Ready Player One

For this week's Road Trip Wednesday, the good people over at YA Highway are asking the question

What's the best book you read in January?

My answer is Ready Player One by Ernest Cline. It's not earth shattering or ground breaking, but it's really fun to read. The story is set in the 2040's, in a time when life on earth pretty much sucks. Fortunately, there's the OASIS. The OASIS is the new future version of the internet. It's a virtual reality video game that is so much more fun to live in than real life that many people live their entire lives completely in the OASIS. The OASIS has schools, shopping malls, office parks, along with cool weapons and mythical creatures.

The creator of the OASIS was an eccentric video-gamer who made billions and didn't have any real friends to share it with after he died. So he created a new game. He hid a secret treasure somewhere in the OASIS with a number of obscure clues designed to lead players on their quest to find the treasure. The first player to find the treasure after his death won the ultimate prize, inheritance of 275 billion dollars and ownership of the OASIS.

Ready Player One is an account of a seventeen year old boy's quest to find this treasure. It's a fun story to read, with lots of early video game references and a built in nostalgia for the 1980's, since that's the time when the game's creator was the happiest. I definitely enjoyed reading this book, and would recommend it to anyone wanting a light-hearted futuristic look at the past with a bit of treasure seeking adventure mixed in to keep things interesting.

What about you? What's the best book you read in January?