Ready Player Two By: Ernest Cline

“The simulation had now become indistinguishable from real life.”

-Ernest Cline, Ready Player Two

I cannot overstate how excited I was to here that Ernest Cline was writing a sequel to Ready Player One. I have read the original book a handful of times and remains as one of my go to books if I’m looking for a title to re-read.

Overview: The hunt for Halliday’s Easter Egg was just the beginning.

After completing his quest, Wade Watts has had a few brief moments of bliss with his best friends Aech, Shoto and his girlfriend Samantha, when he discovers a technology that James Halliday had been working on in secret. The controversial technology spreads rapidly and generates another cryptic message from its creator:

“Seek the Seven Shards of the Siren’s Soul

On the seven worlds where the Siren once played a role

For each fragment my heir must pay a toll

To once again make the Siren whole”

-Ernest Cline, Ready PLayer Two

Quickly things become much more dire that they appear and Wade must complete his quest in order to save millions of lives and ultimately the world.

My thoughts: Ready Player Two, is a fun nostalgic read however, I feel that it fails to capture some of the magic from the first book.

Part of the appeal to the first book was that you could figure out the clues of the quest because they often referred to video games, movies etc.. In the sequel, all of the clues have to do with a character that we’ve never met before so you never get that aha moment of “oh, I was right. Its this reference”. You feel like you are not going on the quest with Wade as much with this format which would be okay if the first book hadn’t done such a good job of doing so.

I do enjoy the world building that Cline does. He has an ability to take one common theme and make it an entire world that somehow interacts within itself but still makes sense. It was also really fun to go to Middle Earth and have it explained in detail about what the characters were seeing and facing.

I do wish the plot had been given a little more room to grow. 75% of the book takes place within a 12 hour period and because of this limitation, I feel that some things were a bit rushed, especially the ending. You spend a handful of chapters completing one quest and the resolution of the book is squeezed into 50 pages. I think a couple of quests could have been cut out to make it a more well rounded story.

Wade as a main character is great. It’s refreshing to have a main character that is flawed and makes mistakes. You root for him but you know that he is arrogant and stubborn and shouldn’t have everything go his way.

Overall, the story was a good follow-up for the characters and provided a definite ending that the first book left open. If you love nostalgia and pop culture references around every corner, you will enjoy this book. I would absolutely recommend reading Ready Player One first.

Rating: 3/5 Stars

Would I re-read?: Yes

Does it need to be made into a movie: No