For the month of February, my book club has been reading Ernest Cline's _Ready Player
One_. Not only did I fall madly in love with this work of fiction, and not only did I
thoroughly enjoy Wil Wheaton's delivery of the book in its audio format, but I also
discovered that, for the first time in years, a book honestly left me with a whole
lot to talk about, so I thought a review might be in order. What better place to
deliver a review on a book so centered around vintage geek culture than through the
gopher protocol? As such, let me introduce you to my Top Five Reasons why everyone
needs to read Ernest Cline's _Ready Player One_.
Reason #1: Is that a DeLorean in your pocket, or are you just happy to see me?
Look -- it probably doesn't take much to figure out that I am a sucker for a
well-placed geeky pop culture reference. Considering that nearly every paragraph of
this novel referred to a movie, a song, a television show, a video game, or a vintage
computer that I was intimately aquainted with in my youth, I spent the majority of
the novel vibrating from my barely-contained squees of happiness. There were even
major plot-points that mirrored well-known science fiction, fantasy, and video game
tropes. I also loved that the book did not focus solely on the 1980s, even though
that was (understandably) the nexus of the vintage geek obsessions. The pop culture
references stretched back to the 1970s with _Monty Python and the Holy Grail_, and
stretched forward to the 2000s with references to _Firefly_, just to name a couple of
examples. Cline was not just embodying a specific time period in geek culture; Cline
was actually illustrating the entirety of geek culture. I found this delightful
because it's *my* culture, a culture full of awkward kids playing Dungeons and
Dragons and reading fantasy novels and chatting on the Internet, a culture that you
don't often see represented outside of those circles unless it's being mocked or
transformed for comedic effect. I could tell that Cline was a geek talking about
geeks, and the act of reading this book was one nerdgasm after another for me.
Reason #2: "Infinite diversity in infinite combinations – therein lies oustrength
and therein lies our joy." ~ George Takei
Like any representation of culture, geek culture is often depicted as being a total
boy's club, with the only visible population being awkward heterosexual white men.
One of my favorite things about _Ready Player One_ is the way it truly celebrates
diversity. An array of characters represent and celebrate the shared geeky thread
among various races and orientations, accurately representating just how incredibly
diverse this culture can be. One of the major plot twists of the novel directly
confronts our preconceived notions of race and of sexuality in a manner that
emphasizes and celebrates relationships, trust, and core personalities. Even so,
Cline is not heavy-handed in his treatment of race and gender -- these are just
aspects of geek culture that are as understood and accepted as lightsabers or
joysticks or twenty-sided dice. Parzival's acknowledgement and acceptance of these
differences as they appear mirror the sort of acknowledgement and acceptance I have
seen among my own geeky friends and aquaintances -- Cline's treatment of these issues
feels as genuine as what I have experienced in real life, and I love that I can find
that reflected in a book.
Reason #3: From an interview with Joss Whedon - "Q: So, why do you write these strong
female characters? A: Because you're still asking me that question."
Many science fiction and fantasy novels -- much like the rest of modern culture --
severely lacks a focus on strong female characters. When I was only a few chapters in
to _Ready Player One_, I had assumed that this novel would be no different -- after
all, I was just watching Parzival sit around in chat rooms trash-talking with his
male peers in a highly adolescently masculine manner. When Art3mis came onto the
scene and continued to play an important role as one of the main characters of the
novel, I was pleased to see that the female geek was so accurately represented. She
was strong, intelligent, capable, emotional, and passionate, but she was also
extremely self-conscious and often used her bravado as a mask. She was interesting,
intricate, and multi-faceted -- something you don't often see in novels of any sort,
and something that is often lacking in geek culture specifically. We live in an age
where the Internet passionately debates the role of women in geek culture, so it was
refreshing to see such an accurate, close-to-home depiction of the sort of awesome
geek women who have always been an intricate part of this culture -- y'know, women
like me.
Reason #4: I Fought the Man, and the Man Lost
In much the same way I was geeking out over the copious pop culture references in the
book, I was also delighted that the Big Bad of the novel was focused on the evil
inherent in large corporations. One of the typical storylines to science fiction and
fantasy involves a group of mismatched underlings banding together on a quest to
fight against a major evil force (Star Wars, Lord of the Rings). I loved that this
book followed that same basic storyline while making Big Business the ultimate evil.
And Sorrento from Innovative Online Industries shapes up into a pretty epic final
boss.
Reason #5: The Moral of the Story Is...
Okay, I confess -- I'm also a sucker for stories with a moral. I blame my background
in storytelling and fairy tales. Happily, Cline delivers several major morals
throughout the course of the novel -- the importance of teamwork, the importance of
relationships, and the danger of becoming to wrapped up in the virtual and ignoring
or neglecting the real world. This is best demonstrated in this quote from the
character James Halliday in the novel:
"I created the Oasis because I never felt at home in real world. I didn't know how
to connect with the people there. I was afraid for all of my life, right up until I
knew it was ending. That was when I realized as terrifying and painful as reality
can be, it's also the only place where you can find true happiness. Because reality
is real."
I feel like, in many ways, the elders of geek culture are often trying to deliver
this very message to the youth. For example, this is the sort of message I try to get
my daughter to understand every day. Almost all of my daughter's activities and
interactions are centered around the Internet, and I often feel as if I'm in the
position of encouraging her to unplug, experience, and interact with the real world.
I think it's harder for the younger generations of geeks to fully understand that
there is such a thing as too much information, as being too connected, that going
somewhere with no Internet access is actually somewhat refreshing. I'm not sure yet
if this is a generational attitude or just the sort of wise retrospective that comes
with age, but I definitely see my own thoughts mirrored in Halliday's words. And I
love that a book that so obviously celebrates geek culture can simultaneously serve
as a cautionary tale about that lifestyle. I want my daughter to read this book.
*
_Ready Player One_ was an enjoyable, lighthearted, thoroughly fun read -- the sort of
book I would, under normal circumstances, feel guilty about reading. (I think I still
have that module from Graduate School installed in my brain where I'm convinced that
anything that isn't incredibly painful to read must not be truly great literature.)
However, due to Cline's celebration of the diversity and underlying morality of geek
culture, I can honestly be proud to revel in such an enjoyable book, and proceed to
recommend it to friends and family and everybody else on the Internet. Read and
delight and revel in this book -- you won't be sorry, and I won't judge. And don't
forget to find Ernest Cline's Ready Player One playlist on Spotify to listen to while
you read. One day I hope to be as kick-ass as this guy.
