I first read Ready Player One, by Ernest Cline, when I was working on an MMO about ten years ago, and I remember loving the book. But I only had strong memories of the Joust scene, the extra life, and H arriving in the van. Key plot points, sure, but worth a reread. It mostly held up well as a fun gamer adventure story this time, but some parts felt different 10 years later.

First, the amazing virtual adventure part. Of course I loved Parzival’s quest to find the Easter Egg secrets in a wildly complex virtual world, full of gamer nerd references and minigames. The Sixers, faceless corporate drones devoted to finding the egg for profit, were such perfect villains.

This is a story about someone who’s insignificant in the every day world, but successful and beloved in another world, and it’s  still such an appealing story concept! In Ready Player One, Wade Watts is an unwanted teenager living in futuristic poverty. His parents have died, both from ongoing, realistically-tragic poverty conditions. When the story begins, he lives with an aunt, who only agreed to take him in because his additional food rations would allow her a bit more security in her overcrowded, stacked trailer. Wade’s signed up for virtual school, which does get him several hours a day away from the overcrowded trailer, but he’s still unpopular in online school because he only has the default avatar, no interesting or creative upgrades for student-Wade.

Online, as Parzival, Wade chats with other gamers about their shared progress on the epic Easter Egg hunt for Anorak’s hidden treasure. He doesn’t have money to travel the virtual world, but has devoted his time to watching and rewatching classic nerd movies, and playing and replaying retro games. His best friend, H, hosts a locked virtual space that’s the absolute nerd dream, where only elite egg hunters can join the games and debates. As the story progresses, Parzival becomes famous

This contrast between two worlds also works for stories like Snow Crash, where Hiro is struggling to pay his bills, but he’s a celeb in certain parts of the online world.  Everyday life is negative in a different, YA way in Didn’t See That Coming, but the escapism of the gaming world is the same thing. It’s the same appeal of The Kaiju Preservation Society, even though it’s not an MMO portal —  the contrast between struggling through underpaid delivery jobs in the mundane world and then the dimension of epic battles with friends is so appealing! And when it’s done well, that kind of setup can set readers up for a better suspension of disbelief for the fantastical elements.

This is a wild ride through various fandoms, where arcade skills and rewatching favorite movies are the keys to success. I loved the retro nods here, just like I did in The Impossible Fortress. Cline does explain most of the references, and readers don’t necessarily need to know all of them to follow and enjoy the novel. You don’t need to know exactly what kind of giant killer robot from which series referenced in order to follow an epic battle of giant killer robots, but you’d probably want some interest there.

On my first reading of this novel, I enjoyed the nerd trivia that makes up so much of this book. It’s such a great premise, Cline invites us to imagine a world where knowing obscure references and being great at old arcade games was somehow the secret to riches, success and fame. But on this reread, I felt like the characters’ nerd hobbies had been turned into a grind. The egg hunt is all about the music, movies and games that Anorak chose long ago, not what the egg hunters are necessarily drawn to. The enjoyment wasn’t from connecting with one’s favorite media, but in knowing every minor detail about it, and so this felt more like a grueling exam than gaming flow. The actual text hasn’t changed, so perhaps it’s my own years of getting game-knowledge pop quizzes from random men at game conventions who aren’t sure that a woman is a real game designer. Ugh.

Although I loved the epic-adventure feel, at times, this leans a bit too far into the Chosen One feeling. Mostly, I enjoyed when a new challenge, in OASIS or offline, was presented and it just so happened that Parzival/Wade was well-prepared to defeat it.  There’s an appealing fun escapism in this kind of quest, and it adds to the overall vibes of an RPG in the novel.  We readers can enjoy Wade excelling in every challenge, and it stressed the contrast between his online and offline worlds. But… since everything on the egg hunt comes easily to Wade, there wasn’t really much tension. I never worried that maybe he’d mess up and have to retry a game, let alone take a real injury or setback. It’s only when the egghunt game itself requires a trio take on a challenge together that there’s the hint of possibility that our Wade might not be the winner.

Ready Player One is also a friendship story, with Parzival, H, Shoto, Daito, and Art3mis eventually working together to defeat both the designed game objectives of the egg hunt and the emergent threat from the sixers. I enjoyed the character growth as Parzival learns to trust others and cooperate in his missions. Also, I wanted to hang out with Ogden more, I guess I’m older now.

Now, let’s talk about the ending. I can think of several other novels in which a gamer turned out to be *gasp* a girl, but rarely one where the newly-revealed girl gamer didn’t immediately become a love interest.  I can’t possibly describe how much H meant to me on the first reading. A woman who gets to be good at games  without also becoming the prize for the male lead character! Amazing.

H is only revealed as a Black lesbian near the end of the novel. She explains that, with her mother’s help, she’s chosen a male avatar for her entire online life, so that she won’t be stereotyped. It’s believable but still depressing to imagine that as the future. 

On a reread, ten years later, I found a bit of tokenism with H. Look, I still loved the reveal that a skilled player is a girl (and NOT the hero’s love interest!), but the big reveal that a Black lesbian could also be good at games and smart at nerd hobbies feels a bit off now.  Some of the Japanese honor going on with Shoto and Daito was a bit heavy-handed, too. I don’t say that to criticize Ready Player One as much as to highlight a pleasing increase in diversity in gaming fiction in the last decade. 88 Names, for example, is a gaming adventure with a wider variety of identities and more depth in their backgrounds.

Ok, the final meeting of Art3mis and Parzival in person is a bit annoying. She hints a few times about looking very different from her avatar, and then the big reveal is that she has a birthmark? There’s also a reference to her “Rubenesque” curves but uhh… her file seems like a pretty average size 8. So the meeting in person at the end of the novel less like a tragic secret and more a kind of J Alfred Prufrock discovery that women have bodies. (I didn’t even remember this part from my first reading, so I guess it didn’t leave much impression on me.)

With these shifts in my own perspective, Ready Player One still holds up as an engaging and significant gaming novel. These themes of adventure, exploration and collaboration continue to work well, especially for fun and escapist fiction. Such a popular and successful novel with an unabashedly nerdy focus has impacted other fiction in the years since its release. Probably the imagined future tech will begin to feel dated on future rereads. The idea of one avatar instead of endless anon sock puppets on social media, for example, or the laws demanding virtual students present as their legal gender, or Wade’s trust in the OASIS’ privacy laws, already diverge from the internet and gaming as we now know it. But the story of a forgotten teenager on an epic quest, through nerdy battles and retro games,  still stands.