After reading eleven acclaimed 2017 novels, all of which involved current political/social issues, it was a relief to read a book purely for its entertainment value. This is by no means a masterpiece or destined to become a classic (except perhaps a cult classic for geeks), but it is great fun to read, especially for someone who is or has been involved in video gaming (not me) or who experienced '80's pop culture first-hand (me). It is fast moving, suspenseful, and hard to put down.
Wade is an eighteen-year-old living in a trailer park who spends most of his waking hours on-line in the virtual world Oasis. When the video game designer responsible for creating Oasis dies and stipulates in his will that his vast fortune will be inherited by the first to find the "Easter egg" hidden in the Oasis universe, Wade becomes one of the millions who try to solve the three riddles leading to the prize. Since the Oasis creator was well-known as having a love for all things from the 1980s, Wade has long immersed himself in the pinball and video games, music, movies, and television of the era, which is the key to his becoming the first to solve the beginning riddle.
Soon Wade, operating as his avatar Parzival, and his on-line friends (whom he has never seen in person) are in a dangerous race with IOI, a global communications conglomerate, to solve the remaining riddles and win the fortune and gain control of Oasis. IOI is a formidable foe because it has means and manpower to track down the real-life people hiding behind on-screen avatars. The quest becomes more than a computer game.
All of this is set in a dystopian world only slightly in the future, but all of the many problems are only mentioned in passing, mainly used as the reason why so many people, especially the youth, spend most of their time in the virtual world of Oasis. The focus is on the quest adventure and on an endless stream of '80s pop-culture references. Cline even throws in a little teen romance.
I am a bit puzzled as to the intended audience for this novel. Its tone and reading level would place it in the Young Adult category, but its concentration on '80s trivia would be of most interest to those 40+ who experienced those years. I enjoyed it immensely. I bought it, at her request, for my 14-year-old granddaughter. I will be interested to see how she likes it.
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A movie, which from the trailer seems geared to teenagers, is coming soon.
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