“Ready Player One” is a novel by Ernest Cline and is based in the year 2045 where the world has entered an energy crisis and is in chaos with there not being enough space for everyone to live either. However, there is a hyper-realistic virtual world called the OASIS which the vast majority of the population spend the most of their time on. The creator of this video game created an easter egg in the game before he died the finder of which would become the sole owner of his multi trillion dollar business. There are three keys each of which have a gate there are riddles to find every key and gate. The creator of the OASIS was called James Halliday was obsessed with 80’s pop culture as that was his childhood with the release of the easter egg which was based around 80’s concepts making an explosion of popularity of 80’s culture and games etc. The main character is named Wade Watts who is equally obsessed with 80’s culture as Halliday was and has, according to himself, watched, played and read every movie/tv shows, game and book from the 80’s and basically knows them off-by-heart. There is also a telecommunications company called IOI (Innovative Online Industries) who are the second largest company in the world after the OASIS they have an entire department dedicated to finding the easter egg the leader of this company is called Nolan Sorrento they want to own the OASIS so that they can charge people to play ,as it is free to play if you have the equipment, and basically they want to optimise the OASIS for money to be made. Everyone else doesn’t want this to happen as most people who are on the OASIS don’t have much money and enjoy the freedom and escape the OASIS gives them.

I would recommend “Ready Player One” by Ernest Cline to year 12s because the characters and the messages the book itself has are very relevant to today as the OASIS could very well become a reality and with technology becoming more and more prevalent in our lives the book can serve as both a warning and a godsend because it shows the dangers of having a highly realistic and addictive video game where anyone can be whatever you like while also showing the reader the wonders and huge advantages of having something this amazing that can fill people with such joy and passion. The dangers are that today there are many studies that show that addiction is never good and difficult to get out of but when your job is one that game when your payment comes from the game as well as your enjoyment then that can only lead to problems with fitness levels as they will always be standing still this is a warning of how much worse it could get as there are more and more addicted gamers who are getting fat or even dying, getting extremely sick or injured from huge gaming marathons where they play a game for hours and hours with no end or break if that happening now then with a VR game where you can’t tell the difference between the real world and the virtual one this would be much much more common and the obesity rate would skyrocket as well as this since most people are on the OASIS most of the time they will most likely only socialise there and since you can look like whatever you want in the OASIS this identity shift may cause severe mental problems and a confusion of the real world for a dream so the book is telling the reader to watch themselves and to know the difference between the real and the virtual the gaining of weight is backed up when Wade becomes to fat to fit inside his expensive VR suit which is a huge wake up call for him and he ends up putting an exercise lock on his VR rig meaning that it will only unlock if he does a certain amount of exercise this is a very mature decision by Wade as he is realising  that his negligence of the real world has gone too far which is something I think students need to learn from this book as today people try to escape reality too much and that while accepting that it is a coping mechanism for some and that’s fine but every now and then looking into the real world and just going out into nature for a walk or something just to appreciate its beauty and for some exercise. The things this novel bring up really show the advantages of the OASIS. In this fantasy world the currency in the OASIS is an actual crypto-currency worth real world money and is the most stable currency in the world and because of the chaos and ruined real world, the majority of business transactions occur in the OASIS which is quite a step forward for humanity as the places where business etc. occurs will be a no pvp (player versus player) zone meaning that no combat between users is permitted or even possible making muggings etc. impossible in the OASIS making it the safest trading platform in the world and that combined with the ruined outside world make it the most stable currency in the world. As well as this James Halliday was very enthusiastic about the OASIS being used for other things besides 80’s insomnia as in the OASIS there are many planets that have been created that are covered in schools that are free for the public to use which, and it isn’t specified in the book but I think its safe to assume, most governments integrated their schooling systems into  the schools have obvious restrictions where all characters must be in human form and use their real names etc. apart from that it is a normal functioning school system with the power of the worlds education authorities behind it meaning it could possibly be the best ever to exist. Instead of paying for schools etc. the government instead gives out ‘school issue’ OASIS consoles with gloves and a headset so that you can use the OASIS for school work which is what Wade has at the beginning of the novel. This system allows even the poorest of kids to get access to an education without even leaving the comfort of your own home as well as this since it is in the OASIS as Wade does you can simply mute somebody if they are bullying you obviously you can’t mute the teachers but it’s a nice advantage for the OASIS where you don’t even have to hear them at all which is different yet similar to cyber-bullying which I believe is way too over thought of and is shown in the book but in the book it is a little better as you only meet them online. For cyber-bullying the thought is someone is constantly insulting you online through some social media platform and that cyber-bullying is easier than real life bullying because its very easy to do and is through a computer screen but I believe that while this is true and it is through a computer screen, for one these people can be blocked so that you can no longer see anything they say or the recipient is also has the same advantage that social media gives the bully it removes the face to face danger and gives both sides time to think through their response or even respond at all which may even empower them to stand up in real life. I think the “cyber-bullying” concept is a little too over done while I’m not saying people don’t suffer I’m merely saying that , as with most things, we as humans are purely focusing on the negative connotations to socialising online focusing on the power that the bully gains while forgetting the power the victim gains as they gain way more power over the situation than the bully does the victim can report to bully and possibly get them blocked from the ever increasing importance of social media or come back with something respectable which they could never do in the real world which is one of the things the novel highlights about the OASIS. It lets its users leave their real life problems behind and become whatever they want to be which is best shown by Wades best friend Aech who in the novel is actually a 16 year old black female whereas Wade thought he was a 16 year old guy. She explains that her mother told her to do this because it gives you more power in such a “patriarchal” society which I think is a bit far but nevertheless this allows Aech to have a completely different life to what she would have had she chosen to be a black woman in the OASIS and gives her a unique look on the world.

P.S. Ms Waide this is not finished I am hoping to touch it up later as I think i bring up some good points and want to expand and fix all the punctuation and grammar errors in the piece as well as the plentiful and large digressions throughout the paragraph.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Category

Writing