Ready Player Two by Ernest Cline is the sequel to the geektastic Ready Player One. Ready Player Two is like the Matrix meets Tron: Legacy, it ups the action, and the quests (seven instead of three) . This book focuses more on overall pop culture during the 80’s while the first one was a little more about gaming, which is sure to turn some readers off. The magic is still alive in the series, the world building is expanded. The worlds explored are John Hughes, Prince, PBS, Florian (Princess Bride) and Middle Earth. John Hughes land was my absolute favorite, the whole book could have happened there and I would have been fine. I enjoyed Ready Player One more but this sequel has it’s charm and had some really cool highlights. The end the climax was exciting, the eighties references are on point. This book does have a slow beginning that is 50 page of exposition that could have been shorter and more filtered out.

The Plot: Wade Watts and the members of High Five have taken over Oasis, a virtual world that lets you experience video games, music, books, and movies as a avatar, as members of the board of GSS. They have the ultimate decision on not just Oasis but on the products associated with it. 9 days after taking over he has to make a decision about a product the creator Halliday was unsure of at his death and was going to let his new heir decide. The product is a new rig that straps in over your head head and connects to your brain stem, in the game it lets you now feel, taste, and smell everything in the game blurring reality. The bad side effect is you have to carefully detach yourself, and you can only wear it for 12 hours before your body starts shutting down due to over stimulation and your body now doesn’t move, not like before where you were you wore a VR head set and had an omni-directional tread meal. Wade thinks this is the future and 3 out of 4 members agree, with the holdout his girlfriend Art3mis, she says this is too much that people will give up on the real world. She is voted out and there relationship is over. The product is a success with 90 percent of users using it, At3mis ad Og the other creator being the holdouts. Wade notices one thing that has changed a new challenge only for heirs for the seven shards. Wade searches but can’t seem to find anything, he calls on the Oasis world to help, he finally gets a lead from a helpful player that reminds him of his group. Wade is once on the board again but he isn’t the only player for long as Og the co-creator starts and beats Wade to three shards. Wade finds out Og has been kidnapped under an old nemesis and is no longer helping where he can’t force Og, he can force Wade when he locks him and all other users out of taking their headsets off putting a 12 hour clock on 90 percent of the population, he doesn’t know what he’s fighting for, but he will and it will change everything.

What I Liked: Shermer the land of John Hughes is the greatest creation, I’m a huge fan of all those movies The Breakfast Club, Sixteen Candles, Pretty in Pink, and Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, all are heavily referenced along with all the songs. I’m a pretty big Prince fan as well so those references were really cool and the battle with all the different versions of Prince was pretty awesome. I also loved the mini games in Florian where you get to be Inigo Montoya and fight the six-fingered man, it was a brief scene but I loved every bit of it. The climax was satisfying, I liked where the series left off and saw how they could do another book but be totally different. The Art3mis and Wade relationship really works you hate to see them apart, it reminded me of the Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire where Ron and Hermione weren’t getting a long. I high lighted my favorite 80’s references but there’s way too many to list all, it wasn’t as heavily trademarked as the first one, which is gonna upset some people. This one isn’t as epic as the first one, but you feel the running clock more. I have listened to the sample of the audio book Wil Wheaton reading is amazing and might have enjoyed it more if listened to the audiobook.

What I Disliked: The beginning 50 pages was hard it was all exposition, it comes back around at the end, but it could have been shortened and worked in later. The one thing that would have been helpful is the change of times and days the Oasis is opened, that happened at the end of the last book is never mentioned, but for the plot to be effective every user would have had to login at the same time, if anyone would have logged in early they would have been dead before the time ran out. The villain from the first book Sorrento is so wasted in this story, he does barley anyhing and is made a very one note villain.

Recommendations: Ready Player Two is good but not great, if you liked the first one or 80’s pop culture at all you will enjoy yourself. This book is filled with some truly great moments, while the overall story could have been better. This book I felt was more accessible to me because I’m not the biggest gamer and a lot of the first quest relied heavily on that, My favorite parts in the first one was the War Games scene and the ending with all references together. The rating for this one was hard and I’m struggling between a 3 and 4 rating. I Rated Ready Player Two by Ernest Cline 3 out of 5 stars.