. I, for one, couldn’t put this book down! It was everything I didn't know I needed!
Did we need this book?
But was it amazing nonetheless?
Writing a good sequel to a massive hit book is very difficult, as I've come to realize over the years. But wonderful things happen sometimes and Ready Player Two definitely captures the spirit and magic of its predecessor. Cline took the same concepts from the first book and amped them up further. Everything that made the first novel great -the pop culture references, the heartfelt human experiences, the world of the OASIS- all are present in the sequel. Ready Player Two takes you on a heck of a ride.
So don't let yourself be turned away by others who talked shit about this book just because some people have to find something negative in everything and be outraged about everything they read or see. I, for one, couldn’t put this book down! It was everything I didn't know I needed!
November 21, 2020
Wow.
For those concerned, you can go your whole life without reading this and the wonderment of Ready Player One is still intact.
BUT, this is a great extension of the story that I believe enhances the magic of the OASIS.
Ready Player Two had its ups and downs for me. I struggled with my feelings for characters I had fallen in love with. I wondered how in the world this story could be as epic and immersive as the first was for myself. It's worth it in the end.
Overall, it did not disappoint and added more depth to the story.
We see the characters struggle with mental health, addiction, social media, technology, and their own selves. We're introduced to other worlds and quests inside the OASIS. And my favorite, meeting some beloved lesser characters on a much larger scale.
Yes this book is worth the read, it has all the beloved quirks I loved about the first book, plus addressing issues with humanity.
For those concerned, you can go your whole life without reading this and the wonderment of Ready Player One is still intact.
BUT, this is a great extension of the story that I believe enhances the magic of the OASIS.
Ready Player Two had its ups and downs for me. I struggled with my feelings for characters I had fallen in love with. I wondered how in the world this story could be as epic and immersive as the first was for myself. It's worth it in the end.
Overall, it did not disappoint and added more depth to the story.
We see the characters struggle with mental health, addiction, social media, technology, and their own selves. We're introduced to other worlds and quests inside the OASIS. And my favorite, meeting some beloved lesser characters on a much larger scale.
Yes this book is worth the read, it has all the beloved quirks I loved about the first book, plus addressing issues with humanity.
November 4, 2021
1.5ish stars.
To be fair, the first book was only a 3-star read for me. But at least that one was fun. This is joyless and Preachy.
To be fair, the first book was only a 3-star read for me. But at least that one was fun. This is joyless and Preachy.
December 1, 2020
We could have had RP1 duplicated almost entirely and I would have happily enjoyed the ride. But that's not what we got. RP1 is about a dedicated, passionate boy questing in a MMORPG on crack and making friends with a motley crew along the way. RP2 (the sequel no one asked for) is about
Wade without the contest to give him purpose is a selfish and self-righteous, obnoxious and off-putting whiner and it was all I could do to get through the first 40% of the book which is essentially The Wade Show as he isolates himself and alienates every person in his life. It's depressing.
Most characters are unrecognizable from the first book, each "challenge" is sloppily written and conveniently solved by some member of Wade's posse who happens to have exactly the right expertise. THANK GOODNESS. The fact that this seven step quest takes 12 hours to complete when RP1's three step quest took approximately a year to complete after the first key is found is another issue entirely.
And then it ends with All that talk at the end of RP1 of using our newly won billions to save Earth is forgotten.
Also, we spend multiple chapters on a Prince themed planet.
I'm at a loss.
- - - - - - - - - - - -
Pre-reading thoughts:
Please don’t ruin this for me, Ernest.
Wade without the contest to give him purpose is a selfish and self-righteous, obnoxious and off-putting whiner and it was all I could do to get through the first 40% of the book which is essentially The Wade Show as he isolates himself and alienates every person in his life. It's depressing.
Most characters are unrecognizable from the first book, each "challenge" is sloppily written and conveniently solved by some member of Wade's posse who happens to have exactly the right expertise. THANK GOODNESS. The fact that this seven step quest takes 12 hours to complete when RP1's three step quest took approximately a year to complete after the first key is found is another issue entirely.
And then it ends with All that talk at the end of RP1 of using our newly won billions to save Earth is forgotten.
Also, we spend multiple chapters on a Prince themed planet.
I'm at a loss.
- - - - - - - - - - - -
Pre-reading thoughts:
Please don’t ruin this for me, Ernest.
Want to read
September 17, 2020Oooooh. It does have a sequel.
I thought the ending to the 1st book was hot garbage that made no sense and it left me extremely unsatisfied.
Perhaps this one will fix the issues I had with it?
OR.
Maybe instead of a fun VR world, this will go the way of the Matrix Reloaded?
We'll probably end up reading about pasty people running around in trailer parks wearing burlap clothing.
Hahaha!
I thought the ending to the 1st book was hot garbage that made no sense and it left me extremely unsatisfied.
Perhaps this one will fix the issues I had with it?
OR.
Maybe instead of a fun VR world, this will go the way of the Matrix Reloaded?
We'll probably end up reading about pasty people running around in trailer parks wearing burlap clothing.
Hahaha!
December 8, 2020
This was an unexpected sequel.
Anyway, Ernest Cline is an expert on escapism. He is so good at it, that at the ending of the first book even after his explicit warning against going too far burying your head into the sand, you are still left thinking how awesome the Oasis and the whole quest for the 3 keys was. After reading this book it seems that he wanted to amend his mistake, so he toned down his barrage of references (there is still plenty, but I honestly loved the sheer opulence of them in the first book) and he acknowledged Wades many personal flaws that I personally couldn't see back in high school (I was a dumb nerdy kid) and this time he was going to hammer the point home... After the first book Wade learned nothing, got worse, got better, put everyone into the Sword Art Online Situation (everyone's brains got stuck in the Oasis and no one could log off) then gone on a new quest to learn his lesson this time...
And the lesson is that escapism is mighty dangerous, but GOD do we need it. Just look at 2020.
WE LEARNED NOTHING.
Basically that is the core of it, but because it seems I am one of the first to review the book after reading it I don't want to say more about the plot in order to avoid spoilers.
Short version: If you liked the first book you will find something to like in this one too.
Anyway, Ernest Cline is an expert on escapism. He is so good at it, that at the ending of the first book even after his explicit warning against going too far burying your head into the sand, you are still left thinking how awesome the Oasis and the whole quest for the 3 keys was. After reading this book it seems that he wanted to amend his mistake, so he toned down his barrage of references (there is still plenty, but I honestly loved the sheer opulence of them in the first book) and he acknowledged Wades many personal flaws that I personally couldn't see back in high school (I was a dumb nerdy kid) and this time he was going to hammer the point home... After the first book Wade learned nothing, got worse, got better, put everyone into the Sword Art Online Situation (everyone's brains got stuck in the Oasis and no one could log off) then gone on a new quest to learn his lesson this time...
And the lesson is that escapism is mighty dangerous, but GOD do we need it. Just look at 2020.
WE LEARNED NOTHING.
Basically that is the core of it, but because it seems I am one of the first to review the book after reading it I don't want to say more about the plot in order to avoid spoilers.
Short version: If you liked the first book you will find something to like in this one too.
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