Ready Player One

As you can see by the time between my two posts about Ready Player One, I had a hard time putting this book down. The plot was incredibly exciting, full of twists and turns. But my initial complaint about the clunky exposition still stands. Cline occasionally has trouble with the "show don't tell" axiom of writing. But when he starts showing the story gets really good.

I think the book this one reminded me of the most is The Hunger Games. Great plot, exciting action, fully realized apocalyptic future, hard to put down. But when you step away from it you start to notice some pacing issues. Having read this book, I'm a little surprised it's not being marketed as YA. But maybe it's just that the target audience (people who have some familiarity with the 1980s) is in their 20s and 30s.

I really did enjoy this book. I think it will be really interesting to see how it ages, whether someone younger than me could appreciate it as much as I did. I'm sure some of the pop culture that gets referenced will still be relevant, especially things like Monty Python and Star Wars. Or maybe with the internet and the rise of instant nostalgia, all of these things will be preserved forever.

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