Ready Player One by Ernest Cline (pub date 8/16/11)
 

 
I simply cannot say enough about how awesome this book is.  This is the most fun story I’ve read since I started this blog.  And surprisingly enough it was quite touching at times.  Part adventure, part romance, all one big nerdgasm.
 
Ready Player One is set a few decades in the future in a society that has completely gone to hell.  Its only saving grace is the OASIS, a worldwide virtual reality system created by the reclusive game programmer James Halliday.  People do everything through the OASIS: do business, go to school, play games, shop, and anything in between.  At the beginning of the novel, James Halliday has died, leaving behind an ‘Easter egg’ somewhere in the OASIS and a series of clues with which to find it.  Whoever finds the egg will inherit Halliday’s entire fortune.  Enter Wade Watts, a lonely teenager and one of the millions of people who dream of finding Halliday’s egg.  The hunt is on!
 
This book was a blast to read.  It has an original concept, a ‘good v. evil’ storyline, great characters, and a sense of humor.  Wade is the perfect ‘everyman,’ an intelligent, courageous and sensitive kid who you’ll root for the whole way through.  What also makes this book so awesome is how unabashedly nerdy it is.  All of the clues to finding the egg are based on 1980s pop culture trivia.  DeLoreans, Atari, John Hughes movies, it’s all in there.  Even references to more obscure movies like Ladyhawke (which I love, by the way).  It’s impossible not to like this book!
 
Ernest Cline also wrote the screenplay for Fanboys, which I actually rented a few weeks before I read this book, not even realizing they were related.  I thought Fanboys was a good movie, so if you liked Ready Player One, definitely check it out.  Cline has a great way of combining humor and tenderness, something that is not easy to achieve.  I hope to see more books from him in the future!