Ready Player One: The Book

Halliday was dead, to begin with. The book opens up with the announcement of Halliday’s death and the start of the Hunt for Halliday’s Easter egg. The video, the book described, showed Halliday morphing through several eighties films as well as his own dwelling talking about the Easter egg hidden inside the video game, Adventure, which is the creator’s name. Then he presents three keys, saying that they aren’t just hiding under a rock, but could be hiding in a secret room in a dark maze.

Wade Watts showers us with exposition riddled with pop culture references, from his upbringing, to the death of his parents (Dad was shot rooting a store during a blackout, and Mom suffered from a drug overdose), to him being raised by his far from loving aunt Alice and 15 other people in the stacks of Oklahoma City, to living on the OASIS. The OASIS is a virtual reality game where you can do anything, be anybody, and go anywhere you want. It was a place to escape. A place where many people did business. Wade attends an online school in the OASIS, on the planet Ludus. When he’s not in school, he’s Parzival, a third level gunter on a quest to find the egg. Except that he was always so broke he couldn’t leave Planet Ludus. Along for the ride is his best friend Aech, a tenth level gunter and fellow classmate in a different school. They spent most of their time together watching movies, playing video games, and tearing competitive gunter iR0k apart with a pop culture quiz. Even though they are best friends, Parzival couldn’t ask Aech for money to go beyond the planet; it’s a guy thing, I guess. But little did he know that a boring class session of Latin would kick start his quest.

Deciphering the riddle to the Copper Key:

The Copper Key awaits explorers

In a tomb filled with horrors

But you have much to learn

If you hope to earn

A place among the scorers

He already knew the challenge was based on the Tomb of Horrors, from Dungeons and Dragons, but he didn’t know where it was until one day in Latin class. Ludus was Latin for “school” as well as “sport” or “game.” Cue the DeLorean Reveal. The first challenge had been on the school planet the whole time. He applied for a voucher to an away game near the site of the entrance, blew off Aech and their movie marathon, and descended into the Tomb of Horrors. The first challenge was defeating the king Acererak in a game of Joust. After one attempt and switching sides with the king, he wins Joust and the Copper Key just in time to encounter another challenger. Her name was Art3mis, a legendary woman gunter on a quest for the egg as well. She developed a reputation from her blogs, detailing her adventures as well as her thoughts on classic movie titles. Sounds familiar.

Parzival decides to play it like he failed at his attempt at Joust, but it immediately backfires when Art3mis pulls up the Scoreboard displaying his name at the top. Aech also wasn’t pleased to hear Parzival beat him to the key, but he easily forgave him.
Parzival travels to the planet, Middletown, made of multiple copies of James Halliday’s hometown, Middletown, Ohio, to unlock the Copper Gate. The challenge was to participate in a Flicksync game playing Doug in the movie WarGames. Shortly after Parzival completed the first challenge, came Art3mis, followed by Aech, then two brothers, Daito and Shoto, filling the top five spots of the Scoreboard and making up the High Five.

Then Parzival got a mysterious invitation from IOI, an Internet service company bent of getting the egg first. The invitation was from the COO, Nolan Sorrento. He offers Parzival a $4 million salary to finding the egg with a $25 million bonus once the egg was found plus $1 million dollars up front. Parzival tells Sorrento to “go f*ck a duck.” Then Sorrento lays it on him, revealing that he knows Parzival’s real name was Wade, and that he lived in the stacks. When you bribe an online administration, you can get anything. They even had profiles on Aech, even though his school record showed a fake name and address, planting the seeds of foreshadowing. Then Sorrento spills the beans that the stacks, that held Wade’s house in particular, was rigged with explosives. Desperate he logs out to warn Alice, but he heard nothing, thinking Sorrento was bluffing. Then it happened. The news claimed it was a meth explosion.

Afterward, Parzival contacts the other members of the High Five to meet in Aech’s Basement, Aech’s exclusive chat room. He tells them that his house was bombed by Sorrento and tells them to be careful of their whereabouts as well.

While IOI’s Sixers team and a handful of gunters fight for the Copper Key, Parzival and the gang struggle to the riddle to the Jade Key:

The captain conceals the Jade Key

In a dwelling long neglected

But you can only blow the whistle

Once the trophies are all collected

He seeks Art3mis for guidance, but it slowly merges into a cyber relationship.

He drifted apart from Aech, and they lost touch completely. The more he and Art3mis hung out, the more he fell for her. He started imagining what she looked like in real life. There was a running joke that she could be a balding middle-aged man, named Chuck, who lives in his mama’s basement in suburban Detroit. Even Art3mis got in on it, calling Parzival butt ugly.

Then it all comes to a head at Ogden Morrow’s birthday party, at the Distracted Globe. Parzival blurts out his feelings to Art3mis, who tell him that he only likes what she wanted him to see, and that they should spend time apart. Before it could go any further, a squad of Sixers crashes onto the scene in an attempt to kill both Art3mis and Parzival. They both make it out okay, thanks to Og’s avatar’s powers to vaporize every Sixer in the joint, but Parzival sees Art3mis left without looking back.

By this time, Wade has earned enough money, through contracting deals he got for clearing the first challenge, that he made a new identity, booked a ticket to Columbus, Ohio, rented an apartment, and purchased a top of the line OASIS rig. He’s been focused on finding the egg and hanging out with Art3mis. But now they are separated. He also has not been getting any exercise, and the OASIS locks him out until he got into shape again. Since he wasn’t speaking to Art3mis or Aech, he made better acquaintances with Daito and Shoto by inviting them on a quest to complete the Shodai Urutoraman level. They won the Beta Capsule, which gives the owner the power to transform into Ultraman for three minutes. Parzival gives it to them, saying that the power of the Japan’s greatest superhero should be in Japanese hands.

After a long day at work, as technical support clerk, Parzival was shocked to find that Art3mis had gotten hold of the Jade Key. His heart sank even more when a large group began flying towards the next location, thanks to the Fyndoro’s Tablet of Finding, pinpointing her location. He felt slightly hopeful, though, and headed that way himself.

Parzival lands on the planet, Archaide, home of OASIS classic video game museum. Inside the museum, he stumbles on Happytime Pizza, an arcade replica of the one in Halliday’s hometown, Middletown. There he finds an unplugged Pac-Man machine, but when he plugs it in, it roared to life. He notices a quarter at the top of the machine, but it stayed glued to its spot. He also notices that the high score was 3,333,350, but it should not have been there since the machine was unplugged. Feeling that he was onto something, Parzival pursues to play the perfect game, earning a higher score. But nothing happens. Instead, the quarter at the top of the machine deposits into Parzival’s inventory. He feels disappointed, especially when he learns that Aech now holds the Jade Key.

But then Aech sends him an email, giving him a tip to the key, in return to Parzival giving Aech a tip to the Copper Key. The Jade Key was to be obtained through challenged based on the text game, Zork, on the planet Frobozz. Inside the game, there is an abandoned house (a dwelling long neglected) that housed a trophy case. Parzival already figure out the captain holding whistle part from his knowledge on John Draper, known for exploiting a Cap’n Crunch whistle’s ability to emitting a sound that gave analog phones free long distance calling. The challenge was collect all nineteen trophies, placing them in the case and blowing on the Cap’n Crunch whistle. It transforms into the Jade Key wrapped in a wrapper like a chocolate bar. Parzival makes a narrow escape as the Sixers descended on the planet. Then Parzival eyes the Scoreboard where he saw Shoto got the Jade key, but Daito’s name disappeared entirely, indicating that Datio’s avatar had been killed. Then it was worse when he finds out that Daito had been killed for real.

Shoto admits to Parzival that he and Daito weren’t real brothers; they met online and began doing quests together. They did so much together that they felt like real brothers. He also shows Parzival his feed of Daito’s avatar keeping watch of the house while Shoto got the key. But then Daito says that someone was inside, and he unexpectedly logs out, leaving his avatar defenseless. News reports state that he committed suicide.

Since his encounter with Sorrento, Parzival kept watch of Sorrento’s IOI number, and he watched it clear not only the Jade Key but the Jade Gate as well. Then he acquired the Crystal Key.

Despite feeling ill of watching Sorrento climb the Scoreboard, he discovers that the wrapper was origami paper that folded into the unicorn from Blade Runner. Parzival travels to Axrenox to take the Voight-Kampff test. Instead he plays a perfect game of Black Tiger, a game Halliday was able to beat with only one quarter. Parzival did the same, winning a toy robot as a prize. Then he was given a clue to the Crystal Key, but instead of a riddle he sees a key floating in a bright red star. The star referenced to a Canadian band named Rush and its album 2112, which clued Parzival that the Key was on the planet Syrinx, based on the album. He also remembered in another part of the album where it mentioned an offering hidden behind a waterfall. Inside was a 1974 Gibson Les Paul electric guitar similar to Alex Lifeson’s from the 2112 tour. He plays it to the song, “Discovery” which reveals the clue to the Crystal Gate, and then he places it on the altar and receives the Crystal Key.

On the key is a monogrammed “A,” revealing that the Crystal Gate was at Castle Anorak, Halliday’s avatar’s stronghold, on the planet Chthonia. But Sorrento and the Sixers had already arrived and set up an impregnable force field around the castle.

Just when things couldn’t get any worse, Wade is arrested by IOI police and they take him to IOI headquarters where they had purchased his outstanding debt and consolidated it. He would be forced to work it off for IOI. He was assigned to customer service over the phone to help avatars with their problems. After work he heads straight to his pod where he watches a sitcom/training video series. But if IOI looked carefully, his earpiece and his pod security camera are showing him asleep. But Wade had actually hacked into his own account, fudged his own financial records to get him arrested. Once inside, he hacked the intranet, using an IOI code he purchased a while back, and played a recording of him sleeping. Meanwhile he is hacking the mainframe and he gains access to IOI’s Oology notes on the egg. He also finds files with his name as well as Art3mis’, Aech’s, Daito’s, and Shoto’s. Daito’s record showed he had been killed, and it even had a video displaying a group of Sixer agents grabbing Daito and hurling him off the balcony of this 22-story apartment. He also examined Art3mis’ file, which included her real name as Samantha Cook and she looked like her avatar, except for a port wine birthmark of the left side of her face. He also found a memo written by Sorrento to abduct her as well as Shoto from their homes to force them to help IOI find the egg. Aech’s address was mobile so they couldn’t find his real location.

Using his code, Wade created an administrator account and requested a flash drive and a janitorial outfit over the course of the week. He copied the files, zeroed out his balance, and reset his identity, so that he’s Wade again. He snuck out of IOI and headed to the post office where he had ordered a portable OASIS rig before he was arrested. He logged on and sent Art3mis, Shoto and Aech a message with their separate profiles as attachments. He also sent a postscript to Art3mis, saying she looked more beautiful in real life than he was led by her. He scheduled a meeting in Aech’s Basement.

They were all glad to see that Parzival was alive and were stunned by his adventures as an indentured servant to IOI and hacking into their mainframe. But Art3mis called out that Parzival couldn’t resist looking at the secret. Parzival defended himself by saying he had to see how much IOI knew about them. It didn’t go from there, but Parzival had to know what she meant.

Parzival also gave them directions to completing the Jade Gate and acquiring the Crystal Key. Now they all have one. He pulls up a feed of Sorrento trying the place his key into the keyhole and reciting the inscription on the door: “Charity, Hope, Faith.” Thinking it was familiar, Parzival suggested that they say it in reverse, reminding them of the Schoolhouse Rock number, “Three is a Magic Number.” Only three of them had to insert their keys into the door. But the problem was the impregnable force field was still up and there was an army of Sixers outside. Parzival had a plan for that too. But first they needed to band together in the real world where they were safe. That is where Ogden Morrow comes in. He charted planes for them to meet at his mansion in Oregon.

Aech picked up Parzival and reveals that Aech is actually an African American woman named Helen. At first Wade felt embarrassed because he talk man stuff to Aech, especially about their shared respect for the female figure. But as they reconnected, Helen reveals her sexuality, and that she had been dating a woman she met online. Once they landed at Ogden Morrow’s mansion, Art3mis and Shoto had already logged in. Wade wouldn’t meet Art3mis until after the Hunt.

Wade had composed an email and sent it to everyone in the OASIS, as well as posting it on memo boards, calling everyone to join him in defeating the Sixers and preventing IOI from getting the egg.

To his surprise everyone responded and traveled to Chthonia, and launched an assault on the Sixers and the force field. The other plan was that while Parzival was still at IOI, he programmed a robot to collect an antimatter friction-induction bomb and detonate it near the Orb of Osuvox, an artifact that was generating the shield. It had done some so fashionably and the shield fell.

On the way to the Castle, Shoto broke off from the group and attacked Sorrento directly in revenge for Daito’s death. All five avatars have activated their toy robots; Sorrento’s was Mechagodzilla. While Shoto’s robot flew to Sorrento, Sorrento fired at Shoto, killing his avatar. Parzival couldn’t seem to bear that Sorrento had personally killed two of his friends’ avatars, because he activates the Beta Capsule, given to him by Daito upon his death, and destroys Sorrento’s avatar.

Once inside, Parzival, Art3mis, and Aech unlocked the door to the Crystal Gate. Then they died.

A Sixer had detonated a Cataclyst, a bomb that killed everyone on the planet, including the owner. In one swift move, 75% of the OASIS population was gone. Well almost.

Parzival rematerialized because the mysterious quarter he won at Pac-Man was an extra life. But his inventory was wiped out. And the Crystal Gate now hovered twenty feet in the air. Art3mis, Aech, and everyone were actually able to see the broadcast of Parzival continuing. Art3mis and Aech could actually talk to him. Parzival was able to find Art3mis’ flying shoes and he flies into the door. The final challenge was playing a near perfect game of Tempest. They say "near" because the game had a bug in which the character may die with a certain number of points and receive 40 free credits. Doing so, Parzival receives his credits, got a score higher than Halliday and proceeds to the second challenge: another Flicksync this time playing King Arthur in Monty Python and the Holy Grail.

Completing the challenge, Parzival proceeds to the final challenge: Halliday’s office. He comes across an IMSAI 8080, similar to the one in WarGames. He types a number of passwords, but no avail. Then he remembers Ogden Morrow’s biography stating that Halliday was always a afraid of women but Ogden’s wife, Kira, was the only girl he could talk to (Morrow also reveals that Halliday had loved Kira), but he would only address her as her D&D character, Leucosia. Entering that in, every machine in the room lit up and Parzival runs to the Atari 2600 and plays Adventure to where he finds the Easter egg in the game, but this time its not the creator’s name. It’s Halliday’s Easter egg. Halliday’s avatar, Anorak appears and when he shakes hands with Parzival, Parzival transforms into the wizard. Halliday had given him everything, including complete control of the OASIS.

After Halliday disappears, Parzival resurrects Aech, Art3mis, and Shoto’s avatars, but only Aech and Shoto, logged in. Art3mis had gone out to the garden.

Wade had met up with Art3mis, who introduced herself as Samantha. He told her she was beautiful, she said he was butt ugly. They sat on the bench holding hands.

Right now should be when I tell you what I think about the book, but I’ve already burned through 5 pages on my Microsoft Word.

Stay tuned to see how I compared the book to the movie.