Status
Available
Call number
Series
Genres
Collection
Publication
Ballantine Books (2020), Edition: First Edition, 384 pages
Description
Days after winning OASIS founder James Halliday's contest, Wade Watts makes a discovery that changes everything. Hidden within Halliday's vaults, waiting for his heir to find, lies a technological advancement that will once again change the world and make the OASIS a thousand times more wondrous, and addictive, than even Wade dreamed possible. With it comes a new riddle, and a new quest, a last Easter egg from Halliday, hinting at a mysterious prize. And an unexpected, impossibly powerful, and dangerous new rival awaits, one who'll kill millions to get what he wants. Wade's life and the future of the OASIS are again at stake, but this time the fate of humanity also hangs in the balance.
User reviews
LibraryThing member santhony
As many have pointed out, this is essentially the same book as Ready Player One, without the novelty or compelling characters.
After completing the quest in the original novel, the protagonists are faced with a new challenge, similar to the first, but with world altering implications. The action
There are too many options available to waste your time on this retread.
After completing the quest in the original novel, the protagonists are faced with a new challenge, similar to the first, but with world altering implications. The action
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takes place in the same virtual world as the first with few surprises. At times, the story goes from boring to just downright silly (the entire Prince experience).There are too many options available to waste your time on this retread.
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LibraryThing member holdenkillfield
This book dragged. I truly believe this was everything that was cut from Ready Player One that just didn't fit. There was no need to do a sequel. A sequel that just ripped off the first book and did it poorly.
Once again, my gripe with this writer and this book is that it reads like a tome for all
I want a story, not a Wiki page of that era.
My review of his other book Armada echos many of the same sentiments as this review because this book did the same thing that the book Armada did- not enough story and too many useless facts.
Such a bummer because Ready Player One is a favorite book of mine that I have re-read 5xs. It never gets old, but this book. Jesus. This really is the first scraps and can't live up to the hype as the first.
Also, the main protagonist Wade Watts was such a jerk. I was so surprised by how insecure, petty, and childish he was in this story. He had redeemable traits in the first book, but in this story, not at all. It's bad when you start rooting for the hero's demise since they are so atrocious.
Once again, my gripe with this writer and this book is that it reads like a tome for all
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nerdom. There is such a thing as giving too much information. Being bogged down with dates, names, incessant useless information that doesn't move the story along.I want a story, not a Wiki page of that era.
My review of his other book Armada echos many of the same sentiments as this review because this book did the same thing that the book Armada did- not enough story and too many useless facts.
Such a bummer because Ready Player One is a favorite book of mine that I have re-read 5xs. It never gets old, but this book. Jesus. This really is the first scraps and can't live up to the hype as the first.
Also, the main protagonist Wade Watts was such a jerk. I was so surprised by how insecure, petty, and childish he was in this story. He had redeemable traits in the first book, but in this story, not at all. It's bad when you start rooting for the hero's demise since they are so atrocious.
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LibraryThing member aethercowboy
The sequel nobody asked for and fewer people wanted.
LibraryThing member Hccpsk
Some things are better left alone--Classic Coke, Caddyshack, and the Red Rising Trilogy to name a few. Add Ready Player One by Ernest Cline to that list, and not just for the terrible Spielberg adaptation. I had huge misgivings about Ready Player Two from the moment I heard about it, but like a
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moth to a flame I could not resist a follow-up to one of my favorite guilty pleasure books. Two picks up a few years after Wade and crew solve the final puzzle and inherit Halliday’s company and fortune, and we find Wade a lonely, isolated billionaire. Of course, there’s a new challenge to decipher, the crew reunites and joins up with another group, Wade realizes what really matters in the world, blah, blah, blah. Cline’s writing was never going to win any prizes, but Two sinks to a middle-school choose your own adventure level with painful cultural references and even more painful explanations of them. Even so, he manages to build a decent adventure aspect and suspenseful plot points that keep a reader slogging through to see what happens. Cline also conveys a very positive LGBTQ+ message--too bad he delivers it with a sledgehammer, but I’ll still take it. Real fans and younger readers may enjoy this book for the story, but new readers and those who need some refinement with their plot be warned. Show Less
LibraryThing member melmore
What a huge disappointment.
LibraryThing member theWallflower
I read the first one with an open heart, but without a critical eye. But through the years, after reading others’ takes on it, I’ve come around and no longer believe Ready Player One is the five-star delight I originally thought.
Most significant was the central theme, that being “if you
Plus, the lack of diversity, the weird sex, the total absence of female perspective, and me learning what good characters, good plotting, and good writing looks like, I came into this sequel with glasses un-smudged by nostalgia. Long story short, I wasn’t going to make the same mistake of naivety with this book.
Eight years have passed between book one and book two. Years which included a dismal sophomore follow-up and a popular Stephen Spielberg movie. Mr. Cline has had plenty of time to gain perspective on his work. Develop himself as a writer. Improve his craft, his tastes. Learn the mistakes he made in the past, correct them, and grow ambition for something that exceeded his original vision. That is the hope I had coming into this.
That hope was false.
This book is much the same as the first. In fact, it feels like both the protagonist and the author haven’t learned a thing from the previous book. The pop culture references are even more unnecessary and jammed in there (no one cares that you woke up to Soul II Soul). The story and characters are the same shit as the first one. No sign that Cline learned anything or developed his skill. This could be marketing (just give them the same slop that sold last time) or it could be laziness.
It starts with summary and summary and summary. No dialogue or characterization. All showing, no telling. The story doesn’t really start until a third of the way in, just like last time. Until then, all you’re getting is setup and backstory, and it’s sad. The main character is the CEO of the world’s biggest company–basically Facebook and Nintendo combined–and all he does is play video games all day. He loses the girlfriend he made in the last book because he goes all-in to sucking more people into the virtual world he now owns. He stops talking to the real-life friends he needed in the last book, and spends all his time in the OASIS instead of running the company. It’s like he learned nothing.
For the first 33% of the book, we just follow him in his routine. The author tries to give him “Save the Cat” credit by having him give away money on education (in his VR game) and providing rigs to poor people (for his VR game). He gives so much money away I wonder how his company makes a profit.
And this is part of the virtue-signaling in the book you’ve probably already heard of. I didn’t think virtue-signaling was a real thing until I read this. I thought it was a false flag made up by reactionaries and trolls to hate on people doing good. The triggering incident I’m talking about is when the main character meets a girl he likes (in the simulation). And just like in the last book, he violates her privacy, spies on her, digs up information (this time using his CEO privileges which violate the privacy policy and could get him in jail), and discovers she was assigned male at birth.
“Discovering this minor detail didn’t send me spiraling into a sexual-identity crisis…” Since his VR game allows him to have sex as anyone with anything, he’s realized that “passion was passion, and love was love.” Two things here. One, the fact that he’s only using gender in relation to sex (i.e. whether or not I’d do her) and not her character as a whole. And two, the author doing the same thing–using her gender status as the sole identifier of her character. This tidbit is the only thing I remember about this character. She does nothing in the story. She shows up two times, both as a “plot coupon” to help Wade out of a sticky situation. In other words, not exactly well-rounded. Virtue-signaling is when you tell people you’re “woke” without showing it through action.
So that’s out of the way, let’s talk about what’s left. The new “thing” in the story is technology created by the CEO who left the previous easter egg hunt. It’s called ONI and it’s a direct neural interface, meaning you can now touch, taste, and smell everything in the game. How the hell did this guy have time to design an expansive virtual world AND run a company from scratch (meaning marketing, management, customers, capital, facilities, etc.) AND build the hardware for the company AND architect the program the hardware would run on AND engineer the software to run on the hardware AND invent totally new equipment, in secret, that’s basically the singularity. By himself!
And like I said, the first 33% of the book is just this–setting up the book. The aftermath of winning the contest, finding the new ONI, releasing it to the public, shifting culture again so people spend even more time in a simulated world so the real world can go to pot. What reason is there to spend in reality anymore?
After all that summary the story finally starts and guess what. It’s ANOTHER Easter egg quest, designed by the founder (how did this guy have time to take a shit?). Go here, traverse the world, solve the clues, get the token. And it’s all eighties themed again. So yeah, guess what. You’re getting more of the same. Wade finds the path to one obstacle, finds the way around it (it’s not even detective work, it’s using trivia and video game powers), then moves onto the next. And everything is jammed with 80s pop culture. It makes the whole book a game of “I understood that reference.”
What is the reference Captain America understood? - Science Fiction & Fantasy Stack Exchange
Unless you can win that game, you’re not going to have any fun. For example, they spend three chapters on the Prince planet. Prince the artist. Three chapters on Prince’s entire history.
Here’s Ready Player Two’s basic structure. Imagine a football field. Our main character is at one end and the goal is at the other. In-between there are seven blockades. All the character has to do is climb over them, one after the other, to get to the goal. Character is at point A, wants to be at point B, gets to point B without any meaningful problems or deviations that surprise the reader. The end. This is number one item in Strange Horizons’s list of stories seen too often.
A better story would involve no obstacles at first. Then, at the twenty-yard-line, an impassible wall springs up. Our character has to dig under it, or scale it, only to find murderous eagles along the way. The second barricade spans the width of the field, so he has to run through the stands, which breaks the rules and he has to avoid being seen by referees. But that presents a new problem as the audience tries to hold him back. If he gets through, the audience hates him stepping on them. And so on.
They say, in a good story, when a character is close to achieving their goal, the goalposts get pushed back. Would Mario Kart be any fun without the random items knocking you back and forth in the race? Ready Player Two is full of “and then”, “and then”, “and then”, when it should be “buts” and “therefores”.
So yeah, drop this one from your to-read lists. Cline has not demonstrated that he’s learned anything as a writer and this book feels like catering to edgelords and internet trolls that are like his characters. There was plenty of opportunity here to fix the mistakes and improve upon the first one. Change the POV character. Have multiple POV characters. Start a family to add some maturity. Go all-female version of the first book. What is it like to be the CEO of a video game company? What are the consequences of a worldwide phenomenon that’s sucking the life out of the planet? Nope, just more Willy Wonka fun & games from the 1980s.
If the theme of this book is “if you obsess over something enough, you will get it”, Cline should learn the opposite. “Don’t cling to a mistake just because you spent a lot of time making it.”
Most significant was the central theme, that being “if you
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obsess over something enough, you will get it”. It’s the kind of thing entitled fanboys use to ruin things like Star Wars, Rick & Morty, sports, elections. It results in cults like YouTube content creators and QAnon. They think if they sink enough time into something, there’s a reward at the bottom of the well. Like a “nice guy” who believes being nice to a girl equals points on a “sex card” that he can trade in at some point. They think that because they invest time and money into someone else’s creative work, they possess a share of it. In other words, Sam Sykes’s stages of a toxic fandom: “I love this. I own this. I control this. I can’t control this. I hate this. I must destroy this.”Plus, the lack of diversity, the weird sex, the total absence of female perspective, and me learning what good characters, good plotting, and good writing looks like, I came into this sequel with glasses un-smudged by nostalgia. Long story short, I wasn’t going to make the same mistake of naivety with this book.
Eight years have passed between book one and book two. Years which included a dismal sophomore follow-up and a popular Stephen Spielberg movie. Mr. Cline has had plenty of time to gain perspective on his work. Develop himself as a writer. Improve his craft, his tastes. Learn the mistakes he made in the past, correct them, and grow ambition for something that exceeded his original vision. That is the hope I had coming into this.
That hope was false.
This book is much the same as the first. In fact, it feels like both the protagonist and the author haven’t learned a thing from the previous book. The pop culture references are even more unnecessary and jammed in there (no one cares that you woke up to Soul II Soul). The story and characters are the same shit as the first one. No sign that Cline learned anything or developed his skill. This could be marketing (just give them the same slop that sold last time) or it could be laziness.
It starts with summary and summary and summary. No dialogue or characterization. All showing, no telling. The story doesn’t really start until a third of the way in, just like last time. Until then, all you’re getting is setup and backstory, and it’s sad. The main character is the CEO of the world’s biggest company–basically Facebook and Nintendo combined–and all he does is play video games all day. He loses the girlfriend he made in the last book because he goes all-in to sucking more people into the virtual world he now owns. He stops talking to the real-life friends he needed in the last book, and spends all his time in the OASIS instead of running the company. It’s like he learned nothing.
For the first 33% of the book, we just follow him in his routine. The author tries to give him “Save the Cat” credit by having him give away money on education (in his VR game) and providing rigs to poor people (for his VR game). He gives so much money away I wonder how his company makes a profit.
And this is part of the virtue-signaling in the book you’ve probably already heard of. I didn’t think virtue-signaling was a real thing until I read this. I thought it was a false flag made up by reactionaries and trolls to hate on people doing good. The triggering incident I’m talking about is when the main character meets a girl he likes (in the simulation). And just like in the last book, he violates her privacy, spies on her, digs up information (this time using his CEO privileges which violate the privacy policy and could get him in jail), and discovers she was assigned male at birth.
“Discovering this minor detail didn’t send me spiraling into a sexual-identity crisis…” Since his VR game allows him to have sex as anyone with anything, he’s realized that “passion was passion, and love was love.” Two things here. One, the fact that he’s only using gender in relation to sex (i.e. whether or not I’d do her) and not her character as a whole. And two, the author doing the same thing–using her gender status as the sole identifier of her character. This tidbit is the only thing I remember about this character. She does nothing in the story. She shows up two times, both as a “plot coupon” to help Wade out of a sticky situation. In other words, not exactly well-rounded. Virtue-signaling is when you tell people you’re “woke” without showing it through action.
So that’s out of the way, let’s talk about what’s left. The new “thing” in the story is technology created by the CEO who left the previous easter egg hunt. It’s called ONI and it’s a direct neural interface, meaning you can now touch, taste, and smell everything in the game. How the hell did this guy have time to design an expansive virtual world AND run a company from scratch (meaning marketing, management, customers, capital, facilities, etc.) AND build the hardware for the company AND architect the program the hardware would run on AND engineer the software to run on the hardware AND invent totally new equipment, in secret, that’s basically the singularity. By himself!
And like I said, the first 33% of the book is just this–setting up the book. The aftermath of winning the contest, finding the new ONI, releasing it to the public, shifting culture again so people spend even more time in a simulated world so the real world can go to pot. What reason is there to spend in reality anymore?
After all that summary the story finally starts and guess what. It’s ANOTHER Easter egg quest, designed by the founder (how did this guy have time to take a shit?). Go here, traverse the world, solve the clues, get the token. And it’s all eighties themed again. So yeah, guess what. You’re getting more of the same. Wade finds the path to one obstacle, finds the way around it (it’s not even detective work, it’s using trivia and video game powers), then moves onto the next. And everything is jammed with 80s pop culture. It makes the whole book a game of “I understood that reference.”
What is the reference Captain America understood? - Science Fiction & Fantasy Stack Exchange
Unless you can win that game, you’re not going to have any fun. For example, they spend three chapters on the Prince planet. Prince the artist. Three chapters on Prince’s entire history.
Here’s Ready Player Two’s basic structure. Imagine a football field. Our main character is at one end and the goal is at the other. In-between there are seven blockades. All the character has to do is climb over them, one after the other, to get to the goal. Character is at point A, wants to be at point B, gets to point B without any meaningful problems or deviations that surprise the reader. The end. This is number one item in Strange Horizons’s list of stories seen too often.
A better story would involve no obstacles at first. Then, at the twenty-yard-line, an impassible wall springs up. Our character has to dig under it, or scale it, only to find murderous eagles along the way. The second barricade spans the width of the field, so he has to run through the stands, which breaks the rules and he has to avoid being seen by referees. But that presents a new problem as the audience tries to hold him back. If he gets through, the audience hates him stepping on them. And so on.
They say, in a good story, when a character is close to achieving their goal, the goalposts get pushed back. Would Mario Kart be any fun without the random items knocking you back and forth in the race? Ready Player Two is full of “and then”, “and then”, “and then”, when it should be “buts” and “therefores”.
So yeah, drop this one from your to-read lists. Cline has not demonstrated that he’s learned anything as a writer and this book feels like catering to edgelords and internet trolls that are like his characters. There was plenty of opportunity here to fix the mistakes and improve upon the first one. Change the POV character. Have multiple POV characters. Start a family to add some maturity. Go all-female version of the first book. What is it like to be the CEO of a video game company? What are the consequences of a worldwide phenomenon that’s sucking the life out of the planet? Nope, just more Willy Wonka fun & games from the 1980s.
If the theme of this book is “if you obsess over something enough, you will get it”, Cline should learn the opposite. “Don’t cling to a mistake just because you spent a lot of time making it.”
Show Less
LibraryThing member Twink
I loved the first book and was quite happy to see there was at last a follow up to the adventures of the High Five. Ready Player Two again has Wade and his friends on one more epic quest - one to save millions of lives from - of course - a nefarious entity. Good vs. Evil. David vs. Goliath. Cline
The Player books draw heavily on '80's references - Pac Man, Monty Python and the Holy Grail, song lyrics, film scenes and a whole lot more - as these are the clues used to solve the puzzle. Now I absolutely 'got' almost every reference and could picture the film scenes easily. Younger listeners may not relate to some of the references. Or they may now be chasing down some classic films and tunes!
I liked Wade as a lead in the first book and he still appealed to me in this second book. Cline gives him some weaknesses and some life lessons in this book that make him human and give him a personality instead of just a game player.
That being said, Ready Player Two is all about the game, the clues, the chase and the run up to a final showdown. The book is action, action and more action!
I listened to this book and the reader was Wil Wheaton, a favourite of mine and the perfect choice for a narrator. He did the first book as well and the continuity was much appreciated. He has the most expressive voice! His tone suits Wade, is believable and totally suited the mental image I had conjured up for this character. (He did well with the other players as well.) He brings the book to life with staccato sentences, inflection that matches what's going on, (a nicely sardonic tone at times) and emotion that suits the plot. He's easy to understand and enunciates well.
I wonder if there will be a movie made of this book as well? And if there might be a Ready Player Three in the future?
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has the reader/listener firmly on the side of the underdogs. Can they reprise their first victory?The Player books draw heavily on '80's references - Pac Man, Monty Python and the Holy Grail, song lyrics, film scenes and a whole lot more - as these are the clues used to solve the puzzle. Now I absolutely 'got' almost every reference and could picture the film scenes easily. Younger listeners may not relate to some of the references. Or they may now be chasing down some classic films and tunes!
I liked Wade as a lead in the first book and he still appealed to me in this second book. Cline gives him some weaknesses and some life lessons in this book that make him human and give him a personality instead of just a game player.
That being said, Ready Player Two is all about the game, the clues, the chase and the run up to a final showdown. The book is action, action and more action!
I listened to this book and the reader was Wil Wheaton, a favourite of mine and the perfect choice for a narrator. He did the first book as well and the continuity was much appreciated. He has the most expressive voice! His tone suits Wade, is believable and totally suited the mental image I had conjured up for this character. (He did well with the other players as well.) He brings the book to life with staccato sentences, inflection that matches what's going on, (a nicely sardonic tone at times) and emotion that suits the plot. He's easy to understand and enunciates well.
I wonder if there will be a movie made of this book as well? And if there might be a Ready Player Three in the future?
Show Less
LibraryThing member Narilka
Have you ever been excited and surprised by an unexpected sequel to a book that you thought was going to be stand alone? That's how I felt when I heard the news there was going to be a sequel to Ready Player One. I had no idea where the story would go but was game to give it a try, excited to head
The biggest problem with the book is Wade Watts. In the first installment Wade was the underdog, geeky and likeable, easy to root for. In Ready Player Two Wade has turned into the very thing he was fighting against since winning Halliday's contest: a complete and utter corporate jerk. He kills people in game who say mean things about him, sometimes even going so far to ruin their real lives just because he can. He cyber-stalks his friends and other people he finds interesting, abusing the God-like powers granted to him as owner of the OASIS to invisibly listen in on private conversations. He releases new hardware that plugs directly into users brains without a second thought and believes he is helping make lives better by distracting people from the their real problems. He's also incredibly rude to his ex-girlfriend whe he's supposedly still in love with and learns tolerance to others via... porn. Right. This could have been offset if the supporting characters have been given more page time but unfortunately they aren't. This is all Wade's show.
After a lot of info dumps and being caught up on how low Wade has fallen, it takes about a third of the book before the new quest starts. The set up is silly and that's ok. This is where the story finally picks up and returns to the fun of the first novel. Yep, there is plenty of geekery, both from the 80's and other eras, though it's highly focused on seven very specific topics as part of the quest.
After doing some searches it appears Cline was trying to address criticisms from Ready Player One with this book. It's too bad as it takes away from the geeky magic he had achieved as his political commentary comes across as very heavy handed.
I listened to the audio book narrated by Wil Wheaton. He does a fantastic job and does what he can with the material.
Overall, Ready Player Two is entertaining and not the worst sequel I've read but doesn't recapture the magic of the first book. The story is fully wrapped up yet leaves enough concepts left to explore in the future should Cline decide to write more. I will likely give further entries to the series, if there are any, a pass.
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back to the OASIS for more adventures. Ready Player Two follows a similar plot line to the first book. Days after winning Halliday's contest, Wade discovers a secret vault that contains a technological advancement and a new quest that relies heavily on knowing pop-culture references the creator of the OASIS was in to, both of which will change the OASIS and humanity forever. The biggest problem with the book is Wade Watts. In the first installment Wade was the underdog, geeky and likeable, easy to root for. In Ready Player Two Wade has turned into the very thing he was fighting against since winning Halliday's contest: a complete and utter corporate jerk. He kills people in game who say mean things about him, sometimes even going so far to ruin their real lives just because he can. He cyber-stalks his friends and other people he finds interesting, abusing the God-like powers granted to him as owner of the OASIS to invisibly listen in on private conversations. He releases new hardware that plugs directly into users brains without a second thought and believes he is helping make lives better by distracting people from the their real problems. He's also incredibly rude to his ex-girlfriend whe he's supposedly still in love with and learns tolerance to others via... porn. Right. This could have been offset if the supporting characters have been given more page time but unfortunately they aren't. This is all Wade's show.
After a lot of info dumps and being caught up on how low Wade has fallen, it takes about a third of the book before the new quest starts. The set up is silly and that's ok. This is where the story finally picks up and returns to the fun of the first novel. Yep, there is plenty of geekery, both from the 80's and other eras, though it's highly focused on seven very specific topics as part of the quest.
After doing some searches it appears Cline was trying to address criticisms from Ready Player One with this book. It's too bad as it takes away from the geeky magic he had achieved as his political commentary comes across as very heavy handed.
I listened to the audio book narrated by Wil Wheaton. He does a fantastic job and does what he can with the material.
Overall, Ready Player Two is entertaining and not the worst sequel I've read but doesn't recapture the magic of the first book. The story is fully wrapped up yet leaves enough concepts left to explore in the future should Cline decide to write more. I will likely give further entries to the series, if there are any, a pass.
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LibraryThing member TomDonaghey
Ready Player Two (2020) by Ernest Cline. This is a continuation of the mega-hit Ready Player One that picks up on level four of Wade Watt’s game within the OASIS.
The following contains a spoiler. Do not read this unless you have read the first book or if you want to have the ending of it
Having won the first game and everything that goes with it, Wade is now faced with another puzzle, one that only the heir of James Halliday can unlock. This comes just after he releases to the world a stunning upgrade to the original simulation of the OASIS. Now, with new technology, you can use all your senses to travel within the realm of the computer worlds, making the Oasis an almost impossible lure to the masses. But with this new boon to the world, and the ever growing coffers of GSS, comes the quest.
And a very, very deadly threat to the real world. Genocide awaits if Wade can not solve the quest and uncover the new prize and give to his tormentor. But the prize is the only thing his true opponent wants.
As mind bending and compelling as the first book Ready Player Two delivers the goods. Also you must keep in mind that when the first book was written, we did not have our current economic downturn, pandemic, or political strife, among other things. Just wonder what extra details Mr. Cline has in this book that loom in our near future.
The following contains a spoiler. Do not read this unless you have read the first book or if you want to have the ending of it
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revealed to you.Having won the first game and everything that goes with it, Wade is now faced with another puzzle, one that only the heir of James Halliday can unlock. This comes just after he releases to the world a stunning upgrade to the original simulation of the OASIS. Now, with new technology, you can use all your senses to travel within the realm of the computer worlds, making the Oasis an almost impossible lure to the masses. But with this new boon to the world, and the ever growing coffers of GSS, comes the quest.
And a very, very deadly threat to the real world. Genocide awaits if Wade can not solve the quest and uncover the new prize and give to his tormentor. But the prize is the only thing his true opponent wants.
As mind bending and compelling as the first book Ready Player Two delivers the goods. Also you must keep in mind that when the first book was written, we did not have our current economic downturn, pandemic, or political strife, among other things. Just wonder what extra details Mr. Cline has in this book that loom in our near future.
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LibraryThing member lilibrarian
Sequel to Ready Player One. The High Five face a new challenge that they must solve to save many players linked in and trapped in the game environment.
LibraryThing member bookworm12
I went in with lowered expectations because of all the reviews. Because of that I was entertained, though I wouldn't reread it. I loved the first book and I'm glad I read this one on audio. It's a let down after the brilliance of the first, but there are still fun and memorable moments like a great
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one with John Hughes and it's packed with pop culture references, as you'd expect. Don't expect too much and it's a fun romp. Show Less
LibraryThing member Cecrow
I raced through this just as fast or faster than the first, despite its being front-loaded with a hundred pages of lecturing exposition about how three years play out before this sequel really gets underway. Cline proves very good at extrapolating the next logical steps for how the OASIS evolves,
The nostalgic elements are back, and our gunters get all caught up in it as before. So was I. Whenever one of my favorite memories is underserved or excluded, I realize how much I'd love to play with all these toys myself. The story here is very good, but problems arise with how it's told. A hundred pages of set up is a bit much, with not a scrap of foreshadowing to tell you where it's going. Inside of that is a throwaway conflict that doesn't nearly get the treatment it deserves. Cline surprised me by dismissing it in one paragraph without mining that novel's-worth of value. Wade's views about it are too briefly visited and weirdly conflicted, considering how easy he found the decision. Meanwhile, throughout this section Aech and Shoto are relegated to two dimensions, either freaking out or getting their cool on. Fortunately they are better addressed before the end. Sam at least is well done throughout, and sometimes the story's anchor. When it otherwise feels like Cline is losing sight of the key issues, she's there to speak for us.
The ending offers two streams for a third book to pursue, and Cline is liable to split the vote on which one his fans hope he'll follow. I think it's clear which one he prefers, in that while he pointedly acknowledges the Earth's many problems he doesn't seem interested in seriously engaging with them. I believed the first book's conclusion was suggesting that reality has been ignored for too long, but apparently Cline doesn't feel obligated to revisit that thought in his continuing ode to escapism.
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Noting the biggest plot hole:Anorak doesn't notice Wade was going to retrieve the shards all on his own, no forcing required? He could have swooped at the last minute, instead of at the start (but then, no story).
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and it does so at a lightning pace just like technology in the real world. Wade's character development is also realistic, in that he does not become everything he promised to be. Some of his behaviours would even make him unlikeable if he wasn't so self-aware a narrator. Halliday left behind some advanced technology and another mystery for his heir to unravel that Wade is too cavalier about, and he learns his lesson when the stakes go through the roof.The nostalgic elements are back, and our gunters get all caught up in it as before. So was I. Whenever one of my favorite memories is underserved or excluded, I realize how much I'd love to play with all these toys myself. The story here is very good, but problems arise with how it's told. A hundred pages of set up is a bit much, with not a scrap of foreshadowing to tell you where it's going. Inside of that is a throwaway conflict that doesn't nearly get the treatment it deserves. Cline surprised me by dismissing it in one paragraph without mining that novel's-worth of value. Wade's views about it are too briefly visited and weirdly conflicted, considering how easy he found the decision. Meanwhile, throughout this section Aech and Shoto are relegated to two dimensions, either freaking out or getting their cool on. Fortunately they are better addressed before the end. Sam at least is well done throughout, and sometimes the story's anchor. When it otherwise feels like Cline is losing sight of the key issues, she's there to speak for us.
The ending offers two streams for a third book to pursue, and Cline is liable to split the vote on which one his fans hope he'll follow. I think it's clear which one he prefers, in that while he pointedly acknowledges the Earth's many problems he doesn't seem interested in seriously engaging with them. I believed the first book's conclusion was suggesting that reality has been ignored for too long, but apparently Cline doesn't feel obligated to revisit that thought in his continuing ode to escapism.
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Noting the biggest plot hole:
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LibraryThing member Authentico
Ernest Cline has done it again. Another great book that I didn't want to put down. If you are an Ernest Cline fan then you will enjoy this one.
In order to understand everything you should read Ready Player One before you read this book. This book picks up almost right after the 1st book
The book ends in a way that leaves Ernest an opening to continue the series (Ready Player Three anyone?). The books does also contain an hidden easter egg hunt (it is present in the physical and ebooks) which hasn't been announced (at the time of writing this review) but I'm sure it will be announced at some point with a nice prize (like Ready Player One).
I look forward to Ernest's next book (whatever it may be).
In order to understand everything you should read Ready Player One before you read this book. This book picks up almost right after the 1st book
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finishes.The book ends in a way that leaves Ernest an opening to continue the series (Ready Player Three anyone?). The books does also contain an hidden easter egg hunt (it is present in the physical and ebooks) which hasn't been announced (at the time of writing this review) but I'm sure it will be announced at some point with a nice prize (like Ready Player One).
I look forward to Ernest's next book (whatever it may be).
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LibraryThing member travelster
Great sections mixed in with long dull areas.
LibraryThing member DarthDeverell
When I first read Ernest Cline’s Ready Player One back in 2015, I was impressed with how he used popular culture references to set up the story and move the plot along. The book was in many ways the purest distillation of the wave of 1980s nostalgia occurring throughout the media landscape at the
Ready Player Two begins with the revelation that James Halliday left behind a new device, the OASIS neural interface (ONI), that allows for perfect VR immersion. Users can feel the breeze, smell the scents in a room, taste food, and more. They can also record their brainwaves during use or other experiences into a file that allows others to experience those events as if they were the person recording them. When Wade Watts (Parzival), Shoto, Aech and Samantha (Art3mis) decide to release the device, it quickly becomes the fastest-selling headset on the planet. At the moment the servers reach 7,777,777 users, a new recorded riddle appears leading to yet another quest for pieces to a puzzle – the Seven Shards of the Siren’s Soul, a puzzle involving Ogden Morrow’s wife, Kira, who was an uncredited co-creator of the OASIS and the object of James Halliday’s fixation. Complicating matters this time are the return of an old foe and a determined AI that will stop at nothing to find the object of the quest.
The first few chapters feature references to various films, shows, and songs of the 1980s that almost feel lazy, like Cline is referencing them in order to check them off a list. As bad as that is, it’s nothing compared to the way this sequel exacerbates the problematic and clumsy characterization of women and LGBTQIA characters from the first novel, combining those issues with issues of digital privacy. Worse, while Wade Watts was generally likeable in the first book even if he embodied a somewhat clichéd version of nerd culture, here he embodies all the worst tropes of someone who suddenly has unchecked power. The closest comparison would be to the portrayal of Mark Zuckerberg in The Social Network, particularly the opening scene in which Erica Albright tells him that being an a******, rather than a nerd, is the reason people won’t like him. And Wade’s behavior demonstrates exactly that sense of entitlement from the beginning of Ready Player Two. Furthermore, where the previous novel never shied away from the troubles of planet Earth, this book makes it clear that climate change, social justice, poverty, healthcare, food scarcity, and other issues could not be much worse in the 2040s. The OASIS and ONI simply serve as a distraction for people who have already given up (pg. 154). Plenty of science fiction has covered themes of dying civilizations, with Bradbury’s Martian Chronicles offering a stand-out example, but Cline never quite balances his portrayal of a pessimistic world resigned to its fate with upbeat ’80s pop culture and Gen X nostalgia so that the two tones are in conflict for the whole story. Further, it implies that people are incapable of empathy without something like the ONI to effectively give them first-person insight into the suffering of others.
Those issues aside, the portions of the quest for the Seven Shards that involve a world based on Prince and a world based on the First Age of Middle Earth offer some fun nerd culture moments and deep dives into the impact of both on the cultural landscape. Through Aech, Cline discusses how Prince’s music and persona helped many who were struggling with their identity and how they felt betrayed when the Jehovah’s Witnesses converted him (pg. 264). Similarly, Wade’s reaction to elements of The Silmarillion reflects many casual fans’ response to the work. Ready Player Two itself has a lot of promise, particularly in the possibility of interrogating misogyny and white-dominance in geek culture, but it sadly falls short in this regard and perpetuates a vision of nerd culture reflective of the 1980s rather than the multifaceted culture of the 2010s and 2020s, when Cline wrote. Further, the final twist makes ones hope for a work more akin to that of Clarke or Bradbury throughout. Fans of the original will likely find elements to enjoy in Ready Player Two, though one hopes Cline will branch out more in future work.
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time. The more I reflected on it, the more I noticed some problematic parts, but overall it was a good adventure story. Naturally, I was excited for his follow-up book, Armada, but that repeated his trend of referencing 1980s pop culture and effectively retold Nick Castle’s 1984 film, The Last Starfighter, though it also drew upon Carl Sagan’s postulation that the first signal alien life might detect could be the 1936 Berlin Olympics hosted by Nazi Germany (a premise Sagan himself used in his own novel from 1985, Contact; meanwhile, Cline again references The Last Starfighter in Ready Player Two [pg. 131]). Now, with Ready Player Two, it appears that Cline has fallen back on the trend of relying on pop culture references to drive his story.Ready Player Two begins with the revelation that James Halliday left behind a new device, the OASIS neural interface (ONI), that allows for perfect VR immersion. Users can feel the breeze, smell the scents in a room, taste food, and more. They can also record their brainwaves during use or other experiences into a file that allows others to experience those events as if they were the person recording them. When Wade Watts (Parzival), Shoto, Aech and Samantha (Art3mis) decide to release the device, it quickly becomes the fastest-selling headset on the planet. At the moment the servers reach 7,777,777 users, a new recorded riddle appears leading to yet another quest for pieces to a puzzle – the Seven Shards of the Siren’s Soul, a puzzle involving Ogden Morrow’s wife, Kira, who was an uncredited co-creator of the OASIS and the object of James Halliday’s fixation. Complicating matters this time are the return of an old foe and a determined AI that will stop at nothing to find the object of the quest.
The first few chapters feature references to various films, shows, and songs of the 1980s that almost feel lazy, like Cline is referencing them in order to check them off a list. As bad as that is, it’s nothing compared to the way this sequel exacerbates the problematic and clumsy characterization of women and LGBTQIA characters from the first novel, combining those issues with issues of digital privacy. Worse, while Wade Watts was generally likeable in the first book even if he embodied a somewhat clichéd version of nerd culture, here he embodies all the worst tropes of someone who suddenly has unchecked power. The closest comparison would be to the portrayal of Mark Zuckerberg in The Social Network, particularly the opening scene in which Erica Albright tells him that being an a******, rather than a nerd, is the reason people won’t like him. And Wade’s behavior demonstrates exactly that sense of entitlement from the beginning of Ready Player Two. Furthermore, where the previous novel never shied away from the troubles of planet Earth, this book makes it clear that climate change, social justice, poverty, healthcare, food scarcity, and other issues could not be much worse in the 2040s. The OASIS and ONI simply serve as a distraction for people who have already given up (pg. 154). Plenty of science fiction has covered themes of dying civilizations, with Bradbury’s Martian Chronicles offering a stand-out example, but Cline never quite balances his portrayal of a pessimistic world resigned to its fate with upbeat ’80s pop culture and Gen X nostalgia so that the two tones are in conflict for the whole story. Further, it implies that people are incapable of empathy without something like the ONI to effectively give them first-person insight into the suffering of others.
Those issues aside, the portions of the quest for the Seven Shards that involve a world based on Prince and a world based on the First Age of Middle Earth offer some fun nerd culture moments and deep dives into the impact of both on the cultural landscape. Through Aech, Cline discusses how Prince’s music and persona helped many who were struggling with their identity and how they felt betrayed when the Jehovah’s Witnesses converted him (pg. 264). Similarly, Wade’s reaction to elements of The Silmarillion reflects many casual fans’ response to the work. Ready Player Two itself has a lot of promise, particularly in the possibility of interrogating misogyny and white-dominance in geek culture, but it sadly falls short in this regard and perpetuates a vision of nerd culture reflective of the 1980s rather than the multifaceted culture of the 2010s and 2020s, when Cline wrote. Further, the final twist makes ones hope for a work more akin to that of Clarke or Bradbury throughout. Fans of the original will likely find elements to enjoy in Ready Player Two, though one hopes Cline will branch out more in future work.
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LibraryThing member Razinha
Underneath the mountains of minutiae is an okay sequel peeking out. As sequels go, it's about par...the drop off from the original is to be expected - that would be hard to sustain. The set up was long until the first, major, twist, at which the pace picked up considerably. The ending was
Fewer puzzles, more trivia (some imagined), still, it was engaging; I finished it late last night, despite spending a good deal of yesterday cooking. I expect another nearly unrecognizable movie adaptation, this time made easier because there is more action, and this time made cringing because...Prince, but I also expect I'll watch it. This book falls between Armada and RP1. Nice that LibraryThing allows half-stars, which after all this time I've only learned about today? . (And again, people feel nauseated, not "nauseous"...minor quibbling point first seen in Armada.)
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predictable, and foreshadowed within. Personally, I could have gone the entire book with not a single mention of Prince - a single being too much for me - but chapters? Fans may or may not love it. I'm a Tolkien fan, mostly, and Cline chose The Silmarillion to also devote chapters to and I didn't love it.Fewer puzzles, more trivia (some imagined), still, it was engaging; I finished it late last night, despite spending a good deal of yesterday cooking. I expect another nearly unrecognizable movie adaptation, this time made easier because there is more action, and this time made cringing because...Prince, but I also expect I'll watch it. This book falls between Armada and RP1. Nice that LibraryThing allows half-stars, which after all this time I've only learned about today? . (And again, people feel nauseated, not "nauseous"...minor quibbling point first seen in Armada.)
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LibraryThing member krau0098
Series Info/Source: This is the 2nd book in the Ready Player One series. I got this as an audiobook through Audible.com.
Audiobook Quality (4/5): The audiobook quality was great, I love the way Wheaton reads audiobooks. This overall book rating is bumped up from 2 stars to 3 stars because my family
Story (3/5): I absolutely adored Ready Player One, so I approached this book cautiously...it's always hard to read a follow up book to a book that you love so much. Ultimately this book was very disappointing; it lacked the charm, fun, and fast-pace of the first book. The beginning of the book alternates between being a huge info dump and listening to Wade whine about what a mess he's made of his life. We finally get more into quest mode about 25% in ,when a new Quest for the Seven Shards is introduced. I liked the premise of the ONI, which allows users a full sensory experience in the OASIS.
Characters (3/5): We get to meet some fun new characters that I wish had gotten more page space. I am hoping there is a future story featuring the Low 5. Way too much time is spent on Wade’s whininess. All of the original characters feel kind of tired and overdone. I also had some major issues with the turn Sam and Wade's relationship takes at the end, it felt really contrived.
Setting (3/5): Rather than focusing on a lot of cool 80's video game trivia this book focuses more on pop culture 80's aspects. A huge portion of the quest takes place on a John Hughes world, I have never seen a John Hughes movie and don't care to...I got really really bored with how long this section was...it just went on forever. Another huge portion of the quest takes place in a Prince world (the singer Prince), I could follow these references a bit better since I am a Minnesota resident but I am not a huge Prince fan either. We also get to do part of the quest on a Middle Earth world which I loved, I wish that part had been longer.
Writing Style (2/5): The whole premise behind this book is interesting but, as mentioned above, it takes a long amount of time for the story to get going. The book wraps up in a predictable way and towards the end I just wanted it to...well...end! There's a "twist" at the end that wasn't much of a twist. This was long and boring and such a disappointment to me.
My Summary (3/5): Overall there were a few small things I liked but mostly things I didn't like and found annoying. If there is a book featuring the Low 5 I might pick it up, but I was pretty thoroughly disappointed in this book and am going steer clear of Cline for a bit here. If you haven’t read this book, I would recommend skipping it..bask in the amazing glow that is “Ready Player One” and pretend “Ready Player Two” didn’t happen.
Audiobook Quality (4/5): The audiobook quality was great, I love the way Wheaton reads audiobooks. This overall book rating is bumped up from 2 stars to 3 stars because my family
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listened to this on audiobook and we all just really enjoyed Wil Wheaton's narration of the story.Story (3/5): I absolutely adored Ready Player One, so I approached this book cautiously...it's always hard to read a follow up book to a book that you love so much. Ultimately this book was very disappointing; it lacked the charm, fun, and fast-pace of the first book. The beginning of the book alternates between being a huge info dump and listening to Wade whine about what a mess he's made of his life. We finally get more into quest mode about 25% in ,when a new Quest for the Seven Shards is introduced. I liked the premise of the ONI, which allows users a full sensory experience in the OASIS.
Characters (3/5): We get to meet some fun new characters that I wish had gotten more page space. I am hoping there is a future story featuring the Low 5. Way too much time is spent on Wade’s whininess. All of the original characters feel kind of tired and overdone. I also had some major issues with the turn Sam and Wade's relationship takes at the end, it felt really contrived.
Setting (3/5): Rather than focusing on a lot of cool 80's video game trivia this book focuses more on pop culture 80's aspects. A huge portion of the quest takes place on a John Hughes world, I have never seen a John Hughes movie and don't care to...I got really really bored with how long this section was...it just went on forever. Another huge portion of the quest takes place in a Prince world (the singer Prince), I could follow these references a bit better since I am a Minnesota resident but I am not a huge Prince fan either. We also get to do part of the quest on a Middle Earth world which I loved, I wish that part had been longer.
Writing Style (2/5): The whole premise behind this book is interesting but, as mentioned above, it takes a long amount of time for the story to get going. The book wraps up in a predictable way and towards the end I just wanted it to...well...end! There's a "twist" at the end that wasn't much of a twist. This was long and boring and such a disappointment to me.
My Summary (3/5): Overall there were a few small things I liked but mostly things I didn't like and found annoying. If there is a book featuring the Low 5 I might pick it up, but I was pretty thoroughly disappointed in this book and am going steer clear of Cline for a bit here. If you haven’t read this book, I would recommend skipping it..bask in the amazing glow that is “Ready Player One” and pretend “Ready Player Two” didn’t happen.
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LibraryThing member Arkrayder
Total bollocks. The writing was so crap. Why is this so popular?
LibraryThing member villemezbrown
A bit of a bore as the author labored hard for the first half to hit reset and basically have a higher-stakes do-over of the first book's quest in the second half.
No one should be allowed to make Prince boring.
No one should be allowed to make Prince boring.
LibraryThing member MickyFine
Days after winning Halliday's Easter egg contest, Wade Watts discovers a new piece of technology that completely changes how everyone interacts with the OASIS. At the same time he also reveals a new quest from Halliday that can only be completed by Wade. However foes old and new await him and the
Turning off the analytical part of my brain made this a thoroughly entertaining read. Think too hard about any of the troubling issues raised by the novel but that are never truly addressed (global warming, economic disparity, the dangers of excessive escapism) and it becomes less entertaining and more a dark picture of a potential future. Also I have a lot of mixed feels about the ending. Fans of the first novel will likely be pleased with this sequel.
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threats they pose are beyond imagining. As Wade teams up once again with his friends, he'll need all the pop culture knowledge he can get to make it to the end.Turning off the analytical part of my brain made this a thoroughly entertaining read. Think too hard about any of the troubling issues raised by the novel but that are never truly addressed (global warming, economic disparity, the dangers of excessive escapism) and it becomes less entertaining and more a dark picture of a potential future. Also I have a lot of mixed feels about the ending. Fans of the first novel will likely be pleased with this sequel.
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LibraryThing member ecataldi
The reviews were overwhelmingly negative for this book so I went in skeptical - but honestly it was an enjoyable ride. Was it necessary? No. But it was still fun. The pop culture references were a bit overkill (imagine ten times more than the first book) but what Wade is fighting for is really
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unique and imaginative. Same with the ending - I didn't expect it to go where it went. Basically - it boils down to - there is another quest - Seven Shards of the Siren's Soul - and Wade is under a HUGE time crunch to solve it before something unimaginable happens to all the people he loves. He gets the crew back together (along with a few new friends) and they have to combine all their obscure pop culture knowledge to save the world (literally). Fun and supremely over the top. This won't be everyone's cup of tea and if you would prefer to skip it - it's not a needed sequel. Show Less
LibraryThing member invisiblelizard
Okay, after saying I wasn't going to read Ready Player Two (after a re-read of RP1 left me underwhelmed) I dove in and went for it anyway. "How bad could it be?" I said to myself.
The answer is: pretty bad, as it turns out. Mediocre writing in the first novel was at least balanced by a fun and
First of all, it's a study of why authors shouldn't read online reviews of their own books. A great deal of this book revolves around two things that I suspect were prevalent areas of praise and complaint his myriad fans voiced (loudly) regarding the first novel:
• (praise) Pop culture references! The first novel was replete with 80's pop culture icons and memorabilia, but this one took it all the way up to the 21st century with various references such as The Lord of the Rings movies, The Matrix, and many others. And while the first novel wove them in naturally to the story, this one dumped them in almost randomly. And I got the sense that Cline was being more selective about them, deliberately choosing references that could be used in the eventual movie that might get made from this book. (If you've seen the first book's movie you'll know how so much from the book had to get changed due to what I assume were oppressive licensing costs from the rights holders of so many random references.)
• (complaint) World building inconsistencies! Whenever an author creates a new world with new rules (like a story that takes place mostly inside an MMO) readers will pick apart any time that those rules aren't followed, or properly explored. I can only imagine the volume of critiques Cline got after the first book because readers said, "How come Wade didn't do this to get out of [some situation]?" Or "Why didn't [so-and-so] use an artifact like that when [such-and-such] did [whatever]?" You get the idea. Everybody's a critic. And everybody's an expert. Well this time around, Cline spend a considerable amount of time pre-answering all of these questions by having one character ask another, "Why don't we do this to get out of our current situation?" And the other character explains why that won't work. This happens a lot in this book. A LOT.
Second, the quests (to get each of the 7 shards of Leucosia's soul) detailed in this book just don't make a lot of sense in the context of the larger plot, yet Cline spends a considerable amount of time describing these individual quests, as if he, himself, spent a considerable amount of time researching these pop culture historical treasures and wanted to include as much as possible. Let me give you one example. An early quest Wade has to solve is playing through an old arcade game called Princess Kurumi/Sega Ninja. Originally released in the mid-80's, this game has 16 different levels that you have to play through. Cline describes in detail every single one of them. Why? I can only guess it's because he researched them and wanted to share. (Compare this with the relatively, and thankfully, brief description of Wade playing Ms. Pacman in the first book.) Another quest has us following along as characters dive into the backstory of The Lord of the Rings through details shared in the nearly unreadable Silmarillion. Why put us through it now? The John Hughes world revolving around Shermer High School was at least familiar to me, but even this was only loosely tied to the narrative by Cline saying that these were some of Leucosia's favorite movies. (Likewise Princess Kurumi was one of her favorite games from that era and naturally she was a huge LOtR fan.) Okay, but so what?
And don't get me started on Wade's relationship with Samantha/Art3mis. I'll hide my gripe here, but this isn't much of a spoiler.In the first book they have something like a 2-week love affair, which immediately ends at the beginning of the second book, which starts pretty much after those 2 weeks are over, because Wade won't listen to her and she gets mad and dumps him and then they spend THREE YEARS (!!!) apart and mad at each other, saying some pretty nasty things, but then the trouble in this book really begins and suddenly they are back together again, fighting a common enemy, and he says "sorry I should have listened to you" and she says "it's okay I love you" and all is well. Sure. That's exactly how relationships work in real life. Complete crap.
I mostly wished I'd skipped this one, but a tiny part of me is still glad I got to see where Cline was heading with this second book. If he writes a third, I may (sigh) read it just out of curiosity, but I'll most likely regret it.
The answer is: pretty bad, as it turns out. Mediocre writing in the first novel was at least balanced by a fun and
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(mostly) engaging story with plenty of nostalgic 80's pop culture references to enjoy. This book had more of the mediocre writing and very little of the fun story to go along with it. Instead of delving into what RP2 isn't, let me detail what it is and why that fails.First of all, it's a study of why authors shouldn't read online reviews of their own books. A great deal of this book revolves around two things that I suspect were prevalent areas of praise and complaint his myriad fans voiced (loudly) regarding the first novel:
• (praise) Pop culture references! The first novel was replete with 80's pop culture icons and memorabilia, but this one took it all the way up to the 21st century with various references such as The Lord of the Rings movies, The Matrix, and many others. And while the first novel wove them in naturally to the story, this one dumped them in almost randomly. And I got the sense that Cline was being more selective about them, deliberately choosing references that could be used in the eventual movie that might get made from this book. (If you've seen the first book's movie you'll know how so much from the book had to get changed due to what I assume were oppressive licensing costs from the rights holders of so many random references.)
• (complaint) World building inconsistencies! Whenever an author creates a new world with new rules (like a story that takes place mostly inside an MMO) readers will pick apart any time that those rules aren't followed, or properly explored. I can only imagine the volume of critiques Cline got after the first book because readers said, "How come Wade didn't do this to get out of [some situation]?" Or "Why didn't [so-and-so] use an artifact like that when [such-and-such] did [whatever]?" You get the idea. Everybody's a critic. And everybody's an expert. Well this time around, Cline spend a considerable amount of time pre-answering all of these questions by having one character ask another, "Why don't we do this to get out of our current situation?" And the other character explains why that won't work. This happens a lot in this book. A LOT.
Second, the quests (to get each of the 7 shards of Leucosia's soul) detailed in this book just don't make a lot of sense in the context of the larger plot, yet Cline spends a considerable amount of time describing these individual quests, as if he, himself, spent a considerable amount of time researching these pop culture historical treasures and wanted to include as much as possible. Let me give you one example. An early quest Wade has to solve is playing through an old arcade game called Princess Kurumi/Sega Ninja. Originally released in the mid-80's, this game has 16 different levels that you have to play through. Cline describes in detail every single one of them. Why? I can only guess it's because he researched them and wanted to share. (Compare this with the relatively, and thankfully, brief description of Wade playing Ms. Pacman in the first book.) Another quest has us following along as characters dive into the backstory of The Lord of the Rings through details shared in the nearly unreadable Silmarillion. Why put us through it now? The John Hughes world revolving around Shermer High School was at least familiar to me, but even this was only loosely tied to the narrative by Cline saying that these were some of Leucosia's favorite movies. (Likewise Princess Kurumi was one of her favorite games from that era and naturally she was a huge LOtR fan.) Okay, but so what?
And don't get me started on Wade's relationship with Samantha/Art3mis. I'll hide my gripe here, but this isn't much of a spoiler.
I mostly wished I'd skipped this one, but a tiny part of me is still glad I got to see where Cline was heading with this second book. If he writes a third, I may (sigh) read it just out of curiosity, but I'll most likely regret it.
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LibraryThing member GeoffHabiger
Going into this book I wasn't sure what to expect. I really enjoyed Ready Player One, but I also felt that it ended on such a great "feel good" moment that a sequel wasn't necessary. As with book one I listened to the audiobook version, and Wil Wheaton again did a great job of narrating the story.
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I just wish there had been more to the story. The plot this time revolves around another scavenger hunt created by the late creator of the Oasis, this time to find seven crystal shards scattered around the Oasis. But this time Wade (Parcival) doesn't seem all that interested and spends a lot of the book moping around. Once the action picks up, forced upon Wade and his friends, the pace is both too fast and laboriously slow with overly detailed descriptions of the worlds they visit in the Oasis. The drama and excitement from the first book also was lacking for me as it seemed like the clues for this particular quest were laid out like breadcrumbs, and everybody had some sort of Deus ex Machina knowledge or experience that made the solving of the clues almost too easy. (That is after Wade got off his duff and was forced to pay attention. He does have to resort to paying another person an exorbatent sum of money for the first clue.) There are some fun moments in the story (purple lightning smiting an avatar on one particular planet comes to mind) but overall I don't think Ready Player Two stacks up with the first book. Show Less
LibraryThing member ewyatt
A nostalgic trip through pop-culture in the 1980s as Wade and the High5 get back together to save the OASIS and possibly humanity when one new quest about the Seven Shards is unlocked after a new ONI interface that is connected right to the brain is used. The quest focuses around Kira and her role
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in developing the OASIS. Pop culture references abound as we catch up with the group years after their initial victory and ascendancy to lead GSS. Show Less
LibraryThing member hcnewton
This originally appeared at The Irresponsible Reader.
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Like Marty McFly, I woke up at exactly 10:26 a.m., to the song "Back in Time” by Huey Lewis and the News.
This was courtesy of my vintage flip-clock radio—a Panasonic RC-6015, the model Marty owns in the film. Id had it modified to play
I threw back the silk sheets of my king-size bed and lowered my feet to the preheated marble floor. The house computer saw that I was awake and automatically drew back the bedroom’s wraparound window shades, revealing a stunning 180-degree view of my sprawling woodland estate, and of the jagged Columbus skyline on the horizon.
I still couldn't quite believe it. Waking up in this room, to this sight, every day. Not long ago, just opening my eyes here had been enough to put a grin on my face and a spring in my step.
But today, it wasn't helping. Today I was just alone, in an empty house, in a world teetering on the brink of collapse.
WHAT'S READY PLAYER TWO ABOUT?
While still basking in the immediate afterglow of his victory, sudden power, and fame, Wade Watts discovers a secret innovation that OASIS founder James Halliday had tucked away for the winner of his contest.
Some see this new tech as a giant leap forward and a way to lay the groundwork for saving humanity from the worsening climate crisis, food shortages, and so on. Others see it as a tool to distract people and divert resources from better solutions to the problems that plague the world.
Releasing this tech had an unintended consequence—a new riddle from Halliday. No one was sure what the prize would be, but after his last riddle, who could pass it up? This one didn't focus on the life and interests of James Halliday, or even Og (Halliday's former partner and Wade's new friend), but on Kira Morrow—the other member of GSS's founders. Og's wife and the great unrequited love of Halliday's life.
Years go by, no one makes a lot of progress on that riddle—Wade's group grows apart, teens grow into adults and friendships take on different meanings (well, there's one splintering, but the rest are from growth). And then one day, something happens to force Art3mis, Shoto, Aech, and Parzival to regroup and get serious about solving this riddle, or they—and millions of others—would die.
A VERY 80s SEQUEL
The general approach to 80s movie sequels seems to be, "the same as the original, but just different enough to justify the new movie." And that's really what we got here. Instead of Halliday's Easter Eggs, we get the Seven Shards to find. Instead of Joust, we get Ninja Princess; instead of Rush, we get Prince; instead of Steven Spielberg, we get John Hughes; and so on.
Now, I liked the basic game design in the first book and it worked almost as well here. Some of the elements were great—like where the group had to go back to the pre-K level education planet and work through some of those games (and got to ride The Great Space Coaster!). I loved the John Hughes material (even stuff from movies I haven't seen/obsessed over—which are the minority). But others didn't work as well for me—the Sega Ninja/Ninja Princess bit seemed a bit too much like the Joust section—and even throwing in the twist to make it hard for Wade, it wasn't that interesting. And don't get me started on the interminable Prince* chapter—it felt like it was 110 of the 336 pages in this book.
* And no, it's not just because I'm not a Prince fan—I probably like more of his songs than Rush's. Which isn't saying a whole lot.
Thematically this was the way to approach this book—it's as 80s as you can get. It plays to Cline's strengths, too. But, I wanted something newer, fresher in this book, and it just wasn't there.
LØHENGRIN
Along the way, Wade makes a new friend, LØhengrin. She's a young gunter, working hard on this second riddle, a popular YouTuber, and an unabashed fan of Wade's (her avatar's name is a clear tribute to his Parzival). Without her, Wade wouldn't have made the progress he did before the threat—and it's unlikely he'd have completed it.
The arc concerning LØhengrin and her crew is probably the best thing about this novel, actually. Which is only the secondary reason I have for mentioning her.
My primary reason is the voice-over that opens each episode of her YouTube show:
“Some people define themselves by railing against all of the things they hate, while explaining why everyone else should hate it too. But not me. I prefer to lead with my love—to define myself through joyous yawps of admiration, instead of cynical declarations of disdain. "
I just love the way that's put. I should be more like that.
SO, WHAT DID I THINK ABOUT READY PLAYER TWO?
It was better than the Ready Player One movie. I should start there.
Unless you've been reading this blog since 2014, you won't have seen me fanboy over Ready Player One (and even that was listening to the audiobook for my third time through the book). I get many of the criticisms and complaints readers have had over the book—and I share none of them. For me, it was a pure joy from beginning to end. I loved it. Which suggests that I'd be the ideal reader for this one, right? Wellllll...sort of.
Even if it doesn't sound like it, this book was a lot of fun, and I enjoyed the whole thing. I've liked these characters and this world for a decade now, and getting to spend some more time with them was a blast.
But...it was too much of a re-hash. As a certain Canadian Band sang, "It's all been done before." The higher stakes didn't feel that real—the motivation seemed hollow, you didn't read this worried that millions were going to be killed, it's not that kind of book, so it didn't seem as urgent. Wade's narration at the beginning of Ready Player One tells us from the get-go that he's writing about how he won—so there's no worry that he'll fail there, either. Somehow, though, I felt more suspense through all of that book than this.
I thought Cline did a better job of some of the emotional/psychological material in this book—Wade's (and Samantha's) motivations and reactions to events and people are dealt with a greater subtlety and authenticity than Cline showed in his first novel—and Wade's emotional maturity--eventual as it may be--is really portrayed well (we're never really shown where his friends needed it).
Actually, that point could probably be generalized to the book as a whole—the writing is probably better, it's a higher quality prose. But, I still think the book is lesser.
Completists are going to want to pick this up—and they should, as long as they go in with low expectations. But on the whole, you'd be better off reading the previous one again (or for the first time)
---
Like Marty McFly, I woke up at exactly 10:26 a.m., to the song "Back in Time” by Huey Lewis and the News.
This was courtesy of my vintage flip-clock radio—a Panasonic RC-6015, the model Marty owns in the film. Id had it modified to play
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the same song at the same time Marty hears it, after he finally makes it back to the future.I threw back the silk sheets of my king-size bed and lowered my feet to the preheated marble floor. The house computer saw that I was awake and automatically drew back the bedroom’s wraparound window shades, revealing a stunning 180-degree view of my sprawling woodland estate, and of the jagged Columbus skyline on the horizon.
I still couldn't quite believe it. Waking up in this room, to this sight, every day. Not long ago, just opening my eyes here had been enough to put a grin on my face and a spring in my step.
But today, it wasn't helping. Today I was just alone, in an empty house, in a world teetering on the brink of collapse.
WHAT'S READY PLAYER TWO ABOUT?
While still basking in the immediate afterglow of his victory, sudden power, and fame, Wade Watts discovers a secret innovation that OASIS founder James Halliday had tucked away for the winner of his contest.
Some see this new tech as a giant leap forward and a way to lay the groundwork for saving humanity from the worsening climate crisis, food shortages, and so on. Others see it as a tool to distract people and divert resources from better solutions to the problems that plague the world.
Releasing this tech had an unintended consequence—a new riddle from Halliday. No one was sure what the prize would be, but after his last riddle, who could pass it up? This one didn't focus on the life and interests of James Halliday, or even Og (Halliday's former partner and Wade's new friend), but on Kira Morrow—the other member of GSS's founders. Og's wife and the great unrequited love of Halliday's life.
Years go by, no one makes a lot of progress on that riddle—Wade's group grows apart, teens grow into adults and friendships take on different meanings (well, there's one splintering, but the rest are from growth). And then one day, something happens to force Art3mis, Shoto, Aech, and Parzival to regroup and get serious about solving this riddle, or they—and millions of others—would die.
A VERY 80s SEQUEL
The general approach to 80s movie sequels seems to be, "the same as the original, but just different enough to justify the new movie." And that's really what we got here. Instead of Halliday's Easter Eggs, we get the Seven Shards to find. Instead of Joust, we get Ninja Princess; instead of Rush, we get Prince; instead of Steven Spielberg, we get John Hughes; and so on.
Now, I liked the basic game design in the first book and it worked almost as well here. Some of the elements were great—like where the group had to go back to the pre-K level education planet and work through some of those games (and got to ride The Great Space Coaster!). I loved the John Hughes material (even stuff from movies I haven't seen/obsessed over—which are the minority). But others didn't work as well for me—the Sega Ninja/Ninja Princess bit seemed a bit too much like the Joust section—and even throwing in the twist to make it hard for Wade, it wasn't that interesting. And don't get me started on the interminable Prince* chapter—it felt like it was 110 of the 336 pages in this book.
* And no, it's not just because I'm not a Prince fan—I probably like more of his songs than Rush's. Which isn't saying a whole lot.
Thematically this was the way to approach this book—it's as 80s as you can get. It plays to Cline's strengths, too. But, I wanted something newer, fresher in this book, and it just wasn't there.
LØHENGRIN
Along the way, Wade makes a new friend, LØhengrin. She's a young gunter, working hard on this second riddle, a popular YouTuber, and an unabashed fan of Wade's (her avatar's name is a clear tribute to his Parzival). Without her, Wade wouldn't have made the progress he did before the threat—and it's unlikely he'd have completed it.
The arc concerning LØhengrin and her crew is probably the best thing about this novel, actually. Which is only the secondary reason I have for mentioning her.
My primary reason is the voice-over that opens each episode of her YouTube show:
“Some people define themselves by railing against all of the things they hate, while explaining why everyone else should hate it too. But not me. I prefer to lead with my love—to define myself through joyous yawps of admiration, instead of cynical declarations of disdain. "
I just love the way that's put. I should be more like that.
SO, WHAT DID I THINK ABOUT READY PLAYER TWO?
It was better than the Ready Player One movie. I should start there.
Unless you've been reading this blog since 2014, you won't have seen me fanboy over Ready Player One (and even that was listening to the audiobook for my third time through the book). I get many of the criticisms and complaints readers have had over the book—and I share none of them. For me, it was a pure joy from beginning to end. I loved it. Which suggests that I'd be the ideal reader for this one, right? Wellllll...sort of.
Even if it doesn't sound like it, this book was a lot of fun, and I enjoyed the whole thing. I've liked these characters and this world for a decade now, and getting to spend some more time with them was a blast.
But...it was too much of a re-hash. As a certain Canadian Band sang, "It's all been done before." The higher stakes didn't feel that real—the motivation seemed hollow, you didn't read this worried that millions were going to be killed, it's not that kind of book, so it didn't seem as urgent. Wade's narration at the beginning of Ready Player One tells us from the get-go that he's writing about how he won—so there's no worry that he'll fail there, either. Somehow, though, I felt more suspense through all of that book than this.
I thought Cline did a better job of some of the emotional/psychological material in this book—Wade's (and Samantha's) motivations and reactions to events and people are dealt with a greater subtlety and authenticity than Cline showed in his first novel—and Wade's emotional maturity--eventual as it may be--is really portrayed well (we're never really shown where his friends needed it).
Actually, that point could probably be generalized to the book as a whole—the writing is probably better, it's a higher quality prose. But, I still think the book is lesser.
Completists are going to want to pick this up—and they should, as long as they go in with low expectations. But on the whole, you'd be better off reading the previous one again (or for the first time)
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Awards
Audie Award (Finalist — Science Fiction — 2022)
Dragon Award (Finalist — Science Fiction Novel — 2021)
Original language
English
Original publication date
2020-11-24
Physical description
9.53 inches
ISBN
1524761338 / 9781524761332